Republicans have a poor understanding of economics. They should have no place in making policy

[Toddsterpatriot]

Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

If WalMart fired every employee, would food stamps and Medicaid spend more or less?

If Walmart hired every unemployed person, would food stamps and Medicaid spend more or less?

What's with the weird questions todd? In answer to your question; I say they spend more, you say they spend less. Or vice versa. There's no right answer to a nonsensical question. SO which is it, IYO?

If Walmart hired every unemployed person, would food stamps and Medicaid spend more or less?

Less.

In answer to your question; I say they spend more

So WalMart is saving the government money. Not costing every taxpayer $2500. Thanks.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Exactly, I mean just look at what the Steel Workers union has done. I mean besides drive US steel makers into bankruptcy.

You think the unions ruined the steel industry I take it. Wasn't what happened. But I'm sure you believe it.

Had something to do with steel manufacturers here using old technology and the Japanese using new and better technology. And it had to do with the Japanese government subsidizing the steel industry so they could sell steel below cost for American manufactures. And the US government gave no help to the American steel industry.

So with a hands off government and steel company management being stuck in the past, the American steel industry took a big hit.

Now what was it the unions did to cause all that?

You think the unions ruined the steel industry I take it.

They sure didn't save the steel industry.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change.

I wish he had totally restructured the economy, but despite your colorful imagination, he did not.

What do you feel we have to do to "fix the damage"?
Raise the top rate back to 70%?

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo.

His attack? LOL!
They broke the law in 1981 when they went on strike.
He fired their asses and rightly so.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves,

Exactly, I mean just look at what the Steel Workers union has done. I mean besides drive US steel makes into bankruptcy.

there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency.

BS. DOL lawyers would crawl up their asses, especially under this president.

Yeah the economy was in the dumps when the top rate was 70% right? lol

Yeah, the first thing we need to do to fix the economy is give more money to government.
There are more Solyndras that need funding. Right? LOL!

 

[Spare_change]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

If WalMart fired every employee, would food stamps and Medicaid spend more or less?

People are productive. Corporations are on welfare because they're taking all the profit that the the people's not-lazy productivity is generating.

Minimum wage employees are not welfare queens. Their employers are



The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Do you always rant nonsense like this?

You said it ... prove it.

Prove what dummy?

Ok, I've hinted at it, and I've been polite about it ... but enough is enough.

You are a rank ******* amateur with absolutely no base knowledge of the subject. Your macroeconomic knowledge could be kept in a bottle cap. All you do is quote a bunch of shit you found on some left wing blog. All we see out of you is the same putrid nonsense ... without justification and without even a scintilla of knowledge. You bring no knowledge, no insight, and certainly, no goddamn brains to the subject. You constantly make an absolute fool of yourself ... nobody wants to tell you, but I will ... you're a ******* joke. Everybody laughs at you.

And, then, when your shortfall is challenged (and, believe me, you are DEFINITELY challenged) the best you can come up with is vulgarity and name-calling like some 10 year old punk. I don't know what goes on in your life, and you can be damn sure I don't want to know, but for whatever reason, you feel it necessary to come on this site and attack people you don't even know about a subject you don't even fundamentally understand. You have wasted 700 posts on absolute, total, and complete, stupidity feeding your pathetic little ego.

You have certainly heard the last from me on this subject ... so, in order to feel good, go into your bathroom, look in the mirror and tell yourself how you WON .... because you can be damn sure nobody else cares.

 

[Spare_change]

In regards to education, while it is true that the US has one of the highest per capita expenditures many other countries are outperforming US students in core curriculum. It should also be considered that the US has the highest average wages in the world, which means that American teachers and other workers in the education field receive a higher salary than most in the first world. That would drive the $$$ expended per student up to a higher level than most as well. That concept is o basic even a Republican should have been able to figure that out. That said, wages for US teachers, as compared to average wages for most other countries are quite low.

Teacher Pay U.S. Ranks 22nd Out Of 27 Countries Jack Jennings

This is why I said the US needs to invest in education.

Many public schools lack sufficient text books for all of their students. A teacher friend of mine in Nebraska routinely pays for classroom supplies out of her own pocket, as do most other teachers in her school. This is not a poor inner city school, but a school in a middle class neighbourhood in the mid-West. Average salaries in the US are $55K per year. Average teacher salaries in the US are $45K. Why would anyone spend money to get a degree, and a teacher's certificate - 6 years of post-secondary education, to work for $45K per year? That's the same level of education you need to be a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant, all of which pay substantially more money.

Countries which pay teachers a salary in keeping with their level of education and experience, are outperforming the US in education, and this bodes very poorly for the economic future of the country.

Our education system is an absolute failure ... we agree. We invest more in education than any other country in the world ... we agree.

So, tell me, where does all this money go? You want more money for teachers .... forgetting, conveniently, that these are the people who have created this failed system. Why should we reward failure?

 

[Dragonlady]

Our education system is an absolute failure ... we agree. We invest more in education than any other country in the world ... we agree.

So, tell me, where does all this money go? You want more money for teachers .... forgetting, conveniently, that these are the people who have created this failed system. Why should we reward failure?

For someone who claims to have such a great understanding of economics, I shouldn't have to explain this to you.

First off, teachers don't create the education system, they don't set the curriculum or write the textbooks. They don't build the schools and they don't buy the equipment. They work with what they're given. Blaming teachers for the failure of the education system is like blaming accountants for inequities in the tax code, or auto workers for poorly designed cars.

The amount in $$$ that the US spends on education is greater than other countries, but wages and other expense, including heath insurance for workers, in other first world countries are far lower than in the US. The average salary in Canada is $35K per year. The average teacher salary in Canada is around $50K per year. The average salary in the US is $55K per year. The average teacher's salary in the US is $45K per year. Teachers in Canada make 142% of the average salary versus US teachers who make 82% of the national average salary. Considering it takes 6 years of post-secondary education to become a teacher, and post secondary education in the US costs substantially more in the US than in Canada, how can you realistically hope to attract the best people to the teaching profession in the US, with below average wages?

American teachers complain of a lack of resources - text books, computers, art supplies. In order to cut costs, many schools have dropped music and art programs as expensive frills, even though it has been shown that music helps improve math skills. Where is the investment in education? Education spending in the US is declining - the only first world country to be cutting education costs.

And yet the US continues to spend more money on its military than the next 10 countries in the world combined. And conservatives want to send in the troops every time something happens in another country you have no business being in.

 

[Spare_change]

Our education system is an absolute failure ... we agree. We invest more in education than any other country in the world ... we agree.

So, tell me, where does all this money go? You want more money for teachers .... forgetting, conveniently, that these are the people who have created this failed system. Why should we reward failure?

For someone who claims to have such a great understanding of economics, I shouldn't have to explain this to you.

First off, teachers don't create the education system, they don't set the curriculum or write the textbooks. They don't build the schools and they don't buy the equipment. They work with what they're given. Blaming teachers for the failure of the education system is like blaming accountants for inequities in the tax code, or auto workers for poorly designed cars.

The amount in $$$ that the US spends on education is greater than other countries, but wages and other expense, including heath insurance for workers, in other first world countries are far lower than in the US. The average salary in Canada is $35K per year. The average teacher salary in Canada is around $50K per year. The average salary in the US is $55K per year. The average teacher's salary in the US is $45K per year. Teachers in Canada make 142% of the average salary versus US teachers who make 82% of the national average salary. Considering it takes 6 years of post-secondary education to become a teacher, and post secondary education in the US costs substantially more in the US than in Canada, how can you realistically hope to attract the best people to the teaching profession in the US, with below average wages?

American teachers complain of a lack of resources - text books, computers, art supplies. In order to cut costs, many schools have dropped music and art programs as expensive frills, even though it has been shown that music helps improve math skills. Where is the investment in education? Education spending in the US is declining - the only first world country to be cutting education costs.

And yet the US continues to spend more money on its military than the next 10 countries in the world combined. And conservatives want to send in the troops every time something happens in another country you have no business being in.

The issues in today's school system are not financial - they are systemic. No matter how good our teachers are, and no matter how much we pay them, the system is broke. It is a 1930s model trying to meet 21st century needs. Any system that uses social promotion over merit promotion is bound to fail. Any system that establishes a single goal for everybody is designed to fail. Any system that refuses to recognize the unique talents of each child is a system that is bound to fail the majority of their students. Mediocrity is not the result of our failed system - it is the GOAL of our failed system. Those who use economics as an excuse for failure are guilty of obfuscation, a very shallow understanding of our educational system or, simply are shills for teacher's unions.

I don't question the capabilities of our teachers, and I sure don't question their work ethic (got two sons and a daughter-in-law who are teachers). They work hard, but they are in a broken system. No matter the effort, no matter the money, no matter the motivation, a broken system will always fail.

Then, you say that ' ... the teachers don't create the education system, they don't set the curriculum or write the textbooks ...'. we know that to be false. Education professionals do ALL those things, and there is significant input by teachers on the first two (I can't comment about textbooks). And, these education professionals?? The vast majority are former teachers, who have moved up into administration.

Now, relative to your other statements .... you appear to be wrong.

If you go to the US Department of Education budget history website, both federal and individual states, you will see that there has NOT been a cut in education spending, at either level. In fact, there has been a steady increase when considered in total. Individual states show some variations (most of them in the eastern part of the country), but, in general, ALL states show a steady increase from 1980 thru 2013. U.S. Department of Education Budget History

 

[Ernie S.]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

People lose jobs. It's a fact of life. Another fact is that if you lose your job, you either find another one in your field, or you learn a new skill.
Companies merge allowing them to produce their product more efficiently. You mention Pfizer,Wyeth and Astro-Zeneca. Those mergers kept pharmaceuticals from rising far more than they did.

Take the AZ product Caprelsa. When you get thyroid cancer and balk at the $5,700/month cost, be damned happy that AZ was able to keep the price under $10K.
Walmart isn't in business to take their employees every need. They exist for the purpose of turning a profit. They make a great deal of money, but their margin is a paltry 3-3.5%. (Microsoft last quarter made 19.57% Apple.... 20.1%)
Liberals all point at Walmart as evil but if you need a job and have no skills, you get what you can and Walmart will pay you what you're worth.

Are you willing to pay more for a product so people who didn't take advantage of all this country offered them can earn more than their worth?

Yes Walmart pressures suppliers to hold down costs. That is how they can sell you a product you can afford. Why does Apple produce IPhones in China using children forced to work 66 hours/week?

I bet you have an IPhone or some Apple product and don't feel the least bit hypocritical.

 

[zeke]

I bet you have an IPhone or some Apple product and don't feel the least bit hypocritical.

How much you wanna bet? And how will I get your money?

Are you willing to pay more for a product so people who didn't take advantage of all this country offered them can earn more than their worth?

At least we know that you, Ernie are willing to buy product built by sweat shop labor so Walmart executives can make millions of dollars a year. And the sweat shop labor gets pennies. And YOU get to buy junk. And you even get to see your tax dollars spent on workers who have Walmart jobs. What a deal ernie.

 

[Dad2three]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

If WalMart fired every employee, would food stamps and Medicaid spend more or less?

People are productive. Corporations are on welfare because they're taking all the profit that the the people's not-lazy productivity is generating.

Minimum wage employees are not welfare queens. Their employers are



The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Do you always rant nonsense like this?

You said it ... prove it.

Prove what dummy?

Ok, I've hinted at it, and I've been polite about it ... but enough is enough.

You are a rank ******* amateur with absolutely no base knowledge of the subject. Your macroeconomic knowledge could be kept in a bottle cap. All you do is quote a bunch of shit you found on some left wing blog. All we see out of you is the same putrid nonsense ... without justification and without even a scintilla of knowledge. You bring no knowledge, no insight, and certainly, no goddamn brains to the subject. You constantly make an absolute fool of yourself ... nobody wants to tell you, but I will ... you're a ******* joke. Everybody laughs at you.

And, then, when your shortfall is challenged (and, believe me, you are DEFINITELY challenged) the best you can come up with is vulgarity and name-calling like some 10 year old punk. I don't know what goes on in your life, and you can be damn sure I don't want to know, but for whatever reason, you feel it necessary to come on this site and attack people you don't even know about a subject you don't even fundamentally understand. You have wasted 700 posts on absolute, total, and complete, stupidity feeding your pathetic little ego.

You have certainly heard the last from me on this subject ... so, in order to feel good, go into your bathroom, look in the mirror and tell yourself how you WON .... because you can be damn sure nobody else cares.

Got it, like the usual right winger, you throw up bullshit when you can't refute FACTS OR HISTORY. Got it

And yes you conservatives are timid and don't EVER attack you little *****

Rule of thumb, right wingers are ALWAYS on the wrong side of history

 

[Dad2three]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change.

I wish he had totally restructured the economy, but despite your colorful imagination, he did not.

What do you feel we have to do to "fix the damage"?
Raise the top rate back to 70%?

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo.

His attack? LOL!
They broke the law in 1981 when they went on strike.
He fired their asses and rightly so.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves,

Exactly, I mean just look at what the Steel Workers union has done. I mean besides drive US steel makes into bankruptcy.

there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency.

BS. DOL lawyers would crawl up their asses, especially under this president.

Yeah the economy was in the dumps when the top rate was 70% right? lol

Yeah, the first thing we need to do to fix the economy is give more money to government.
There are more Solyndras that need funding. Right? LOL!

Thanks for ignoring the posts where I tore up your 'Bush warned' 13 times post, lol

When confronted with FACTUAL info with links and critical thinking required, the Barney Frank/Dems did it meme bites the dust. lol

 

[Dad2three]

In regards to education, while it is true that the US has one of the highest per capita expenditures many other countries are outperforming US students in core curriculum. It should also be considered that the US has the highest average wages in the world, which means that American teachers and other workers in the education field receive a higher salary than most in the first world. That would drive the $$$ expended per student up to a higher level than most as well. That concept is o basic even a Republican should have been able to figure that out. That said, wages for US teachers, as compared to average wages for most other countries are quite low.

Teacher Pay U.S. Ranks 22nd Out Of 27 Countries Jack Jennings

This is why I said the US needs to invest in education.

Many public schools lack sufficient text books for all of their students. A teacher friend of mine in Nebraska routinely pays for classroom supplies out of her own pocket, as do most other teachers in her school. This is not a poor inner city school, but a school in a middle class neighbourhood in the mid-West. Average salaries in the US are $55K per year. Average teacher salaries in the US are $45K. Why would anyone spend money to get a degree, and a teacher's certificate - 6 years of post-secondary education, to work for $45K per year? That's the same level of education you need to be a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant, all of which pay substantially more money.

Countries which pay teachers a salary in keeping with their level of education and experience, are outperforming the US in education, and this bodes very poorly for the economic future of the country.

Our education system is an absolute failure ... we agree. We invest more in education than any other country in the world ... we agree.

So, tell me, where does all this money go? You want more money for teachers .... forgetting, conveniently, that these are the people who have created this failed system. Why should we reward failure?

The right wing arguments against the War on Poverty/education/Etc always boil down to: See, these programs that we have underfunded or cut back or otherwise hobbled don't work now that we have broken them. So give more money to rich people!



"Here, let me show why this social program you like is so dysfunctional because we gutted funding for it, so now it should be stopped because obviously government doesn't work."

 

[Dad2three]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

People lose jobs. It's a fact of life. Another fact is that if you lose your job, you either find another one in your field, or you learn a new skill.
Companies merge allowing them to produce their product more efficiently. You mention Pfizer,Wyeth and Astro-Zeneca. Those mergers kept pharmaceuticals from rising far more than they did.

Take the AZ product Caprelsa. When you get thyroid cancer and balk at the $5,700/month cost, be damned happy that AZ was able to keep the price under $10K.
Walmart isn't in business to take their employees every need. They exist for the purpose of turning a profit. They make a great deal of money, but their margin is a paltry 3-3.5%. (Microsoft last quarter made 19.57% Apple.... 20.1%)
Liberals all point at Walmart as evil but if you need a job and have no skills, you get what you can and Walmart will pay you what you're worth.

Are you willing to pay more for a product so people who didn't take advantage of all this country offered them can earn more than their worth?

Yes Walmart pressures suppliers to hold down costs. That is how they can sell you a product you can afford. Why does Apple produce IPhones in China using children forced to work 66 hours/week?

I bet you have an IPhone or some Apple product and don't feel the least bit hypocritical.

Companies like Walmart and McDonalds are the ones creating the “poverty trap”. While making record profits and their CEO’s making record salaries their employees need to supplement their income with using taxpayer funded anti-poverty programs ….AFDC, child tax credits, earned income credits, Section 8, school meals, Medicaid, WIC & home energy assistance to supplement income.


And as long as folks continue to whine about the "lazy" people who don't want to work, they are doing the bidding of the wealthy who want us to keep fighting among ourselves so that they can continue to screw us all. Maybe one of them has found a way to take their wealth with them after they die. That might explain this mentality of continuing the acquisition of wealth over all else.



The GOP does not help people unless they are a corporation.

 

[Oldstyle]

Our education system is an absolute failure ... we agree. We invest more in education than any other country in the world ... we agree.

So, tell me, where does all this money go? You want more money for teachers .... forgetting, conveniently, that these are the people who have created this failed system. Why should we reward failure?

For someone who claims to have such a great understanding of economics, I shouldn't have to explain this to you.

First off, teachers don't create the education system, they don't set the curriculum or write the textbooks. They don't build the schools and they don't buy the equipment. They work with what they're given. Blaming teachers for the failure of the education system is like blaming accountants for inequities in the tax code, or auto workers for poorly designed cars.

The amount in $$$ that the US spends on education is greater than other countries, but wages and other expense, including heath insurance for workers, in other first world countries are far lower than in the US. The average salary in Canada is $35K per year. The average teacher salary in Canada is around $50K per year. The average salary in the US is $55K per year. The average teacher's salary in the US is $45K per year. Teachers in Canada make 142% of the average salary versus US teachers who make 82% of the national average salary. Considering it takes 6 years of post-secondary education to become a teacher, and post secondary education in the US costs substantially more in the US than in Canada, how can you realistically hope to attract the best people to the teaching profession in the US, with below average wages?

American teachers complain of a lack of resources - text books, computers, art supplies. In order to cut costs, many schools have dropped music and art programs as expensive frills, even though it has been shown that music helps improve math skills. Where is the investment in education? Education spending in the US is declining - the only first world country to be cutting education costs.

And yet the US continues to spend more money on its military than the next 10 countries in the world combined. And conservatives want to send in the troops every time something happens in another country you have no business being in.

Teachers didn't create our educational system? Who did...plumbers?

Let's be honest here for once, Dragonlady! Our educational system has dominated by liberal educators for thirty plus years...educators who have pushed an agenda. To declare NOW that the result of that agenda isn't the fault of those educators is RIDICULOUS!

 

[Dad2three]

Exactly, I mean just look at what the Steel Workers union has done. I mean besides drive US steel makers into bankruptcy.

You think the unions ruined the steel industry I take it. Wasn't what happened. But I'm sure you believe it.

Had something to do with steel manufacturers here using old technology and the Japanese using new and better technology. And it had to do with the Japanese government subsidizing the steel industry so they could sell steel below cost for American manufactures. And the US government gave no help to the American steel industry.

So with a hands off government and steel company management being stuck in the past, the American steel industry took a big hit.

Now what was it the unions did to cause all that?

You think the unions ruined the steel industry I take it.

They sure didn't save the steel industry.

NOT like conservatives 'free trade' or policy like off shoring jobs to benefit management (stock options/bonuses) AND EXTREMELY low tax rates for the 'job creators (IN CHINA) helped at all right

 

[Dad2three]

Our education system is an absolute failure ... we agree. We invest more in education than any other country in the world ... we agree.

So, tell me, where does all this money go? You want more money for teachers .... forgetting, conveniently, that these are the people who have created this failed system. Why should we reward failure?

For someone who claims to have such a great understanding of economics, I shouldn't have to explain this to you.

First off, teachers don't create the education system, they don't set the curriculum or write the textbooks. They don't build the schools and they don't buy the equipment. They work with what they're given. Blaming teachers for the failure of the education system is like blaming accountants for inequities in the tax code, or auto workers for poorly designed cars.

The amount in $$$ that the US spends on education is greater than other countries, but wages and other expense, including heath insurance for workers, in other first world countries are far lower than in the US. The average salary in Canada is $35K per year. The average teacher salary in Canada is around $50K per year. The average salary in the US is $55K per year. The average teacher's salary in the US is $45K per year. Teachers in Canada make 142% of the average salary versus US teachers who make 82% of the national average salary. Considering it takes 6 years of post-secondary education to become a teacher, and post secondary education in the US costs substantially more in the US than in Canada, how can you realistically hope to attract the best people to the teaching profession in the US, with below average wages?

American teachers complain of a lack of resources - text books, computers, art supplies. In order to cut costs, many schools have dropped music and art programs as expensive frills, even though it has been shown that music helps improve math skills. Where is the investment in education? Education spending in the US is declining - the only first world country to be cutting education costs.

And yet the US continues to spend more money on its military than the next 10 countries in the world combined. And conservatives want to send in the troops every time something happens in another country you have no business being in.

Teachers didn't create our educational system? Who did...plumbers?

Let's be honest here for once, Dragonlady! Our educational system has dominated by liberal educators for thirty plus years...educators who have pushed an agenda. To declare NOW that the result of that agenda isn't the fault of those educators is RIDICULOUS!

It must be nice to live in such a black and white world as the one inhabited by conservative polemists like Rush Limbaugh...


NOT that right wing 'think tanks' have come into play and one of their primary focuses have been to 'fix' education the past 40 years and their war on unions right? It's been the 'liberal' educators for thirty plus years (never mind they were ALWAYS liberal and liberal generally means EDUCATED, WHY DO YOU THINK LESS THAN 20% OF SCIENTISTS CLASSIFY THEMSELVES CONS OR GOP?). Ridiculous? Yes most things you posit are

 

[Oldstyle]

What's amusing to me, Dad...is how you liberals now defend yourselves when you've been given control of something and totally screw it up. It isn't right wing "think tanks" that have been running the educational system in America for the past thirty years! Yet neither you, nor Dragonlady will admit that liberal educators and their agenda simply hasn't worked. We spend more money per student than any other country yet our kid's fall further and further behind.

 

[Dad2three]

What's amusing to me, Dad...is how you liberals now defend yourselves when you've been given control of something and totally screw it up. It isn't right wing "think tanks" that have been running the educational system in America for the past thirty years! Yet neither you, nor Dragonlady will admit that liberal educators and their agenda simply hasn't worked. We spend more money per student than any other country yet our kid's fall further and further behind.

So no you can't critically think or be honest and you can't refute Dragon's posts. Thanks anyways

The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)

In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.


..Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.

Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.*

The Powell Memo or the Powell Manifesto Text and Analysis

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change.

I wish he had totally restructured the economy, but despite your colorful imagination, he did not.

What do you feel we have to do to "fix the damage"?
Raise the top rate back to 70%?

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo.

His attack? LOL!
They broke the law in 1981 when they went on strike.
He fired their asses and rightly so.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves,

Exactly, I mean just look at what the Steel Workers union has done. I mean besides drive US steel makes into bankruptcy.

there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency.

BS. DOL lawyers would crawl up their asses, especially under this president.

Yeah the economy was in the dumps when the top rate was 70% right? lol

Yeah, the first thing we need to do to fix the economy is give more money to government.
There are more Solyndras that need funding. Right? LOL!

Thanks for ignoring the posts where I tore up your 'Bush warned' 13 times post, lol

When confronted with FACTUAL info with links and critical thinking required, the Barney Frank/Dems did it meme bites the dust. lol

Thanks for ignoring the posts where I tore up your 'Bush warned' 13 times post, lol

What are you mumbling about? I didn't say anything about Bush.
Bush was a big government idiot. He had a bad idea to use government cash to increase home ownership.
Bush spent way too much, not just on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama is a big government idiot. He has plenty of big government bad ideas.
Obama spent way too much on pretty much everything.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

In regards to education, while it is true that the US has one of the highest per capita expenditures many other countries are outperforming US students in core curriculum. It should also be considered that the US has the highest average wages in the world, which means that American teachers and other workers in the education field receive a higher salary than most in the first world. That would drive the $$$ expended per student up to a higher level than most as well. That concept is o basic even a Republican should have been able to figure that out. That said, wages for US teachers, as compared to average wages for most other countries are quite low.

Teacher Pay U.S. Ranks 22nd Out Of 27 Countries Jack Jennings

This is why I said the US needs to invest in education.

Many public schools lack sufficient text books for all of their students. A teacher friend of mine in Nebraska routinely pays for classroom supplies out of her own pocket, as do most other teachers in her school. This is not a poor inner city school, but a school in a middle class neighbourhood in the mid-West. Average salaries in the US are $55K per year. Average teacher salaries in the US are $45K. Why would anyone spend money to get a degree, and a teacher's certificate - 6 years of post-secondary education, to work for $45K per year? That's the same level of education you need to be a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant, all of which pay substantially more money.

Countries which pay teachers a salary in keeping with their level of education and experience, are outperforming the US in education, and this bodes very poorly for the economic future of the country.

Our education system is an absolute failure ... we agree. We invest more in education than any other country in the world ... we agree.

So, tell me, where does all this money go? You want more money for teachers .... forgetting, conveniently, that these are the people who have created this failed system. Why should we reward failure?

The right wing arguments against the War on Poverty/education/Etc always boil down to: See, these programs that we have underfunded or cut back or otherwise hobbled don't work now that we have broken them. So give more money to rich people!



"Here, let me show why this social program you like is so dysfunctional because we gutted funding for it, so now it should be stopped because obviously government doesn't work."

The right wing arguments against the War on Poverty/education/Etc always boil down to: See, these programs that we have underfunded or cut back

Look at the money we've spent and still spend on these programs and tell us when they've ever been underfunded.