[deleted--please do not pimp on topic threads. There is an open thread available for general discussion]

And should the economy play in the '08 elections, George Will will sniff that it's class warfare, as if there's something wrong with that.

But this is even more pertinent: The richest 2% of adults in the world own half its wealth, the richest 10% own 85% of it, and the bottom half with just 1%.- (From James Petras, “ Rulers and Ruled in the U.S. Empire”)

Rebel Yell @ 5:

But this is even more pertinent: The richest 2% of adults in the world own half its wealth, the richest 10% own 85% of it, and the bottom half with just 1%.- (From James Petras, “ Rulers and Ruled in the U.S. Empire”)

That leaves us peaons each (on average) with 1/300billionth of the world's wealth.

George Will has not had a coherent thought since grade school.

The rich are getting richer? No shit? Ya really think?!?

The Bush cabal has done more harm than most Americans realize. I worked my entire life. Then 4 years ago, I had a debilitating stroke. (Early in life, too -- I wasn't even 50 years old.) I was a technical writer and have trouble remembering proper nouns. End of my profession! And, to add to my problems, the IRS came after me. Let me say, I have always filed my taxes. Every year. Honestly. Yet, the IRS slapped me with "back taxes" for 4 YEARS. Yes, they claimed my taxes weren't done correctly, and because of penalties and interest, I owed about $14,000. Let me tell you, tech writers don't make that kind of money. When I said I would use the laws allowed during the years in question, such as "Earned Income Tax Credit," I was told NO! The Statute of Limitation was over on that! Huh? You want me to re-file taxes for years ago, but won't let me use the laws for that year?

IRS = crooks. Squeeze every drop you can out of regular Americans (illegally, but who can argue with the IRS?), so the super rich can get a break.

I think the baby boomer generation will go down as the dumbest generation ever born. That generation supported the Iraq war more than younger people, even though they had Vietnam under their belt, and they sat like fools as Bush squandered the Social Security surpluses on tax cuts for the rich.

Back under Reagan, workers were told that payroll tax increases were needed in order for Social Security to meet the retirement needs of the baby boomers. Thereafter, Social Security took in surpluses year after year. These surpluses were then "loaned" to the government. Bush's commission on Social Security, back in 2001 said these loans were not "real assets" of Social Security and need not be paid back, which is the crux of Social Security "reform". So Social Security has been converted somewhat into a flat income tax on wage earners, with the proceeds used to facilitate the tax abatements of dividend and interest earners. Social security reform now centers on reducing payouts. The icing on the cake will be the enactment of a national sales tax so that people spending their reduced Social Security payments will be taxed on anything they buy. At this point, I don't think the amounts owed Social Security can be paid back, with the runup in the deficit.

Meanwhile, corporate earnings enjoy the largest percentage of the GDP ever in history, according to Market monitor Elaine Garzarelli, on the Nightly Business Report.

We pick between two corporate financed candidates for President, and then wonder why our jobs are being transferred to foreign countries, and Mexicans imported to do the work that can't be moved out of the country. This is about the only competition our politicians believe in, which it to pit our labor markets against foreign labor, with the intent and effect of driving down wages in this country, which contributes to the decline in middle class incomes. On the issues, Dennis Kucinich is more in line with what I believe than any other candidate. "My first act in office will be to notify the appropriate parties that the United States is pulling out of NAFTA and the WTO." Until America stops voting for a corporate sponsored candidate, this government will continue to be a government of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation.

Thing is, now with international markets, and Saudi Arabia alone owning 7% of the stock market, these corporate owners of our politicians aren't necessarily Americans, so we can't expect our corporate owned politician to represent us - instead, they represent a "new world order" of international corporations.

Why only look back as far as WW2 (the post-war period) for your historical perspective?

The top 1% of us haven't had it this good since the last time they held title to 20%+ or so of the national income. The last time was 1928-29. What followed was ... well, you know what happened.

Enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe this time will be different.

[...] How long will this go on before the US economy as a whole is incapacitated because the huge consumer market shrinks and the Middle Cklass that used to buy more stuff cannot…making the market smaller?  Story is here [...]

15 NoBuddy

You are going to blame a generation?

An entire generation?

Wow, you ARE discerning, aren't you?

Yet who do the IRS audit? The middle-classes and below, because they can't afford the fancy pants tax attorneys, shelters and off-shore accounts.

Last night on Bill Moyers he had two former SEC heads basically saying we're heading to another Great Depression on par with '29. Even though one was a Ray Gunnite hey both argued that regulation is necessary in financial markets to make sure the machinery is operating correctly. According to them, some of the products financial markets sale are so abstract the SEC and other financial experts have difficulty figuring them out, and they're being sold to the general populace.

Soon there will be only two classes, the truly needy and the truly greedy!

ysbaddaden @ 26:

I saw an interview with Ron Paul on the Leher Newshour last night. He seemed to be an agreeable chap, but presumably outside his medical expertise dumb as a box of rocks. He not only misphrased then misused the Establishment Clause, his "solutions" were way too simplistic. Despite his saying he was a Constituionalist he conveniently overlooks pertinent clauses in the power of Congress to regulate commerce between states and Nations, and in this deleniation of power almost always follow all laws and regulation needed to enforce the law just enacted (my paraphrase.) This is the power that creates all the agencies.

As for the Federal Reserve he wants to abolish, this is what guarantees our banks savings. People doing the right thing could lose a fortune simply because of financial mismanagements of banks and governmental economic decisions.

He is textbook Libertarian; ignorant, proud of it, and with an infinite tunnel vision. They approaches have led to catastrophic outcomes EVERY time. Yet, what do they propose? The same shit AGAIN.

Incidentally I know a shitload of libertarians, most of them dropouts, and most of them with a penchant to regurgitate misquotes that were force fed to them at their latest libertarian meet up (or circle jerk if you will). Had they stayed in school the would have a) Appreciate the usefulness of an education --I have been asked time and time again, what was the point of me going to grad school and earning a PhD in applied sciences? After all they can read a book and get the same knowledge, right? I mean who can compete with that!!!--, and b) they would have had a chance to actually read the rest of the book and understand the concept behind the misquoted totally out of context slew of quotes that seem to make up their ideology.

The government is not working. So what do they propose? Abolish it, and every man for themselves. Because, obviously the rest of the world is going to sit idle and eat us alive (economically), while we are living under the law of the jungle under production and economic approaches that are more suited to the XIX century.

In most other countries, a person like Ron Paul would have been laughed out of town long ago. But in this country with such a shit lineup when it comes to conservative candidates, he looks half sane in comparison (still fully batshit crazy on his own accord though...) but that is about it. When all your see is shit, the shiniest part of it may look appetizing, however in its true context... it is still that: shit, and you should stay away from it. How people look at Ron Paul as some sort of "savior" corroborates my initial assumption about the large number of degenerate selfish pricks who live in this country.

lafin gas @ 27:

Soon there will be only two classes, the truly needy and the truly greedy!

And when the truly needy hold out their bowls and say, "Please sir, I want some more," they'll be blamed for trying to create class warfare.

I forgot to mention during the 19th century there were at least 8 depressions and major bank failures.

Back in the 19th century we were largely rural and agrarian, so one could possibly start over by working as a hired hand on a ranch or farm, until one could afford a spread of our own. But government decisions made it so by the 1920's we were largely city dwellers who were employed, not self-employed. Right before World War II, vagrancy laws started to change, so someone from another state who moves to a state like California to look for jobs couldn't be denied entry. So the populace became much more mobile, trekking large georgraphic distances for jobs like nomads after wild game. In the aftermath of the World War II, the splintering of families continued further by the so called nuclear family that was further isolated. No uncles, aunts, grandparents or anyone else nearby, and spread further and further apart. So families could no longer necessarily support each other in times of need.

Meanwhile churches are more into cosolidating power, with the most expensive buildings and broadcast facilities, and middle-class women who used to collect for the community chest no longer have the free time to do so as they are also in the job market, or they've dropped below or struggle to remain in the middle-class.

Auf wiedersehen,

Time to swim some laps.

(I'd prefer lap dancing.)

As I struggle to pay my school taxes, I realize I also have non-ending utlilty bills to pay. Plus other bills that hit you from all directions. As a single person, on a single job, I just love to hear the rich are getting richer. I kinda wonder where that pay raise I should have gotten two years ago went to, I'm so damn happy the rich are richer that I could just shit.

The middle class is no more, thanks to the Republican congress under the Newt, Hastert and others and six years of this fuckhead in the White House. They have damn near bankrupted me. The Republicans in effect created a class war, and there is only rich and poor now. Any working person who votes for a Republi-Puke is a traitor to his country.

This is so wrong. Balance is desperately needed.
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motorfingaz @ 2:

Meanwhile........

Since 2000, authorities at the Internal Revenue Service have nearly tripled audits of tax returns filed by people making $25,000 to $100,000 as part of a broad change in audit strategy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/business/16tax.html

Guess the have to steal the money from somewhere so why not start with the poor!

R. I. P America 1776 - 2000

ITS BEEN REAL!

Well, according to Bush - this is where the tax cheats are. He said so himself. After all - they do need to keep us desperately poor, ill and highly stressed or else we might inconvenience his administration by thinking about what's actually going on in our country.

Life in America is surreal right now.
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"15 NoBuddy You are going to blame a generation? ...Wow, you ARE discerning, aren’t you?

As far as the Baby boomers are concerned, I characterized rather than blame. As far as blame is concerned, people who didn't vote get a large share of the blame, since the fundamentalists seems to get a near 100% turnout, giving them an influence disproportionate to their numbers.

But it was the baby boomers who were at work in the 1980's when Social Security reform was enacted and payroll taxes raised to pay for their SS retirement checks. Now that they're on the verge of receiving Social Security, reform looms on the horizon, and once Social Security fails to take in as much as it pays out, cuts are inevitable. Yet the issue is barely on the horizon today. Bush, content with raiding SS will leave the hard choices to the next administration. While there is plenty of "blame" to go around, to lots of sources, I do think that collectively, the baby boomers can be characterized as "dumbbells" for casting a blind eye on the fiscal policies that will bite them in the ass shortly.

We heard during the Nasdaq bubble, pronouncements that it was a "new economy" where earnings didn't matter. That bubble bursted. We saw during the real estate bubble, a new interest only loan, where the borrower gets a few years to figure out how to pay back the principle. Who would have thunk that there would be defaults regarding this loan instrument? Now, I think I heard that Cheney has said that deficits don't matter. That makes me think that there is a debt bubble looming, and how that plays out is anyone's guess. I think the baby boomers were crazy for not vehemently advocating the balanced budget policies of the Clinton administration as the best hope of avoiding a severe economic downturn if the debt bubble explodes, and the best hope of maintaining benefit levels in Social Security, a benefit they will be entitled to shortly.

Thank you, Mr. Bush.
While the Bush Administration gives tax breaks to the rich, we, the middle and lower class suffer and pay for it.
The idea of tax breaks during wartime is unheard of, except during the Bush Administration.
The American economy is weak. Alan Greenspan finally stated that the economy was slowing down.
The mess that the Bush Administration put us in will take decades to repair.

[...] I know you ain’t gonna believe this, the rich are getting richer. [...]