The "Republican" Perspective

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#21 Post by creep » Sat Mar 14, 2015 3:53 pm

mockbee wrote:
creep wrote:i don't know if idiot is the right word. many of the people involved in the collapse made a shitload of money. morally they are horrible people but i wouldn't call them idiots.

i don't know if you financed the land you just bought but let's say you did and let's say you found something wrong with it and it suddenly becomes worth 1/10 of what you paid for it. you could never build on it. would you pay your debt?

I have never financed anything in my life. Well, college but paid that off in 5 years and as I went.
:noclue: i said assume you did

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#22 Post by mockbee » Sat Mar 14, 2015 3:55 pm

creep wrote:
:noclue: i said assume you did
I know, nothing to do with your phrasing. I just hate that maybe that puts me in a lower credit score, because I want to wait and pay for things outright.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#23 Post by mockbee » Sat Mar 14, 2015 4:14 pm

creep wrote:i don't know if idiot is the right word. many of the people involved in the collapse made a shitload of money. morally they are horrible people but i wouldn't call them idiots.
yes, one of these words would be better for them.....
evil, immoral, iniquitous, nefarious, rotten, sinful, unethical, unlawful, unrighteous, unsavory, vicious, vile, villainous, wicked, wrong
creep wrote: i don't know if you financed the land you just bought but let's say you did and let's say you found something wrong with it and it suddenly becomes worth 1/10 of what you paid for it. you could never build on it. would you pay your debt?
Actually things are looking quite good, not that you are asking. I am going through an appeals process now with the city so that they follow their own Administrative Rule Adoptions and not make me improve the road. If it's succesful, I will be ecstatic, I bought it at a price assuming road improvements would be necessary for a home.

Systems Development charges on the other hand. Christ. Starting at 25K, for them to say, yeah, you can have a home there, but what about parks and the schools and your sewer hookup and water meter.....?

Do you have to do Systems Developments Charges for your remodels?

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#24 Post by creep » Sat Mar 14, 2015 4:27 pm

nope...there are plenty of things i do that i am supposed to permit but i never do. they want permits for everything....even things like replacing a fence. as long as it's done indoors no one will ever know if it was permitted or not. if you ever hire someone and it requires a permit make sure they have one though! i understand why they are needed but i am doing the work on my own home and i am doing everything to code.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#25 Post by mockbee » Sat Mar 14, 2015 4:52 pm

Yeah, would be pretty tough in my case. Might be suspicious that a whole house just shows up.

But if they push it that way with unreasonable hoops I have no problem with squatting.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#26 Post by Hype » Sun Mar 15, 2015 7:31 am

LJF wrote:No doubt wall street had a hand in the issues and problems, but so did most people.
The original claim I asked about was one in which it was claimed that blaming "Wall Street" (which blaming being a generalization itself) was and is total bullshit.

I asked whether there was any evidence for that, and why we shouldn't believe Robert Reich.

In the response, there was gesturing toward the sort of facts no one has denied (sub-prime mortgages to people who couldn't afford it), and these are fine, but don't suffice to justify the claim that it's "total bullshit" that Wall Street can be blamed for the way things went to shit in 2008/09 and beyond. LJF's own words above suggest that, in fact, it isn't total bullshit, and that Wall Street did play a role in the collapse. So the efforts to place some responsibility on predatory lenders and other agencies that took advantage of the rightly noted deregulation of Clinton and Bush aren't exactly misguided.

The additional claim that "so did most people" might be true (I'm actually pretty sure it's false. Most people didn't have a hand in the economic depression), but raising it in this context is called a "tu quoque fallacy" (meaning: "you too") because it attempts to shift attention from an admitted fact onto others who "did it too". But that wasn't what the issue was. The question is whether there was any evidence that it was "total bullshit" to place blame on Wall Street. The answer is, it appears, basically no... there's only evidence that it was at best partially bullshit, since home buyers bear some responsibility for the sorts of contracts they find themselves in.

But I also asked why we shouldn't believe Robert Reich... and I'm not sure that's been addressed. For example:


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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#27 Post by LJF » Sun Mar 15, 2015 8:42 am

Adurentibus Spina wrote:
LJF wrote:No doubt wall street had a hand in the issues and problems, but so did most people.
The original claim I asked about was one in which it was claimed that blaming "Wall Street" (which blaming being a generalization itself) was and is total bullshit.

I asked whether there was any evidence for that, and why we shouldn't believe Robert Reich.

In the response, there was gesturing toward the sort of facts no one has denied (sub-prime mortgages to people who couldn't afford it), and these are fine, but don't suffice to justify the claim that it's "total bullshit" that Wall Street can be blamed for the way things went to shit in 2008/09 and beyond. LJF's own words above suggest that, in fact, it isn't total bullshit, and that Wall Street did play a role in the collapse. So the efforts to place some responsibility on predatory lenders and other agencies that took advantage of the rightly noted deregulation of Clinton and Bush aren't exactly misguided.

The additional claim that "so did most people" might be true (I'm actually pretty sure it's false. Most people didn't have a hand in the economic depression), but raising it in this context is called a "tu quoque fallacy" (meaning: "you too") because it attempts to shift attention from an admitted fact onto others who "did it too". But that wasn't what the issue was. The question is whether there was any evidence that it was "total bullshit" to place blame on Wall Street. The answer is, it appears, basically no... there's only evidence that it was at best partially bullshit, since home buyers bear some responsibility for the sorts of contracts they find themselves in.

But I also asked why we shouldn't believe Robert Reich... and I'm not sure that's been addressed. For example:


Yes AS you are correct my wording was wrong and I should have been more direct. Wall Street wasn't solely responsible for 2008. That there were many factors leading up to it and many people, companies etc involved.

Sorry don't know who Robert Reich is and don't care to take the time right now to learn about him, so for now give me a F professor. Thanks.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#28 Post by SR » Sun Mar 15, 2015 8:58 am

This thread holds no interest for me, but Reich has always struck me as a really bright guy and fairly transparent as matters go.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#29 Post by Hype » Sun Mar 15, 2015 10:18 am

SR wrote:This thread holds no interest for me, but Reich has always struck me as a really bright guy and fairly transparent as matters go.
I only brought him up because he has been clear and consistent in his opposition to the kind of views that LJF has sometimes supported around here.

Should we take bets on whether LJF, who doesn't know who Robert Reich is, knows who Arthur Laffer is? :hehe:

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#30 Post by LJF » Mon Mar 16, 2015 9:35 am

As I was eating lunch I was reading some stuff on the internet and this story came up. I think AS will enjoy this and be in full support of it. http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman ... nequality/.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#31 Post by Hype » Mon Mar 16, 2015 12:39 pm

LJF wrote:As I was eating lunch I was reading some stuff on the internet and this story came up. I think AS will enjoy this and be in full support of it. http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman ... nequality/.
That is an interesting opinion piece. I'm pretty sure it's not an 'exclusive or' (meaning one or the other but not both). Taxing the rich more fairly (i.e., doing the Republican "broadening the base" by closing loopholes and simplifying the tax code as well as the Democratic increase in (marginal) tax rates for both income and capital gains) seems like it would help fund both entitlements for poor and rich alike as well as help with the budget deficit and debt that seem to be perennially a problem since the Bush era wars and tax cuts. But this wouldn't alleviate the issue of income inequality directly or entirely, since that is at least partly a result of extremely powerful forces crushing the unions and the ability of workers to not demand but even request fair treatment. See Wisconsin for a paradigm case (just FYI, I did live in Wisconsin for a brief period and was able to see enough of the labour issues and divisiveness to form a fairly educated view of the matter there; there was an election while I was there, and the democratic candidate was crushed for reasons I can only explain coming down to orchestration -- the re-election of a Republican golden-boy through PAC funding...): not merely minimum wages or living wages, but also fair hours and expectations for being "on call" to work at many low income jobs, or to do things that are effectively against federal employment standards -- this is the status quo in so many service jobs. We need to both compensate for inequalities and unfairnesses that have already made the social safety net less efficient and more burdened, and also set out institutional arrangements with an eye to easing inequality and unfairness at the ground level.

So yes, I agree with a lot of what it says in that article. And I also think that if conservatives thought clearly about some of their own commitments they'd see that there's much they could support here too, if they dropped ideological commitments to certain side-issues.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#32 Post by LJF » Tue Mar 17, 2015 8:51 am

Adurentibus Spina wrote:
LJF wrote:As I was eating lunch I was reading some stuff on the internet and this story came up. I think AS will enjoy this and be in full support of it. http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman ... nequality/.
That is an interesting opinion piece. I'm pretty sure it's not an 'exclusive or' (meaning one or the other but not both). Taxing the rich more fairly (i.e., doing the Republican "broadening the base" by closing loopholes and simplifying the tax code as well as the Democratic increase in (marginal) tax rates for both income and capital gains) seems like it would help fund both entitlements for poor and rich alike as well as help with the budget deficit and debt that seem to be perennially a problem since the Bush era wars and tax cuts. But this wouldn't alleviate the issue of income inequality directly or entirely, since that is at least partly a result of extremely powerful forces crushing the unions and the ability of workers to not demand but even request fair treatment. See Wisconsin for a paradigm case (just FYI, I did live in Wisconsin for a brief period and was able to see enough of the labour issues and divisiveness to form a fairly educated view of the matter there; there was an election while I was there, and the democratic candidate was crushed for reasons I can only explain coming down to orchestration -- the re-election of a Republican golden-boy through PAC funding...): not merely minimum wages or living wages, but also fair hours and expectations for being "on call" to work at many low income jobs, or to do things that are effectively against federal employment standards -- this is the status quo in so many service jobs. We need to both compensate for inequalities and unfairnesses that have already made the social safety net less efficient and more burdened, and also set out institutional arrangements with an eye to easing inequality and unfairness at the ground level.

So yes, I agree with a lot of what it says in that article. And I also think that if conservatives thought clearly about some of their own commitments they'd see that there's much they could support here too, if they dropped ideological commitments to certain side-issues.


Don't you think this can be applied to both sides. This gets back to what I was saying about government not functioning. When both sides go into any discussion with the thought the other side is wrong just because they are the other side well clearly nothing can get done. A lot of issues I tend to fall in the middle and would give some this way to get something that way. Yes AS you and I see things very differently and are on the the opposite sides on most things we discuss, but those are only the issues I've decided to put my opinion out there. From what I've seen you are on the left with all issues. On issues I agree with what has been discussed here I tend not to post. You and I see things differently, which isn't a bad thing. If everyone thought the same, we probably wouldn't have moved very far. As long as we can listen to each other, not just you and I I mean everyone, really listen there is progress.

Here is another link to an interesting discussion I heard on Bloomberg radio this morning as I drove into work. It's another take on what is driving income inequality. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/20 ... ger-martin.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#33 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 17, 2015 9:37 am

I don't consider myself an ideologue. There are people who support left or right-wing policies because they start from an assumption along the lines of "I am left/right wing (because left/right wing assumption(s) are correct)." These people, like religious people, operate basically superstitiously, without any concern for actual facts on the ground or causal connections between beliefs and data and effects and so on. There are a lot of people like this -- in fact, I suspect they're most voters. Some studies have suggested that party/wing affiliation tracks either fear-based reasoning or compassion/empathy-based reasoning. Of course neither is a reason to support either.

My support for policies, people, etc., who tend to fall on the "left-wing" side of things comes from a set of arguments about human nature, the foundations of government, and the feasibility constraints on the organization of political institutions. Basically: on my view, given the arguments I've worked on for years, political views that assume a robustly Kantian/Christian/Libertarian conception of human nature are demonstrably mistaken about both the theoretical framework and practical realities of responsibility, agency, and flourishing.

But suppose this weren't the case: even if humans were different: there's still a question of feasibility for any given policy. For the most part, the trend in right-wing thinking since Reagan has been fairly destructive in certain key ways (along "small government" ideological lines). While it's certainly feasible in the literal sense to simply stop governing, the practical reality suggests that serious implementations of these kinds of policies have immediate and long-term causal ramifications that are simply not feasible: the same way you can't simply leave Iraq and Afghanistan, you can't simply stop funding entitlements.

Basically: Ron Paul and the libertarian impulse, while sometimes morally justified, are almost never concerned with time-scales. A country whose infrastructure and entitlements and foreign aid disappear doesn't look like the United States, it looks more like Ukraine. I also take it that there are sound reasons to think that certain kinds of collective action should be government run and universal, not because of some activist sentiment or compassion, but because of efficiency and efficacy concerns. Some programs don't make sense decentralized.

For example, it makes sense to offer federal education assistance, because if this is left up to States, you end up reinforcing the status quo in low-education poor states like Kentucky, whereas equal distribution of access to and opportunity for education across the board may cost everyone (except those whose income is low enough to be tax exempt, who benefit the most from this policy), but removes the consequence of perpetual pockets of poverty and ignorance. Only an ideological opposition to federalism could possibly motivate being against such programs. But worse, generally those opposed to government programs invariably turn out to be wildly inconsistent and contradictory about what they support and don't support.

But there are some situations that are more efficient and more effective if left up to markets. This doesn't automatically imply support for unfettered free markets, because there are often very good consequentialist reasons for introducing some restrictions on markets when it comes to the ability of consumers themselves to operate freely within them (for example: false advertising laws, child-directed advertising laws, etc, are not restrictions on markets themselves, but on the ways in which those markets can be manipulated and stacked against consumers in a way that limits consumer agency). So despite what ideology might suggest, I'm not anti-freedom, and nor are most thinking lefties (i.e., university professors).

Insurance, by the way, is one of the easiest cases to demonstrate that shouldn't be market-based, because insurance doesn't act as a driver of the market for health-services in the way that, say, advertising acts as a driver of the market for food-service.

You might like this guy, and at least some of his books:


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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#34 Post by Hype » Wed Mar 18, 2015 9:17 am

A sort of prime example of the current trend in "Republican" thinking: http://www.wisconsingazette.com/opinion ... stems.html
While Gov. Scott Walker struts around the country campaigning for president, bombshells from his proposed state budget continue to shred the lives and hopes of millions of Wisconsinites.
The latest example of reckless overreach by Walker is his proposal to overhaul the state’s long-term care system for people with disabilities and the elderly. It had the usual elements of “shock and awe.” It forecloses public input, regional control and transparency. It rewards campaign contributors and destroys an effective public service that was decades in the making.
Changes in the long-term care system came as a complete shock to everyone involved. People with disabilities, the elderly and their loved ones, caregivers, health providers, managed care organizations, advisory bodies, the state’s Division of Long Term Care and even Walker’s own Secretary of Health Services Kitty Rhoades were blindsided by the proposed changes.
Rhoades insisted that the changes — which she could not enumerate — were all for the best and that the details would be worked out during negotiations with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The feds cover 58 percent of the costs of Wisconsin’s Medicaid program.
Meanwhile, Rhoades abruptly canceled meetings of the state’s Long Term Care Advisory Council. The council is made up of consumers, administrators and service providers. Walker is not interested in their input. He is dictating the terms and has the votes in the GOP-controlled Legislature to have his way.
The current long-term care system took years of development and is based on active input from the individuals whose lives are most impacted. The programs are cost-effective, outcomes are good, satisfaction levels are high (an astonishing 95–97 percent), and the regional managed care organizations have won respect for their responsiveness and accountability.
Among dozens of dastardly deeds, Walker’s budget eliminates IRIS, a program that allows consumers to choose their own caregivers and support services within their allotted budget. Self-determination and independent living have been central goals of the disability rights movement. Just as those values have finally made inroads into changing the traditional top-down, medical model of long- term care, Walker is kicking them to the curb.
A $19 million cut to Personal Services translates to 1 million fewer hours of personal care for our elderly and disabled neighbors.
Leave it to Scott Walker: not only do his policies threaten the welfare and self-determination of our most vulnerable citizens, they also destroy jobs. The budget eliminates the eight long-term care districts and requires Managed Care Organizations to provide services statewide. This opens the door to contracts with big national insurers — no doubt, campaign contributors — displacing the regional MCOs that have built trust with consumers. More than 3,000 local jobs could be lost.
Big insurers will direct care with all their usual restrictions and arbitrary decisions. Changes in doctors and caregivers will be traumatic for elderly and disabled people. The budget also removes legislative oversight of Medicaid programs. Public oversight is being handed over to the state commissioner of insurance. How convenient.
Walker is like the proverbial bull in the china shop, wiping out valuable assets Wisconsinites have built over many years — worker protections, our university system, natural resources and, now, a long-term care system considered a model for the nation. It will take generations to undo the damage.
For a detailed summary of disability-related impacts and information on public hearings on the budget, go to http://www.disabilityrightswi.org/archives/4867

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#35 Post by mockbee » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:24 am

Americans ----conservative and liberal:


TAKE NOTICE!


( well at least to the 1-2 Americans I am talking to on here..... :wink: ....... :lol: :sad: )

Well, LJF should be happy. Even if Hillary gets in and a Democratic congress, there is a huge uphill battle to convince the vast majority Americans that they are being fucked over. The wealth divide is just so stark and dramatic in SF, as I am sure it is in many major cities. It is certainly palpable and coincides with the statistics of inequality. But apparently........ :noclue:
the Saez paper found that “information about inequality also makes respondents trust government less,” decreasing “by nearly twenty percent the share of respondents who ‘trust government’ most of the time:”

Hence, emphasizing the severity of a social or economic problem appears to undercut respondents’ willingness to trust the government to fix it — the existence of the problem could act as evidence of the government’s limited capacity to improve outcomes.


Yeah let's let corporations deal with tax rates........or maybe, better yet, maybe just by chance the rates will go back to the way they were 30, 40, 50 years ago......:crazy:

It's a great time to be (really) RICH!! You are safe! :thumb: (whoever those people are......)




Has Obamacare Turned Voters Against Sharing the Wealth?

With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, the share of Americans convinced that health care is a right shrank from a majority to a minority.

This shift in public opinion is a major victory for the Republican Party. It is part of a larger trend: a steady decline in support for redistributive government policies. Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at Berkeley and one of the nation’s premier experts on inequality, is a co-author of a study that confirms this trend, which has been developing over the last four decades. A separate study, “The Structure of Inequality and Americans’ Attitudes Toward Redistribution,” found that as inequality increases, so does ideological conservatism in the electorate.

The erosion of the belief in health care as a government-protected right is perhaps the most dramatic reflection of these trends. In 2006, by a margin of more than two to one, 69-28, those surveyed by Gallup said that the federal government should guarantee health care coverage for all citizens of the United States. By late 2014, however, Gallup found that this percentage had fallen 24 points to 45 percent, while the percentage of respondents who said health care is not a federal responsibility nearly doubled to 52 percent.

Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard’s School of Public Health, wrote in an email that the character of the debate over health care began to change during the 2008 campaign. Before that, according to Blendon, the major issue was the moral principle of providing care for the poor. In the context of the presidential campaign, however, the public focus shifted:

Critics started raising concerns about the cost of these plans — higher taxes and premiums for those with coverage, more government interference in physician choices, and of course the potential of abortion coverage. People with coverage [83.7 percent of the population in 2010] became concerned about the implications for middle income people with these universal plans.

The altered public mood is especially relevant because the Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling later this year in King v. Burwell, a case that challenges the legality of the Affordable Care Act.

If the court rules against the A.C.A., public and private health care delivery would be disrupted, to put it mildly. Congressional Republicans are already working on replacement proposals that would, among other things, limit coverage for the poor.

The liberal Urban Institute has analyzed the potential consequences of a court ruling against the Affordable Care Act: the number of uninsured people in the 34 states that have chosen not to open their own exchanges would, according to the institute, increase by 8.2 million; $28.8 billion in tax credits and other benefits would be eliminated for 9.3 million people in 2016 alone; and “the number of people obtaining insurance through the private non-group markets in these states would fall by 69 percent, from 14.2 million to 4.5 million,” as a relatively healthy, younger population loses federal subsidies and drops insurance coverage.
Continue reading the main story

With the loss of healthier customers, insurance companies would be forced to raise premiums for their remaining clientele by 35 percent, from an annual average of $4,130 to $5,590, according to the institute’s study.

As Republicans put together legislative alternatives to address the health care crisis that could result from a Supreme Court ruling against Obamacare, they are looking to public opinion surveys to determine the range of options that would have public support.

Some of those options – both those supported by the public, and those that are off limits – are reflected in responses to a December 2014 Kaiser Family Foundation poll, one of the most recent surveys asking for opinions on specific provisions of the A.C.A.

The Kaiser survey found strong opposition, 64-35, to the individual mandate requiring that everyone purchase health coverage. In contrast, a majority of respondents, 60-38, supported the employer mandate that requires companies with 100 or more workers to provide health insurance.

An earlier New York Times poll, conducted in December 2013, found that 52 percent of those surveyed believed that the Affordable Care Act would increase their medical costs; 14 percent said it would reduce costs. Thirty-six percent believed that Obamacare would worsen the quality of health care compared to 17 percent who thought it would improve it.

On the plus side for the Affordable Care Act, those surveyed by the Times decisively supported, 86-10, the requirement that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions; the requirement to cover children in parents’ plans up to age 26 was supported 70-28; and 76 percent supported providing some help to poor workers who do not have employer-based coverage.

Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, answering my email, wrote that the tax credits in the Republican plans “tend to be quite a bit less generous” than under Obamacare, and that “low-income people, in particular, were likely to end up with very skimpy insurance” and fewer low-income people would be covered under the program.

The conservative shift in public attitudes on health care and on issues of redistribution and inequality pose a significant threat to the larger liberal agenda.

The 2013 paper published in Public Opinion Quarterly that I mentioned at the beginning of this article, “The Structure of Inequality and Americans’ Attitudes Toward Redistribution,” suggests that Democratic programs providing tax-financed benefits to the poor are facing growing hostility.

The author of the paper, Matthew Luttig, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Minnesota, found that while “numerous political theorists suggest that rising inequality and the shift in the distribution of income to those at the top should lead to increasing support for liberal policies,” in practice, “rising inequality in the United States has largely promoted ideological conservatism.”

Luttig compares public attitudes with inequality trends and reports that his data show that:

Both the absolute level and the changing structure of inequality have largely been a force promoting conservatism, not increasing support for redistribution as theoretically expected.

I asked two experts, Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, and Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell, if Luttig’s conclusions are consistent with their own research, and both said he is on target. Luttig’s conclusions run counter to the view of liberals like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is calling on her fellow Democrats to make tackling inequality a top priority. Heather McGhee, for example, the president of Demos (motto: “an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy”), argues that inequality should be “the defining issue of the American political debate this campaign cycle.”

Insofar as Luttig is right, his findings pose a serious dilemma for Democrats and for their likely nominee, Hillary Clinton. A party that claims to pursue policies benefiting those on the bottom half of the income ladder inevitably faces questions about the issue of redistribution.

Divisions within the Democratic Party run deep and are not limited to health care. There are splits on matters as diverse as the carried interest tax break, a capital-gains tax break which is a bottom line matter for major Wall Street Democratic donors, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, a test of strength between multinational corporations who favor it, and organized labor, which is opposed.

In her announcement video on April 12, Clinton chose to emphasize cultural themes of family, same-sex marriage, education and women’s rights – taking the spotlight off income inequality. She avoided the issue of explicitly redistributive goals and focused instead on “roadblocks” facing workers trying to climb the ladder.

But this kind of evasiveness can’t last. Neither core Democratic constituencies on the left nor Republicans on the right will permit Clinton to remain guarded on these divisive issues. If conservative beliefs are strengthening in direct proportion to increasing inequality, however, Democrats are caught in a policy bind that has no short-term solution.

“The General Social Survey shows there has been a slight decrease in stated support for redistribution in the US since the 1970s, even among those who self-identify as having below-average income,” according to Saez and his three co-authors, Ilyana Kuziemko, a professor at Columbia Business School, Michael I. Norton, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Stefanie Stantcheva, a junior fellow at Harvard.

Even worse for Democrats, the Saez paper found that “information about inequality also makes respondents trust government less,” decreasing “by nearly twenty percent the share of respondents who ‘trust government’ most of the time:”

Hence, emphasizing the severity of a social or economic problem appears to undercut respondents’ willingness to trust the government to fix it — the existence of the problem could act as evidence of the government’s limited capacity to improve outcomes.

The findings of the Saez group are consistent with Luttig’s. Taken together, they suggest that even if Democrats win the presidency and the Senate in 2016, largely on the basis of favorable demographic trends, the party will confront serious hurdles if it attempts to deliver material support to working men and women and the very poor. Redistribution is in trouble, and that is likely to tie American politics in knots for many years to come.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#36 Post by mockbee » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:30 am

Really, it's the proletariat we need to concern our efforts with reforming...........not politicians.

Politicians aren't stupid...................they get elected. :noclue:

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#37 Post by mockbee » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:33 am

Image






[blink]....................BINGO![/blink]

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#38 Post by mockbee » Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:04 am

mockbee wrote:Image






[blink]....................BINGO![/blink]
Lets try that again......

Also, I have done some investigations and realize that Steinbeck didn't actually say that, though something similar....and actually far more interesting............. :nod:
Disputed[edit]
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. As quoted in A Short History of Progress (2005) by Ronald Wright, p. 124; though this has since been cited as a direct quote by some, the remark may simply be a paraphrase, as no quotation marks appear around the statement and earlier publication of this phrasing have not been located.
This is perhaps an incorrect quote from "A Primer on the '30s." Esquire, June 1960: 85-93.

"Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property.
"I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew—at least they claimed to be Communists—couldn't have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves."



***also, I should add, my originally posted article above regarding American views on inequality/obamacare was written by Thomas B. Edsall, NYTimes APRIL 15, 2015

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#39 Post by Hype » Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:11 am

I think I disagree. This is the kind of Bill Hicks line. Blaming Americans for getting themselves into the mess they're in.

But proletarian delusions aren't what has generated wealth inequality. What generates wealth inequality is pretty simply the wealthiest individuals and corporations acting for their unfettered immediate interests, controlling political messaging, and using influence in a positive-feedback loop to gain more influence.

The Simpsons had jokes about "quintile disparity" and "the income gap" a quarter of a century ago, just as Clinton's term was beginning, but probably those jokes either weren't taken seriously (... right? They're just jokes...) or are drowned out (along with The Daily Show) by money and special-interests.

It's not really the public's fault that they can't see how to vote in their own (short and long-term) interests... the narrative is skewed so far to the right, economically, and religion has skewed things so far to the right socially, that they don't stand a chance unless they manage to get to NY or LA, and don't fall into money.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#40 Post by mockbee » Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:26 am

Adurentibus Spina wrote:I think I disagree. This is the kind of Bill Hicks line. Blaming Americans for getting themselves into the mess they're in.

But proletarian delusions aren't what has generated wealth inequality. What generates wealth inequality is pretty simply the wealthiest individuals and corporations acting for their unfettered immediate interests, controlling political messaging, and using influence in a positive-feedback loop to gain more influence.

The Simpsons had jokes about "quintile disparity" and "the income gap" a quarter of a century ago, just as Clinton's term was beginning, but probably those jokes either weren't taken seriously (... right? They're just jokes...) or are drowned out (along with The Daily Show) by money and special-interests.

It's not really the public's fault that they can't see how to vote in their own (short and long-term) interests... the narrative is skewed so far to the right, economically, and religion has skewed things so far to the right socially, that they don't stand a chance unless they manage to get to NY or LA, and don't fall into money.
I see where you are coming from. But are you essentially saying the poor and working class are not terribly bright? Can't see through the smokescreen of money in politics? :noclue:

My question to you would be this.

If the working poor really 'want' socialism and aren't stupid, why is it "dangerous" for Hillary to push an "income equality" agenda?

And I doubt that Elizabeth Warren, who says all the right stuff would ever take off with the proletariat.

It baffles me, but it's true...... :noclue:

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#41 Post by Hype » Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:56 am

It's not that the poor and working class are not particularly bright. Though education and class do correlate, it doesn't matter. Propaganda and control of messaging aren't about being intelligent enough to see through it. There are loads of people with college educations and high-income jobs who don't always see media, advertising, corporate messaging, etc., for what it is. Part of what marketing assholes bank on is that we just run out of energy. This is a basic maxim of sales: willpower only goes so far. So children are easy to hook: you just market directly, overtly, to their senses. Adults might take subliminal marketing, or deceit... but it's again got nothing to do with intelligence.

If you've ever been suckered into paying for something you really really really didn't intend to pay for, and even realized that you mistakenly thought it was a deal... you've experienced the same phenomenon as the one that I think lies behind a lot of this.

There are so many foundations, funds, lobbying groups, and think-tanks. It's true that these exist for liberals/democrats too, but it's difficult, if not impossible. to see how you could spin support for liberal/democratic policies as against the interests of the poor and working class. The fact is, most people don't care enough to think carefully about these issues, and generally support whatever sounds best to them. You might think this suffices for self-interest, and in a narrow sense, yeah, it does, but it's not rational self-interest, which is what is required for a social contract.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#42 Post by mockbee » Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:19 am

Adurentibus Spina wrote:It's not that the poor and working class are not particularly bright. Though education and class do correlate, it doesn't matter. Propaganda and control of messaging aren't about being intelligent enough to see through it. There are loads of people with college educations and high-income jobs who don't always see media, advertising, corporate messaging, etc., for what it is. Part of what marketing assholes bank on is that we just run out of energy. This is a basic maxim of sales: willpower only goes so far. So children are easy to hook: you just market directly, overtly, to their senses. Adults might take subliminal marketing, or deceit... but it's again got nothing to do with intelligence.

If you've ever been suckered into paying for something you really really really didn't intend to pay for, and even realized that you mistakenly thought it was a deal... you've experienced the same phenomenon as the one that I think lies behind a lot of this.

There are so many foundations, funds, lobbying groups, and think-tanks. It's true that these exist for liberals/democrats too, but it's difficult, if not impossible. to see how you could spin support for liberal/democratic policies as against the interests of the poor and working class. The fact is, most people don't care enough to think carefully about these issues, and generally support whatever sounds best to them. You might think this suffices for self-interest, and in a narrow sense, yeah, it does, but it's not rational self-interest, which is what is required for a social contract.
So you would agree with my statement........?
Really, it's the proletariat we need to concern our efforts with reforming...........not politicians.

Politicians aren't stupid...................they get elected. :noclue:

My comments, or references, to the delusional proletariat is not without merit. My extended family, and many, many, many people of the working poor that I have conversed with say they are concerned about what the government can take from them.........when they have nothing. Then, in turn, take actions that fly in the face of reason. Just look at a parking lot at any area indian casino, or las vegas, or the lottery or keno* (*serious investment strategy by some close relatives..... :neutral: )

They are all a ticket, a pull on a lever or a couple numbers away from never having to worry about money again. And when they get there, when they get to that promised land ".......I don't want guvmnt' take all that I have earned fer meself! They gotta keep their grubby hands off a my money!" (verbatim................... :scared: )

You are right, they are not stupid.......well, just as stupid as some rich guy....but intelligence really isn't a factor in this, I agree with you there.

A huge contingent of working poor are delusional--- just like the rest of us are, in one way or another.

It's just unfortunate that their delusion cements themselves in shitty circumstances, while the upper crust and middle class (what's left of them) get to sit pretty in their delusions, enjoying a second million dollar condo or mailing off another $100 check to PETA......


I really like this Steinbeck quote:

"A Primer on the '30s." Esquire, June 1960: 85-93.

"Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property.
"I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew—at least they claimed to be Communists—couldn't have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves."

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#43 Post by Hype » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:48 pm

It's not a personal responsibility issue, it's a collective/social responsibility issue. If we don't have educated, powerful people (i.e., people who can change things) who believe that things need to be done differently, things won't be done differently. So-called "grass-roots" movements make use of ordinary people, but are only successful if there's some kind of change in power. You either storm the Bastille or you hope that enough people are able to be convinced to vote against the worst policies. Rarely is democracy able to produce anything resembling a "best" candidate. Emotions are the best way to motivate people, especially fear and anger, so if the Right or the Wealthy can leverage that, they will be able to maintain power just by throwing money at ways to generate those emotions toward their opponents, no matter how stupid the people or policies that remain in place are.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#44 Post by mockbee » Wed Apr 15, 2015 2:06 pm

I agree, we can't just sit around and wait for the working poor to figure out their own problems (which in turn are all of our problems). I think that is what you are saying. But are you also saying, it is just a matter of getting more of them to vote, and in turn vote bad people out of office and then we can start getting somewhere? I don't think it is as simple as that.


I think what you might be getting at, is how do we use the same leverage, that the Right and wealthy use (and the elite liberal class) to make people believe they are voting for their best self interest, when really they are voting people in who maintain or often worsen the status quo.

It is a collective problem, yes. How do "we" (the educated, liberal, young with time on our hands class) address it without seeming preachy and condescending? That is a real question I have, and I think one Obama really struggles with in terms of connecting with people. Clinton, as in Bill, was a master at that........honestly, he should be president again.......... He might not lean left enough for my taste, but he would do really well, especially in connecting with the plebs.

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Re: The "Republican" Perspective

#45 Post by Hype » Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:56 pm

My favourite American politician is Bernie Sanders, because he isn't really a politician. He's an activist who somehow managed to get into office. Here's one thing he's been pushing for: http://www.politicususa.com/2015/04/15/ ... thers.html
I think the issue is, frankly, it’s not just Hillary, Elizabeth, or Bernie Sanders, or anybody else. This country faces enormous problems. Our middle-class is disappearing. We [have] more people living in poverty than at any time in the history of America. We’re the only major country without a national health care program guaranteeing health care for all people. What’s it all about? The question is this one basic question. How to take on a billionaire class, which has so much economic power, and with Citizens United, can now buy elections. Where we are moving in many ways towards an oligarchic form of society rather than our traditional democracy.
Who is prepared to do it? So let me just say this, no president, not Hillary, not Bernie Sanders, not anybody, will succeed unless there is a mass mobilization of millions of people who stand up and say, enough is enough. Koch brothers and billionaires can’t have it all.
….
The bottom line is we need people to stand up to the billionaire class, and their economic and political power. That is what we need.
The problem is that because he's not afraid to call himself what he is, a socialist, the so-called "Bubbas" (as Mike "Gay for Jesus" Huckabee calls them) won't really listen to what he's saying.

One of the most important things I got out of living in Wisconsin for the brief time I did was how fucked up the difference between affluent, educated, white collar university townsfolk and their brothers in the villages and towns everywhere else really is. It's fucked up precisely because it's not a real difference: it's an arbitrary orchestrated one that plays on both in-group/out-group hostility and fear of increased hardship. The city of Madison tries to do something good; cue backlash from the batshit extremists who don't just say they disagree with a policy, but express outright anger toward the city itself. It's really absurd. Especially since often these issues would benefit the very people that get angry.

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