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So instead of considering CEOs that make hundreds of times the salary of the vast majority of their employees in the states and probably thousands more in 3rd world, and yet prices never seem to drop despite increases in productivity and none in wages, and yet they still get rewarded for failure with tax payer fueled bailouts and bonuses
BUT
unions and at best lax regulation are the cause of our recent maladies?
Oh how I wish, I could be swept off my feet, and whisked away to Glen Beck's parallel universe, and rest my weary head on Bristie and Sarah's bosoms.
Alas, one can only believe so much in hopey changey, you betcha.
Hey Kovert, while your one-sided view of what is wrong is nice, meanwhile back down here on the planet called Earth, there is more to the picture than the one you're painting. Unions are not a big part of the problem you say? Why did the unions even get bailed out? Why did the share holders of GM get the shaft while the feds and the union made out? Why do cars cost so much to produce in the USA (GM)? Because they were paying some half educated fool $50/hr to run a machine that puts lug nuts on a wheel. You ok with that? I see you're all about bashing people who make unecessary salaries, start there. A damn monkey could do that job and here we are paying them outlandishly with over the top pensions and benefits. Many teachers and public workers also fall into that category. The unions have all but bankrupted the states with their over-the-top contracts and pensions. You also talk about Beck like he had anything to do with or even supports sending our manufacturing over seas. I think your progressive buddy Clinton and his shill of a wife had alot to do with that also. You see Kovert, Progressives and Liberals are ALL about sending our stuff to other countries. They/you believe that we have to lower our standard of living here in the US so other poor countries can raise theirs. That is accomplished through sending our manufacturing to them, which in other words is called "Wealth Redistribution". That's what you guys want isn't it? Oh, you thought distributing the wealth meant raising up America's poor? Haha, the joke is on all who believes that. It is not about that, it is about lowering American's standard of living by transferring America's wealth to other poorer countries. Change you can believe in buddy!
Hey Kovert, while your one-sided view of what is wrong is nice, meanwhile back down here on the planet called Earth, there is more to the picture than the one you're painting. Unions are not a big part of the problem you say? Why did the unions even get bailed out? Why did the share holders of GM get the shaft while the feds and the union made out? Why do cars cost so much to produce in the USA (GM)? Because they were paying some half educated fool $50/hr to run a machine that puts lug nuts on a wheel. You ok with that? I see you're all about bashing people who make unecessary salaries, start there. A damn monkey could do that job and here we are paying them outlandishly with over the top pensions and benefits. Many teachers and public workers also fall into that category. The unions have all but bankrupted the states with their over-the-top contracts and pensions. You also talk about Beck like he had anything to do with or even supports sending our manufacturing over seas. I think your progressive buddy Clinton and his shill of a wife had alot to do with that also. You see Kovert, Progressives and Liberals are ALL about sending our stuff to other countries. They/you believe that we have to lower our standard of living here in the US so other poor countries can raise theirs. That is accomplished through sending our manufacturing to them, which in other words is called "Wealth Redistribution". That's what you guys want isn't it? Oh, you thought distributing the wealth meant raising up America's poor? Haha, the joke is on all who believes that. It is not about that, it is about lowering American's standard of living by transferring America's wealth to other poorer countries. Change you can believe in buddy!
What is socialism about? Raising the standard of living for the poor so they can enjoy life like the middle class do? No, historically, socialism was about taking the welath away from the upper and middle classes so that way everyone is poor and equal!
Hey Kovert, while your one-sided view of what is wrong is nice, meanwhile back down here on the planet called Earth, there is more to the picture than the one you're painting. Unions are not a big part of the problem you say? Why did the unions even get bailed out? Why did the share holders of GM get the shaft while the feds and the union made out? Why do cars cost so much to produce in the USA (GM)? Because they were paying some half educated fool $50/hr to run a machine that puts lug nuts on a wheel. You ok with that? I see you're all about bashing people who make unecessary salaries, start there. A damn monkey could do that job and here we are paying them outlandishly with over the top pensions and benefits. Many teachers and public workers also fall into that category. The unions have all but bankrupted the states with their over-the-top contracts and pensions. You also talk about Beck like he had anything to do with or even supports sending our manufacturing over seas. I think your progressive buddy Clinton and his shill of a wife had alot to do with that also. You see Kovert, Progressives and Liberals are ALL about sending our stuff to other countries. They/you believe that we have to lower our standard of living here in the US so other poor countries can raise theirs. That is accomplished through sending our manufacturing to them, which in other words is called "Wealth Redistribution". That's what you guys want isn't it? Oh, you thought distributing the wealth meant raising up America's poor? Haha, the joke is on all who believes that. It is not about that, it is about lowering American's standard of living by transferring America's wealth to other poorer countries. Change you can believe in buddy!
This is one of the best examples I can think of that epitomizes the dumbing down of America.
Obviously the poster has either failed miserably in being able to comprehend my posts or typically failed to read any of my posts but just started his ranting and raving on courtesy of his indoctrination by lunatic fringe radio disc jockeys.
I would normally just slice and dice his ignorant ravings point by point, but frankly, this guy's just not worth it.
But take heed, lets look at the legacy of failure, utter incompetence and just plain savage track this guy is defending.
Look at the horrendous actions & policies that these lunatics take pride and joy in.
They are nothing more than a millennial, lunatic fringe cult that want the death and destruction of everything our Founding Fathers stood for:
Quote:
Originally Posted by kovert
This type of post is a prime example of the revisionist history Beckites love to put out there.
Lets review what 12 years of Congressional control (1994-2006), 8 years of the Presidency and a majority on the SCOTUS has brought us.
[b]"The story of today’s deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.
Moderator cut: Copyright violation
For those that don't like to read, this video lays everything out pretty nicely.
The above mainly focuses on Dumbya's reckless spending on illegal wars, cutting taxes especially for the wealthy and initiating an unpaid for nazi/socialist gubbermint health plan.
Dumbya also had a major hand in the subprime mess that brought the global economy to the brink. This is especially interesting for those that keep whining and crying about Fannie and Freddie.
[b]"But Wall Street was let off the hook by the OCC. Shortly after Georgia's law took effect, the OCC preempted the law at the request of National City Bank, whose subsidiary, First Franklin, was a major subprime lender in Georgia.
And what fruits came out from the nutjobs that have stolen and defiled the once proud party of Lincoln, ZERO job growth for the 1st time since the depression.
"To mark this week’s focus on the dismal state of the U.S. job market, check out the following chart, which shows the trajectory of private sector U.S. employment since 1998. It tells a story of a lost decade for U.S. workers.
The U.S. now produces fewer private sector jobs than it did a decade ago. This been the case since August, and it’s getting worse. In October, private sector companies employed 108.401 million U.S. workers, a million fewer than in October 1999, when they employed 109.487 million. Not since the Labor Department began tracking payroll employment in 1939 has there been such a stretch with no net job gains.
How to explain the gap? One obvious answer is that the U.S. has suffered through two recessions during this stretch. The first, in 2001, was short and mild but included more than two years of job cuts. The second one starting in 2007 has been long and brutal."
And to make matters worse the corporate activist judges advanced the move toward an oligarchi banana republic when it declared BP and Goldman Sacs are decent, innocent people in dire need of constitutional protection and coddling.
So this is the proud legacy the lunatics that have hijacked the once proud GOP and the right have bequeathed to us and our descendants.
The deliberate death and dismantling of everything the Founding Fathers stood for.
Lets be clear, they are not conservative, they are not right wingers, they are not Republicans.
They are the tea baggin' lunatic fringe cult of Beck and their mission is the destruction of the Constitution and the establishment of a pseudo-Christian fundamentalist state with multi-nationals ruling territories as their own personal fiefdoms.
That is what they are and that is what they are about.
Make no mistake about it, these cult worshipers aim to bring the nation back to the Dark Ages. Working & middle income America, don't let them do it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed
What is socialism about? Raising the standard of living for the poor so they can enjoy life like the middle class do? No, historically, socialism was about taking the welath away from the upper and middle classes so that way everyone is poor and equal!
Hey mac, what the hell is up with you and the rantings about socialism?
Buddy, the only one that seems to got a jones for socialism is you since you keep talking about it.
"The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.
New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program (http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/ppip_fact_sheet.pdf - broken link), designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008."
I think many tea partiers should take a look at this article.
Especially if they are sincere about changing politics and how the system works.
"Rick Scott, the populist running for governor in Florida, was chief executive of a health care corporation that scooped up so many Medicare and Medicaid payments it had to settle charges for defrauding taxpayers. Rand Paul, the scion of a congressman, is an ophthalmologist whose calls for spending restraint don’t extend to his own Medicare income. Carl Paladino, the truculent man of the people in New York, grew his fortune as a developer with government handouts and favors. His California bookend, Carly Fiorina, received a golden parachute worth as much as $42 millionshe liquidated some 20,000 jobs.
Such deep-pocketed mystery benefactors — not O’Donnell, whose reported income for this year and last is $5,800 — are the real indicators of what’s going on under the broad Tea Party rubric. Big money rains down on the “bottom up” Tea Party insurgency through phantom front organizations (Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Job Security) that exploit legal loopholes to keep their sugar daddies’ names secret. Reporters at The Times and The Washington Post, among others, have lately made real strides in explaining how the game works. But we still don’t know the identities of most of those anonymous donors.
The rank and file Tea Partiers say they oppose government spending and deficits. The billionaires have no problem with federal spending as long as the pork is corporate pork. They, like most Republican leaders in 2008, supported the Bush administration’s Wall Street bailout. They also don’t mind deficits as long as they get their outsize cut of the red ink — $3.8 trillion worth if all the Bush tax cuts are made permanent."
Really, the party people that love sipping tea should do more extensive background checks on the the guys they are backing because it seems these guys are logically at odds with what the party people are saying.
"But lost in all the media finger-pointing is the fact that Pat Toomey, who in any other year would be among the most conservative candidates in the country, is on a glide path to take Arlen Specter's old Senate seat. The former congressman and Wall Street banker has led in the Pennsylvania polls for months.
None of the early derivative disasters seemed to have an impact on Toomey's boosterism for the industry. When he came to Congress, he was on a mission. "The trend in deregulation, beginning in the early 1980s, is one of the biggest reasons for the sustained economic expansion," he told [8] Derivatives Strategy. "I would like to see us continue to deregulate on many fronts, including the financial services industry." Toomey worked hard to make that happen. Sestak has attacked Toomey for helping to draft bipartisan legislation that repealed the Glass-Steagall act, allowing banks to combine their investment banking and commercial divisions—and to become the behemoths that later had to be bailed out by taxpayers. But economists differ over whether Glass-Steagall repeal exacerbated the economic crisis.
In some sense, Toomey's triumphalist attitude towards derivatives is unsurprising. It's not just because his ideological conservatism predisposes him to loath regulation. It's also because unregulated trading of derivatives benefited him and his family. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" But perhaps a quote from Derivatives Strategy is more appropriate. After hearing Toomey's positions on regulation, the trade paper rejoiced. Toomey's "passionate discourse is music to the ears of derivatives players around the country," the paper reported. And indeed it was. Unfortunately, things didn't work out too well for the rest of us."
I think you should be addressing UNION proponents as they are a major reason, along with government regulations, that our manufacturing base is nearly non-existant (priced & regulated out of the competative markets). The Tea Party people already "get it".
I'm going to have to call a foul here ....
Usually, you make a lot of sense on a lot of issues ... but here ... you are falling into the "blame the victim" trap, while letting the culprits off the hook, similarly to how the bankers wanted to blame the financial crisis on home mortgage defaults.
While lower foreign wages have been a primary factor in corporate off shoring of manufacturing, unions and US wages have had NOTHING to do with it. The problem has been, and continues to be insatiable corporate greed coupled with government corruption of the highest order which have worked together to cut the throats of the American workers who in most cases created these respective industries.
The use of foreign "slave labor" which in many cases reflect wages in the fraction of a dollar per hour rate is IMPOSSIBLE to compete with under any scenario, unions or no unions. An effective "livable" wage in the US is still exponentially higher than the .37 per hour 3rd world labor rate which is also devoid of any human rights protections or regulations.
And this really is nothing new ... there has always been slave labor available around the world ... what is relatively new in modern terms is the dismantling of fair trade protections (tariffs) under the guise of "free trade" and globalization which has allowed these corporations to export entire manufacturing operations overseas, and then re-import the products made back into the US market place, without penalties. This opened the door to the flood of slave labor produced goods to saturate US markets.
Remember those big ears of Ross Perrot and how he warned "That big sucking sound is all of the jobs leaving the US and moving off shore" ?
This destruction of US manufacturing was well orchestrated by the Powers That Be, and they knew all along what they were doing ... all the while LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH to the American public, claiming that NAFTA and the other "free trade" agreements would be beneficial.
So don't blame the unions or the workers for this ... short of setting up slave labor camps in the US, housing workers in prison like dormitory labor collectives ... there is no way for US labor to compete with these foreign slave labor operations.
All of the corporations have engaged in this fraud bordering on TREASON ... take your pick .....Nike, Levi Strauss, Dell Computers, AT&T, Apple, General Electric, or any other large corporation you can name ... each one established their corporate empires with the use of US workers, only to lobby government to pass legislation and trade agreements that slit the throats of the US worker, and ultimately, the United States itself.
These corporations and their political lackeys have done more harm to the United States than ANY foreign enemy or threat.
At the end of the day ... it was a huge "bait and switch" all the way around. Corporations like General Electric established their reputation for great products by the skills and expertise and work ethic of the American worker .. now they attach their GE name to total GARBAGE that is void of any quality whatsoever. As an example ... all of our household appliances are GE ... and they are the most useless junk I've ever seen ... refrigerator, oven, dishwasher ... fancy faux stainless steel facades, and totally poor operating and unreliable internal JUNK components. And you really have little alternative choices ..
By contrast, take the good old Kitchen Aid electric mixer ... still manufactured in the US ... and just as solid and reliable as those made 60 years ago which have been handed down from mother to daughter. Expensive, yes ... but you only need to buy ONE ... and it will work, and continue working, and probably outlive it's owner.
I guess the party people are cool with "socialist nazis" after all.
"In an article on Tuesday, The New York Times managed to track down one of the group's major contributors: Bruce Rastetter, "a co-founder and the chief executive of one of the nation's larger ethanol companies, Hawkeye Energy Holdings, and a rising force in state Republican politics."
AFF describes itself in general terms as "a multi- state issues advocacy group designed to effectively communicate conservative and free market ideals." "[i]t is imperative there be a voice for conservative principles that sustains free market ideals focused on bolstering America's global competitiveness across the country," states the group's website. If you search the AFF website, the word "ethanol" comes up just once. But, as the Times reported, its advocacy work has often lined up with Rastetter's business interests in more subtle ways:
Agricultural subsidies more generally have become a hot campaign issue this election cycle. Democrats have been going after Republican candidates who rail against government spending in one breath and accept or support federal farm subsidies in the next."
Do you guys enjoy being the tea baggees for the likes of that Saudi Arabian backed eunuch Murdock or are you about real reform?
"You're not seeing a "populist" uprising on the right. You're seeing lobbyist and billionaire money at work, channeling genuine frustration and anger into an electoral plan designed to help bankers get even richer.
The "government takeover" argument is ridiculous, of course. In this case they're talking about a government takeover... of government. This is the public's money, and it's intended to be lent to students and their families so that the dream of an ever-more-expensive college education is available to more families. Taxpayers support this program so much that neither Kirk nor Rossi could afford to criticize it. But not too many of those taxpayers would support taking billions of their dollars and funneling it to Wall Street, as the GOP would do.
So my question for the Tea Party rank and file is this: Are you going to let the big banks and their politician cronies play you like this? Are you going to be a sucker? They've got $90 billion that says you will."
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