Class Warfare a la Joe the Lip

July 2011
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Class Warfare a la Joe the Lip

05 July 2011

George Rebane

This Sunday VP Joe Biden was speaking to fellow travelers at a Washington meeting of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union. He didn’t have to hold back on his deep-seated belief that more socialism is better, and he let it all hang out. To his audience our Vice President incredulously characterized the conservatives with –

They believe that one percent of the wage earners, controlling 24% of the wealth in this country, is a vehicle by which you can spur economic growth, because those with the wealth know the most and will know best what to do with that wealth.

Yes, the ones earning the wealth have always known what best to do with it. Our country has believed that for over two centuries. And now other countries are picking up on this principle of economic freedom, as our own memory of its blessings begins to fade. You bet your sweet butt Joe – you really nailed it with that little piece of class warfare demagoguery.

Posted in Current Affairs, Happenings, Our Country

157 responses to “Class Warfare a la Joe the Lip”

Todd Juvinall

09 July 2011

Why would anyone who is so adamant about the diversity of America and all its subsets of race and ethnicity like Paul, and yet be so enamored of the Scandinavian countries? They are pretty homogeneous and kind of remind me of 1984 and Mao suits (remember Bjorn Borg escaping them fox tax reasons?). Paul, why do you like those countries so much? It seems to me you would be aghast at their conformity.

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Ben Emery

09 July 2011

Mickey,
”
“Timber and all the other resources you mentioned will be harvested for who?” how about growing economies like China?”
What you just advocated for is one of the definitions of a third world country, exporting a nations natural resources. We used to keep them here and turn them into things until our economic sovereignty was stripped away with our entering into the WTO. It isn’t regulations, unions, or taxes all those things were in place 1950 to 1980’s and we had a strong economy. What changed was our tax, broke unions, and import tariff policies. So we have now become a colony of China and you fully embrace it.
“Never have Americans been taxed more, regulated more and ‘pissed on’ [to use Paul’s term] more by central planners than today.”
Taxes in the US are at a 60 year low. The number one contributor to regulations are big business to eliminate smaller competitors. I agree we have way to much centralized power with the duopoly controlling our government and the monopolistic industries in our nation, break up the huge companies along with some major campaign reform to break up the power of the behemoth institutions called Republican Party and Democratic Party.

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Mikeymcd

10 July 2011

Ben, we don’t live in the same country. We are taxed more today than any other time in our history. I still cannot figure out how your voodoo economics would create jobs or a healthy economy.

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Douglas Keachie

10 July 2011

“I still cannot figure out how your voodoo economics would create jobs or a healthy economy.”
And the rest of us can not figure out how tax breaks continuing for the rich is doing any to create jobs or a healthy economy. Where are the jobs? Where is the healthy economy? We had 8 years of the tax cuts and it did didille squat for and bottom 80% of the country. And it is still not doing anything, and corporations are currently sitting on more cash than ever before in history.

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Paul Emery

10 July 2011

My brakeless assumption was based on this.
“It really seems that you have little idea from where bright futures for mankind come. But your first clue should be that since at least the French Revolution, they have not come from the broad brush of collectivism.”
It’s not much of a leap to presume you have little regard for the accomplishments of the “Socialist” states of Europe.
I was disappointed by your vagueness on the lack or freedoms afforded in European countries. A reference to censorship in renting a house, libel laws and turbans is a pretty anemic response especially by your standards. I have lived in Europe for around a year and a half in the last 20 years and never did I hear complaints of censorship.
“But your first clue should be that since at least the French Revolution, they have not come from the broad brush of collectivism.”

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George Rebane

10 July 2011

My experience with our longtime European friends is quite different. They know what can and cannot be said in public discourse.
For a snootfull please google ‘free speech in Europe’.

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Ben Emery

11 July 2011

How does moving 50,000 factories out of the United States in the last 10 years help America? It might make more profit for these huge companies but hurts the US and its economy. I am country first and private profit second. It seems like regulars on ruminations think private profit come before our nations health.
Taxes are at a 60 year low. Obama is trying to please all sides and is pleasing nobody and hurting the nation at the same time. Small stimulus, extends tax breaks, creates the biggest tax break for the bottom 98% income earners in living memory, allowed deregulation’s that caused financial crisis to stay in place, escalated illegal invasions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and then illegally invades another country, and so on.
There is so much more but you get the point. Rumination regulars represent a very small % of the American population and I don’t think that is realized around here.

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Ben Emery

11 July 2011

Mikey,
The term Voodoo Economics is reserved for your ideology and it was said by somebody in your camp before these destructive policies were put in place by Reagan.
“It just isn’t going to work, and it’s very interesting that the man who invested this type of what I call a voodoo economic policy”
-George H.W. Bush, Carnegie Mellon University, 10 April 1980, in reference to Ronald Reagan’s economic policy
George H.W. Bush was correct and Milton Freidman and Chicago School of Economics have been proven wrong in every market their theory is tried, it is a good theory for the very few at the top of of the highest income brackets and destructive towards everybody else.

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Mikey McD

11 July 2011

Ben, you can try to pigeon hole me to a camp if it will help you ignore economic laws. You can believe that a failing centrally planned economy is good for blue collars if it helps you target your hate. You can ignore that FACT that we are taxed more today than ever before in US history (income taxes, SS, Medicare, CRV, Prop tax, self employed tax, dividend tax, cap gains tax, gas tax, tobacco tax, permit taxes, etc etc) if it allows you to focus your hate on entrepreneurs (employers and tax payers). You can ignore the extremely long track record of government failures and discrepancies against the blue collar man if it allows you to spew hate.
I will continue to place individual liberty (mine and yours) at the top of my ideology. Collectivism = slavery.

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George Rebane

11 July 2011

BenE, we conservetarians are always fascinated by the view that building trade barriers, wherein Americans must pay artificially high prices for goods available for much less on global markets, is good for the country and its citizens. How does that work out? Kinda like the minimum wage which when you raise it, you can reliably predict unemployment to go up, especially for the young and the poor?
Since the Chicago School didn’t work out for you, what school of economics does work for people who believe as you do?

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Mikey McD

11 July 2011

George, I could not imagine what the progressives would be calling capitalists if they openly discriminated against a class of people in the same manner. The hatred (expressed by the likes of Emery, Emery and Keachie) of the wealthy is vile, evil and unacceptable. Should the wealthy (i.e. tax payers, employers, successful) be pleased that such hatred is ‘in the open’ and not reserved for behind closed doors? Though I know envy and jealousy should be expected a part of me would like to believe that the jobs created by entrepreneurs, the income taxes paid solely by the successful, the charities funded by ‘the rich’, the countless products/services/medical treatments produced by entrepreneurs was appreciated by all of society.

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Douglas Keachie

11 July 2011

I think that one of the assumptions of those here espousing the conservative cause is that making money, the more of it the better, and hanging on to as much of it as possible, it the highest calling one can aspire to, and that it take an almost totalitarian precedence over much of their daily lives. Some of the rest of us view our time on Earth in a different light.

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Douglas Keachie

11 July 2011

Some conservatives seem to take great delight in co-opting the term, “hater” and its variations, from the blacks who originally brought it to the fore. Cans of “hater” paint are regularly opened and splattered all around this rubber room, by some of the conservatives who call it home. The problem is, they are so messy with it they wind up painting themselves as much as their intended targets.

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Mikey McD

11 July 2011

You are way off base Keachie. Conservative’s simply wish to to be afforded “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Self reliance was once seen as a virtue by society until “Peter/Paul Principal”…

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Mikey McD

11 July 2011

I contend that the basis/foundation of discrimination is hate. In today’s case, the progressives hating ‘the rich.’ The shoe fits.

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Douglas Keachie

11 July 2011

The farmers of the 1890’s saw the Southern Pacific Railroad about the same way as the middle class sees corporate America today.
“God bless the child that’s got its own,” because if you don’t, you’re screwed, and working minimum wage doesn’t build a fortune, even if you do it for 100 years.
Home Depot and Arby’s, for just two examples, are notorious for working the pants off of folks for years, with the promise of assistant manager, and then real money as manager, “just around the corner.” Then, after about 7 years and many unpaid hours and work above and beyond, you get fired, typically right after being transferred (so nobody notices), and a new victim is led to the starting gate to the non existent pot at the end of the the disappearing rainbow.
What a racket!

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Douglas Keachie

11 July 2011

And, at the mom and pop end, how many assistant managers ever really get to take over the reins at a good salary, or make enough to do a buyout? How many family owners really ever relinquish control to an outsider, or pay them enough money to even do a buyout? Usually only happens after kids are all grown and none of them wants the business, and ma and pa are sick or sick of doing it. Corporations and entrepreneurs may “create the jobs” but none ever really share the wealth produced, beyond the minimum needed to keep folks from quitting.

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Douglas Keachie

11 July 2011

The rich hate being taxed, and discriminate against the progressives, in favor of taxes. It cuts both ways. The rich really would be much happier if the the bulk of the baby boomers would just die off. That way they wouldn’t have to pay back Social Security for the money they stole to run their wars of oil “bidness” protection.
Now if we cut out gov health plans and reduce pensions, by golly we just might kill off a few of the excess boomers who won’t be able to afford, even food…cool. If we could get the social security money privatized and into the stock markets, our holdings would increase in value overnight…double cool!

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George Rebane

11 July 2011

Let me get this right, Arby’s wants their customers to die off, and so does Home Depot – because then they’ll make a lot more money and become even richer? And the 19th century farmers hated the railroads that opened broad markets for their crops, and skyrocketed the value of their land?

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Paul Emery

11 July 2011

There’s so much going on here I don’t know where to begin. To begin with all modern countries use progressive income taxes to some degree including this one. Show me one, just one exception. This has nothing to do with hatred it’s just a practical way to take care of the business of funding necessities for the common good. There are no contemporary models to show otherwise. “The Cheese Stands Alone” on this one.

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Mikey McD

11 July 2011

Paul, just because my neighbor beats his dog does not mean that I should. Because London has 40 million cameras monitoring it’s subjects does that mean that S.F. and N.Y. should too? Surely, you don’t think that the countries you cite have a foundation in personal liberty like the USA does? Recall Newsweek’s cover “We are all socialists now”- there are no free-markets left. And, even a blind man can see the dominoes of defaults and financial misery in the wake of said socialism (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, USA?).
It is unproductive to debate someone with no respect for personal liberty (progressives) or a flare for the dramatic (Keachie).
Keachie, Obamacare will end up killing more boomers than Arby’s and home depot combined.

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Todd Juvinall

11 July 2011

Paul, what are your suggestions on rooting out waste fraud and abuse. I suggest you speak with Mike Sherman, he was a welfare fraud investigator and boy does he have some stories. Anyway, we conservatives totally agree we are all in the soup together and we need to fund defense and roads and police. What we object to is programs that waste our time and money by intruding into our lives and are not enumerated in our Constitution.

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Douglas Keachie

11 July 2011

George, the farmer hated the railroads that calculated, based on their knowledge of the expenses and mortgages of the farmers, just what they could charge, leaving the farmers barely able to plant the next year. Any farmers who got uppity, had trains that fail to stop, before their crops rotted at the depots. Read “The Octopus,” and see just how generous the Railroad really was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus:_A_Story_of_California
Modern day Home Depots will simply close down when the USA customer base is depleted of either cash, credit, or numbers of people. Home Depot Execs will then take the profits and open overseas, where there may be more of both. In the meantime, those happy folks in that suburb of Atlanta will be smiling all the while.

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Douglas Keachie

11 July 2011

Of course you can see another side, after the original settlers got scre-wed, along comes a dude in Bakerfield, on the corporate side of agribusiness, well documented here:
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_King_Of_California.html?id=QqIFOo8ZXx8C

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Douglas Keachie

11 July 2011

“Keachie, Obamacare will end up killing more boomers than Arby’s and home depot combined. ”
But less than our current system, because if Obamacare survives, then along with it will come a more sensible and productive economy.
if we stay the course, we’re going over Drama Queen Falls, and soon!

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Paul Emery

11 July 2011

So what kind of freedom do you have when you are denied health insurance and lose your home when you have a heart attack. That’s the way it is right now in the good ole USA and not the way it is in Europe. Millions of people cannot buy health insurance at any cost because they have preexisting conditions. The Repubs want the private insurance system to cover medicare so where does that leave seniors who have the preexisting condition of being a senior? Out on the streets because nowhere in the Ryan plan does it require them to be insured. It’s only a deduction of whatever the insurance co’s want to charge. Freedom to lose everything once you’re sick. That’s the American way as the Repubs see it. Give me the tyranny of the Danish system anytime.

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George Rebane

11 July 2011

PaulE, it is ever a trade-off between state supplied security and freedom. And those who opt for the state, ultimately will get neither -or according to old Ben, “Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.’ Keep your eye on the eleven US carrier task groups and see how well the Danes and their neighbors do when that number starts dropping some more.
There is nothing magic about where to draw the line between security and freedom. You and yours would rather have a soon mythical Denmark, and I and mine would rather have a competitive healthcare market without government supported monopolies.
Today our medical industry quietly kills 100K a year through highly regulated “medical mistakes” – e.g. 250 fully loaded jumbo jets crashing into sides of mountains annually. Let’s see what that number becomes when we start rationing the one-size-fits-all Obamacare solution.

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Greg Goodknight

11 July 2011

Think neighborhood Kevorkian Centers combined with Soylent Corp biodiesel stations. “Power from the people!”
I suspect most folks who can’t qualify for an individual health insurance policy are like me… a condition that is treated and generates no bills, and was first diagnosed when I had insurance. Mandate any existing condition first diagnosed when insured as being off limits as a reason for rejection, and you’re halfway to fixing the problem.
The other half is to tax healthcare benefits as income and adjust the tax tables to be revenue neutral. Finally, the mistake made during WWII, not including med insurance in wage and price controls and driving large companies to offer it as a tax free perk, would be fixed.

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Paul Emery

11 July 2011

Soon mythical Denmark ??? George, you’re view is much to simplistic and is another example of the retro pedagogy that is the curriculum of this blog. Pick a choice quote from one of the disciples, chant an almost mythical ideal that hasn’t existed in the prescribed form for over 100 years and preach that it is the only way for the future. Then create fear based on theories of the evil intent and imminent drift of “socialist” governments, which include ALL modern states, to totalitarianism. It’s all based on unfounded theories and fear and nothing else.

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George Rebane

11 July 2011

So PaulE, given that we each consider the other to promote a prescription to disaster, what should we do? Note that our discussion here is nothing less than an expanded and perhaps more detailed debate that is now going on in the White House between the Dems and Repubs. We are not talking about inconsequential issues. And the clear indication is that the rift in the country reaches from the highest to the lowest levels (that’s where I consider myself to be). What do we do?

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Todd Juvinall

11 July 2011

Those darn Danes. I like their cheese but their socialism is not my favorite.

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Douglas Keachie

11 July 2011

Can’t beat their cartoons or cookies or bacon. But, way too crowded for my tastes, and too far from the Alps.

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Paul Emery

11 July 2011

Todd
Their pastries are the best. I remember driving all night after a gig in Jutland and waiting for our favorite shop to open at the crack of dawn.
Actually your question and George’s last post deserve a thoughtful response but not tonight.
Thanks for the respectful conversation.

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Mikey McD

12 July 2011

Great (mini) Divide anyone? http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1023582–california-politician-hopes-to-split-state-in-two?bn=1

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Todd Juvinall

12 July 2011

Paul, I always by their butter cookies and give them away at Christmas. Did they ever get the head back on the statue in their bay?

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George Rebane

12 July 2011

Mikey – A split is good, but that’s the wrong boundary. Starting with LA County and going north, give them the coast. The rest would be East California.
Else we need three states. Break the coastal counties away from what remains when South California is formed, and call it North California. The central valley to the Nevada border would then become the new state of Sierra. Fun times.

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Douglas Keachie

12 July 2011

I like George’s three states, but also like keeping coast to at least San Simeon and the entire Sierra from elevation 2,000 feet up and Mt Whitney northwards, and let them have the central Valley up to Tracy. No way in Hell I’ll give up Yosemite!

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Paul Emery

12 July 2011

Splitting off the coast won’t work. You’ll have to through enemy territory to have access to a seaport.

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George Rebane

12 July 2011

“enemy territory”?? The division of today’s California into three new states should not create a political conflict for access to the sea. Our inland states have been able to maintain their export industries with no problem for over 200 years.
The only benefit from the split would be in the socio-political arena as we have now when states compete for companies and workers. And in that competition, states have the constitutionally guaranteed freedom to try different approaches (e.g. laws, regs, taxes, fees, …) to see what works, and copy from other states as it makes sense.
Latest research shows that political units begin to suffer when they exceed about 5 million people, and communities reach their max quality of life levels in the 20K to 50K population range. The whole driving force here is from some level of cultural cohesion in such smaller communities wherein co-operation would arise more naturally because of similarity in their belief systems.

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Paul Emery

12 July 2011

Just kidding George. However wouldn’t your proposed division likely have a racial-ethnic divide as a result of the territorial designations?

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George Rebane

12 July 2011

Great question PaulE. I would think that to the extent that belief systems have strong discriminants (boundaries separating tenets) that correlate with racial-ethnic attributes, then yes, such “divides” could result. But in America I wouldn’t expect any of them to evolve into absolutes. Because belief systems, in the final analysis, are unique to individuals that result in all kinds of variations from the common interesection of tenets. Our national tradition will, I believe, handle well that kind of residual diversity.

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Paul Emery

12 July 2011

What you are proposing is some kind of ideological gerrymandering. I agree that smaller governing units would be useful but they should be based on environmental and geographic boundaries. For example, Truckee and all of Tahoe should be part of Nevada because that’s the watershed the contribute to. The fact that Truckee is part of Nevada County is evidence enough of the idiocy of the current system.

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George Rebane

12 July 2011

Not really PaulE, I agree that we should start with reasonable geographical and economic boundaries. I don’t know what “environmental boundaries” are, but it seems that they would reasonable fit into the geographic boundaries. But economic commonalities are important, and when they match with geographical ones – as you point out about Truckee and Tahoe – the things become simpler.
(Current legislative districts today are already ideologically gerrymandered, I’m trying to get away from that.)

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Paul Emery

12 July 2011

How did you determine who “them” is? Environmental does mean geographical primarily using watersheds to determine boundaries. You ignore the biggest battles of all-water rights. You would divide watersheds between between “states.”

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George Rebane

12 July 2011

PaulE, I believe you’re referring to my 241pm comment. If so, then “them” = “divides”. And Paul, I haven’t specified any particular boundary algorithm, we have only talked about partitions at a high level. Where do you get off concluding that I “ignore big battles” and what I would “divide” or not???
Maybe I’m butting in to your response to someone else on another topic. Apologies if so.

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Ben Emery

12 July 2011

Mickey,
I say this all the time, I do not hate anybody and in fact support the wealthy and big business to do what ever it takes to make more profit. What I do dislike is the government that was supposed to represent average people and the majority allowed itself to be bought off. Our government makes laws and trade agreements that help a small few at the very top instead of the nation as a whole. That is what I dislike not the people at the top, I dislike the policies not the people. Government creates the market from which business works and government first obligation should be towards the people and the country not the profits of the uber rich. Free Trade only exists because policies were changed to allow it to exist, change them back so we can have a functional productive economy again.
So once again
Not The People The Policies. Big difference.

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Todd Juvinall

13 July 2011

With only 1/2 the people exercising their vote in our country, what ou see is what you get. In California, if all the R’s would turnout and vote we would own the state and we could bring sanity back to governance. But, the R’s here are too busy to take the ten minutes to exercise their precious franchise of freedom so we get stuck with the nuts from the left running things. So, BenE, I would suggest you get all fifty greens out to vote nxt time so you can win and put your policies in place.

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Paul Emery

13 July 2011

I don’t know where you get your numbers Todd but Democrats have a solid 10% advantage in registration so your math is a little off. Sure, let’s bring back a Republican governor. We’ve tried an actor and a muscle builder, perhaps we can have a contortionist next.

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Paul Emery

13 July 2011

So it begins. The great retreat
“Conservative talk show host Bill O’Reilly said Tuesday night that Republicans must accept “revenue increases” for the government by way of tax hikes, specifically coming out in favor of a 1 percent national sales tax to help fix the U.S. budget.
“That could raise $100 billion a year without hurting the economy,” he suggested. “That money could fund Medicare. There are ways to get a deal done.”
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/12/266514/oreilly-we-need-revenue/
He added that “the debt ceiling has to be raised and government spending has to be cut dramatically.”

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Todd Juvinall

13 July 2011

Paul, I am talking turnout. Not total registration. R’s usually have a higher turnout than D’s and if as I said the R’s would get better at that we would own the state.
O’Reilly has his opinion about the debt ceiling and I do not share it if he said that. The issue is spending not revenues Paul. If your wife went to the mall and spent way more than your account contained, would you tell her to cut the amount of purchase or would you get another job to allow her to continue buying?

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