DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Lanya on November 16, 2006, 05:03:21 PM
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ELECTION 2006
Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard.
BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.
Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.
In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.
Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.
This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the "rough road of capitalism." Others claim that it's the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.
Still others have gone so far as to argue that these divisions are the natural results of a competitive society. Furthermore, an unspoken insinuation seems to be inundating our national debate: Certain immigrant groups have the "right genetics" and thus are natural entrants to the "overclass," while others, as well as those who come from stock that has been here for 200 years and have not made it to the top, simply don't possess the necessary attributes.
Most Americans reject such notions. But the true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.
America's elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other "First World" nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that "unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash" in America that would take us away from what they view to be the "biggest economic stimulus in world history."
More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The "Wal-Marting" of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.
The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to succeed.
With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.
Mr. Webb is the Democratic senator-elect from Virginia.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246
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A good article, much better than one would expect from the Opinion Journal.
I don't see where the workers are actually getting their opinion heard, though, regardless of which party is in control. These days, to run for office requires either huge amounts of personal fortune, or at least a personal fortune large enough for the candidate to gain contact with those who control a huge fortune.
Every time a Democrat mentions this growing problem, the Republicans acceuse him of "class warfare", when it is they, with their loopholes and tax breaks, that are causing the destruction of the middle class and the rise of a monetary oligarchy to occur.
The fact is that resources ARE limited, and when one class grows faster than the economy, the other classes lose.
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There are a lot of criticisms I could make about that opinion piece by Mr. Webb. But I'll simply ask one question. Why should Mr. Webb's opinions about economic fairness become the law of the land?
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Every time a Democrat mentions this growing problem, the Republicans acceuse him of "class warfare", when it is they, with their loopholes and tax breaks, that are causing the destruction of the middle class and the rise of a monetary oligarchy to occur.
Nonsense. First of all, the loopholes and tax breaks are not all Republican grown. Secondly, many of those loopholes and tax breaks are what keep the rising portion of the middle class from being overburdened in their pursuit of economic success and stablity. And quite frankly, if people becoming more wealthy, i.e. rising out of the middle class, is causing the destruction of the middle class then to want that to stop would be, at the very least, mean-spirited, if not enviously selfish.
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What planet are you describing? The middle class is not disappearing because they are all becoming wealthy. Non no no, they are being impoverished as part of a plan to enrich the small wealthy elite still further.
Predictable pensions are replaces by pensions that are at the whim of the fickle stock market. Consumer debt grows and grows. People are encouraged to borrow more and more on ARM mortgages of their homes. Cars are leased, not owned, Credit card fees grow bigger and bigger. Casinos are legalized. The plan is to force the middle class to work more and more years just to stay alive.
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What planet are you describing? The middle class is not disappearing because they are all becoming wealthy. Non no no, they are being impoverished as part of a plan to enrich the small wealthy elite still further.
Predictable pensions are replaces by pensions that are at the whim of the fickle stock market. Consumer debt grows and grows. People are encouraged to borrow more and more on ARM mortgages of their homes. Cars are leased, not owned, Credit card fees grow bigger and bigger. Casinos are legalized. The plan is to force the middle class to work more and more years just to stay alive.
Not all changes are planned ones nor do I see anything that is necessacerily a change at all.
When JP Morgan was an international leader, by virtue of his ability to gather and distribute money , he was able to rescue the US from its debts by refinanceing the national debt , I don't think that any one or even any one percent of us could do such a thing now.
There may be a flux in the trend of the rich to get richer , faster at some times than others , but I don't see that our present poor are more poor than the Poor of a century past or two centurys past , or any other set of poor you can find in history , nor do I see that our present rich have more clout than they did a century ago or two or ten.
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What planet are you describing? The middle class is not disappearing because they are all becoming wealthy.
They're not all becoming wealthy, but many of them are.
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It is nice to see a Democrat actually discussing wages and class, but as always the focus is on the ill-defined "middle class."
There may be a flux in the trend of the rich to get richer , faster at some times than others , but I don't see that our present poor are more poor than the Poor of a century past or two centurys past , or any other set of poor you can find in history , nor do I see that our present rich have more clout than they did a century ago or two or ten.
There is quite a bit of difference in the relationships between the wealthiest citizens and the poorest citizens over the past centuries, especially if you wish to delve a millennia back in time.
Also, just because you percieve no recognizable difference in positions between the poor and wealthy (even if we accept that as true) does not mean that we should accept that as the proper model of society.
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The middle class is slipping in this country and every statistic shows it.
Even if every once in a while, some middle-class person does very well and becomes wealthy, this is the exception and never the rule.
It is the plan of the ruling elite in this country to beat down the middle class into a subservient bunch of wageslaves. Observe what has happened to the auto industry and the airline industry. They have been hammered on a regular basis into givebacks and reductions, which was far worse in the airline industry because at least the UAW has some power.
If American cars are shoddy, by the way, it it NOT the work of the autoworker, but the work of clowns like Roger Smith at GM who tried to foist impotent Chevvies off on the publics as Pontiacs, Oldses and Caddies by just adding better upholstery and snazzier trim.
There is no way a line worker at GM can ever make a decent car out of Vega parts. There is no way a Ford line worker could ever prevent a Torino from combining with the atmosphere as they all seem to have done by now.
One person would be a smaller number than one percent of us, by the way. JP Morgan was a huge exception, and no American has ever wieilded suchg economic power as he in all our history. Being a huge exception, he is not typical of anything, anywhere, at any time.
His bailing out the US might have been a great feat, but he suffered not a whit from having done it. Several years later, his payback was US entry in WWI, which killed, widowed and orphaned more than any economic panic has ever done. JP Morgan was therefore NOT an example of someone we need to hang around, but rather the contrary.
There are major differences between the richest and the poorest: in education, mental health, physical health and lifespan.
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The middle class is slipping in this country and every statistic shows it.
Funny, I've seen statistics that show the wealthiest groups growing at an ever faster rate.
It is the plan of the ruling elite in this country to beat down the middle class into a subservient bunch of wageslaves.
No it's not.
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Just because the heads on a Chevy Vega melted and the Chevy Citation occasionally might break in two when driving over a train track doesn't signify that anything was wrong with General Motors!
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The middle class is not disappearing because they are all becoming wealthy.
I didn't say they were all becoming wealthy. Some people do not seek to become wealthy, whatever 'wealthy' means to them. But some middle class folks do seek a level of economic success and stability that some people, you perhaps, might call wealthy. They're not out to trample on the poor, but merely to achieve an economic status that better than what they have, often for the sake of their families. Why would anyone want to interfere with that?
Non no no, they are being impoverished as part of a plan to enrich the small wealthy elite still further.
A plan? Are there meetings to decide on this plan?
Predictable pensions are replaces by pensions that are at the whim of the fickle stock market. Consumer debt grows and grows. People are encouraged to borrow more and more on ARM mortgages of their homes. Cars are leased, not owned, Credit card fees grow bigger and bigger. Casinos are legalized. The plan is to force the middle class to work more and more years just to stay alive.
For plan that is supposed force people into something, it sure seems dependent on an awful lot of entirely voluntary actions. Since the plan involves so many voluntary actions on the part of the non-wealthy elite, then I suggest you not take part in the plan, and then you can stay economically afloat while everyone else sinks into poverty. And then you can stand on your rooftop, shout "Neener, neener, neener," and do the I-told-you-so dance.
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It is the plan of the ruling elite in this country to beat down the middle class into a subservient bunch of wageslaves.
Utter nonsense.
There are major differences between the richest and the poorest: in education, mental health, physical health and lifespan.
So remind me again then why it is you want to interfere with people improving their economic position?
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I didn't say they were all becoming wealthy. Some people do not seek to become wealthy, whatever 'wealthy' means to them. But some middle class folks do seek a level of economic success and stability that some people, you perhaps, might call wealthy. They're not out to trample on the poor, but merely to achieve an economic status that better than what they have, often for the sake of their families. Why would anyone want to interfere with that?
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First off, the problem is not the relatively small number of middle class individuals who become millionaires.
The problem is the small number of bazillionaires who are becoming billionaires, and hogging the limited resources.
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It is unhealthy to society for a tiny number of individuals to dominate limited resources.
An inheritence tax on estates of over 10,000,000 of 20 or 30%, indexed to inflation would prove useful in this endeavor, and would also be a source of revenue.
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First off, the problem is not the relatively small number of middle class individuals who become millionaires.
The number of people becoming millionaires last year rose 8% - faster than the population increase. I'm sure that virtually all of these came from the middle class.
The number of millionaires rose to a record level in 2005, and more than 1.1 million of them can be found in just 10 counties.
By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer
March 29, 2006: 11:37 AM EST
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The number of American millionaires rose to a record level last year, and they're disproportionately located in four counties in California, according to an analysis released Tuesday.
Other states with counties that boast the highest number of millionaires across the country are Illinois, Arizona, Texas, New York, Florida and Massachusetts.
Nationwide, households with a net worth of at least $1 million excluding primary residences rose 8 percent to a record high 8.9 million, according to an annual report by TNS Financial Services, a market research and polling firm.
The firm's survey found that the millionaire households had an average net worth, excluding principal residence, of nearly $2.2 million, of which more than $1.4 million was in liquid, or investable, assets.
Their overall debt levels, meanwhile, fell by 8 percent, from $179,000 to $165,000.
Who's heading these households? TNS found the median age of the head of millionaire households is 58, and 45 percent are retired. Roughly 19 percent own in whole or part a professional practice or privately held business.
Over 50 percent of the millionaires surveyed said they had become more conservative in their investment approach over the past year. Their wealth is the result of long-term wealth accumulation.
Although real estate is not their sole source of wealth, it remains a staple for many. Forty-six percent of those surveyed own investment real estate like a second home or rental properties.
Seventy percent of the households, meanwhile, owned stocks and bonds, and 68 percent owned mutual funds.
Article (http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/28/news/economy/millionaires/)
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First off, the problem is not the relatively small number of middle class individuals who become millionaires.
The problem is the small number of bazillionaires who are becoming billionaires, and hogging the limited resources.
What limited resources are they hogging? You keep talking about the wealthy hogging resources, but you're rather vague on what resources are being hogged. And what, exactly, is a "bazillionaire" anyway?
It is unhealthy to society for a tiny number of individuals to dominate limited resources.
An inheritence tax on estates of over 10,000,000 of 20 or 30%, indexed to inflation would prove useful in this endeavor, and would also be a source of revenue.
An inheritance tax? Yes, indeed, one of the meanest ideas of all taxes. Someone works for a few decades to build up a small fortune for his family, and you want to tax it because it's not "fair." Sheesh. No, actually, what would be useful is to eliminate the connections between business and government, and to end the dumbass regulations that stifle if not prevent entrepreneurs from creating competition. You do not encourage economic growth for all by punishing those who achieve it.
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"The fact is that resources ARE limited, and when one class grows faster than the economy, the other classes lose."
I do not accept this as true , why am I wrong?
It is nice to see a Democrat actually discussing wages and class, but as always the focus is on the ill-defined "middle class."
There may be a flux in the trend of the rich to get richer , faster at some times than others , but I don't see that our present poor are more poor than the Poor of a century past or two centurys past , or any other set of poor you can find in history , nor do I see that our present rich have more clout than they did a century ago or two or ten.
There is quite a bit of difference in the relationships between the wealthiest citizens and the poorest citizens over the past centuries, especially if you wish to delve a millennia back in time.
Also, just because you percieve no recognizable difference in positions between the poor and wealthy (even if we accept that as true) does not mean that we should accept that as the proper model of society.
I don't think of society haveing a proper model , I think of things as they are with poor and rich being unaviodable phenomina.
We have discovered that we can drain swamps , but after we discovered how to drain swamps we discovered that Swamps are very usefull for produceing Ducks and Fish. You may somehow discover a way of preventing anyone from becomeing rich but soon after you do you may discover that there is a good reason not to do it.
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There are a lot of criticisms I could make about that opinion piece by Mr. Webb. But I'll simply ask one question. Why should Mr. Webb's opinions about economic fairness become the law of the land?
"Why" is an inappropriate interrogative, given the stakes.
"When" is much more appropriate and congruent, as the threat of financial insecurity continues to grow for average Americans like the rim of a sinkhole. We know we are getting closer to "when" when more and more Americans are realizing that the loss of financial security, and not the neocon-exploited, if not neocon-created, fear of national security, is the true threat.
Americans are emerging from the caves and waking from their carefully induced sleep, as more and more sabotaging critters from the top are being espied and exposed, despite the carefully mananged darkness--megacorporation conglomerate emissary Dick Cheney and his chest-thumping, intimidating cheap trick little cowboy be damned.
If they could not stay the course of successful propagandistic endeavor, somnambulizing the populace with confusing spin and undeniable fear-mongering, why would you think that your question--a typical Grover Norquist mindfuck--should even attempt to be answered?
Chase a stick and you end up with a stick in your mouth, had.
The last election suggests that fewer and fewer are chasing decoy doubletalk Norquist sticks. (Please do not deny, again, the close relationship between Norquist, Abramoff, and Rove.)
To borrow a fit metaphor from Pat Buchanan, the villagers are now taking up torches and pitchforks, and moving toward the only few remaining, undownsized, unabsorbed castles left in the land, an inevitable reality that grows exponentially now that middle class Americans are realizing that the next stop, beyond their control, is or soon will be, homelessness. Now sizable numbers of white collars, previously thinking themselves immune from the slaughter, are finding themselves callously dumped into the same pit they help dig for the corporate cause.
Webb, whom I am sure in no favorite in the I-can-gather-more-crumbs-than-you-can-gather crowd over at Dogfight Attrition Central, is merely one of those now highlighting the realities which the MSM never seems to have time for, given that tossed sticks Brad and Tom and their baby woes take up so much air time.
I am sure that Mr. Webb, a Democrat from Virginia who realized success only after the blatant racial tumors of his opponent Massa Allen were largely accidentally exposed, is no favorite in your crowd.
In case you haven't noticed it, several 'accidental' exposures and outings are happening.
I would suggest that, remarkably untypical, Virginia blinked, unlike Tennessee, at the odd and sudden appearance of a favorite ploy of the conservative right, the race card. And if Virginia can blink, the whole nation can blink. This blinking is more "when" and less "why," since the race card was suddenly realized for what it was, finally, by the politically finger-fucked themselves, a new thing in southern politicking. In the whole miasma of manufactured race card playing, Virginians, of all southern state residents, saw the ruse and overcame a long-exploited, heritage hook in the mouth tactic employed by Rove and others of his slithering ilk.
America may finally confront its racism when White breads realize that its the econonmy, stupid, thus validating the theory that racism is often manufactured from the sins of elitist excess, and maintained as an instrument of foment as a political tool. Racism as a political tool, finally realized, may initiate its demise.
"When" is a matter of numbers. To metaphorize the math, when the Mexicans--who are now capturing most of construction jobs, as well as other industry and service jobs (thereby retiring the bogus conservative mantra--jobs-people-don't-want)--have shouldered in too far, there will eventually be reached a moment of critical mass, when too many Americans, like Virginians but not the recalcitrant Tennesseeans, realize they have simply been had by a conscienceless corporate secret structure, the one Hillary finally labelled. The reality of this might be realized by considering that the Crips and the Bloods in Calilfornia have joined ranks to fight the growing Mexican gangs.
It has long amused me that for two hundred years, this country sat hoodwinked, inadequately informed about the Constitution, until the Neocons and supportive Libertarians came along with a play book filled with mindfucks, to show them the error of their ways.
There can only be legislated "fairness" or "fairness" achieved as our founding forefathers achieved it.
You remember, the tea in the bay thingy.
After all, that is the very nature of realizing that liberty is a fluid reality properly confined within a fair, tacitly agreed upon political construct (not the Libertarian ruse of existing without, or rather outside of, a political construct); it is defined and dependent upon realizing that political temporalism is defined by vigilance against the foxes in the henhouse.
I relish that guys of your temperment, unable to answer beyond the mindfuck metaphors of your megaego narcissism, will soon be found bound atop a bonfire construct. Well, not really. I would much rather have you put through a reeducation camp, where, among other things, you realize that no nation can be long moored to individual isolationist greed, and then be reabsorbed into the mainstream that you have so grieviously insulted, on condition of conviciningly demonstrated contrition, of course.
Such conditional forgivance is far more than what has been extened to those Americans already made destitude by the actions of the greedy few, and their draconian contract you so fervently embrace.
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"There is quite a bit of difference in the relationships between the wealthiest citizens and the poorest citizens over the past centuries, especially if you wish to delve a millennia back in time."
The posit at the top of the thread is that the difference in relationship is growing into a more negative and more unfair situation.
But , compared to what?
I would not be better off as a poor person in 1950 than as a poor person now ,in the US, nor would I be better off as a poor person in 1050 anywhere on the planet .
The growth of wealth can be seen in other paradgn , try thinking in another box .
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"To borrow a fit metaphor from Pat Buchanan, the villagers are now taking up torches and pitchforks, and moving toward the only few remaining, undownsized, unabsorbed castles left in the land, an inevitable reality that grows exponentially now that middle class Americans are realizing that the next stop, beyond their control, is or soon will be, homelessness. "
I think Why is a good question to answer.
After the castle is burnt and the ranks of homeless are swelled by the butlers and grooms that no longer can work in the castle is a little late to ask "why" or "What did we hope to gain by burning this castle down?"
Perhaps it is inevitable , but perhaps it is also not a good idea because there is no benefit in it.
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Good gravy, Crane. You said a lot of stupid things.
I noticed that you railed against asking "why" a few times. I had no idea you were so opposed to analytical inquiry, Crane. Someone wants to make his ideas of economic fairness into law, and you think asking why they should is a "mindfuck"? I was not aware such a simple question would be such a threat. As to why my question should be answered, well, if we are to be an informed populace, seems to me that "why" should be be the very first question asked when someone, regardless of that person's political affiliation, declares his opinion should be made into law. And frankly, other than trying to see how many times you could work the word "mindfuck" into your post, you gave no reasons, as in not any reasons whatever, as to why the "why" question should not be asked.
You also mentioned Grover Norquist a few times as if he were a major factor in the recent elections. Which leads me to wonder what you have been smoking.
Neither Jim Webb nor George Allen were favorites of the libertarians. Both are generally considered less than the brightest bulbs in the box. And yes, I have noticed people on both sides of the political aisle "expose" themselves. Some of them I would have thought to have known better than to hold racist and/or xenophobic ideas. But then these days, fear of others is so politically in vogue, isn't it Mr. "torches and pitchforks"?
It is amusing and interesting that you would bring up the Boston Tea Party in a discussion of someone wanting his economic ideas made into law so that everyone else must obey them. I would ask if you are suggesting people should rise up in active protest to government taxation they consider unfair, but of course you're not. Clearly, however, you seem to have misunderstood the nature of the protest of the Boston Tea Party.
In another bit of amusing linguistic silliness, you talk about "vigilance against the foxes in the henhouse"—one of the core concepts of libertarian politics—and try to deride libertarian ideas in the same sentence. I say try, because there is no such thing as a libertarian idea about existing either without or outside of a political construct. You're just making up complete inanities and then trying to argue that they're inane. You have made what is commonly known as a strawman argument.
"[M]indfuck metaphors of megaego narcissism"? Wow. Nice turn of phrase, I'll give you that. But "emerging from caves" and "torches and pitchforks" and "metaphorize the math", et cetera, are all silly metaphors you've used in your post to prance around without addressing the issues and to serve your own apparent desire to appear moralistically superior. To put it politely, you're a fraud.
As for your bonfire and "reeducation camp" ideas, it's interesting to see your tyrannical side come out so soon after you've talked about the nature of liberty. But of course I thank you for being so "forgiving" as to want to see me forcibly made to agree with you. That is so much more "enlightened" than the libertarian idea of letting people decide for themselves what to think. Who says you liberal folks don't care about personal freedoms?
The most asinine, and perhaps most illuminating, comment in your post you saved for last. After speaking of seeing seeing me and those like me forced into "reeducation camps" you then accuse me of embracing a "draconian contract". Your thinking is truly warped if you think "reeducation camps" is forgiving but allowing people freedom is draconian. Or you're using your thesaurus without knowing what the words mean. Or perhaps some of both.
Whatever the case, you seem not to know what you're talking about. I recommend you rectify that before you start trying to play out of your league again.
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"The fact is that resources ARE limited, and when one class grows faster than the economy, the other classes lose."
I do not accept this as true , why am I wrong?
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You are right as rain, Plane.
When a bazillionaire builds his McMansion, new real estate is created, new metal is created for the plumbing, new forests sprout, new energy is created to form thre plastics and glass and carpets. The planet actually GROWS in such as way that there is more acreage available. The purchase of second and third homes has NO IMPACT on the price of other real estate. When a wealthy person drives his Humvee, taking his daughter Becky-Sue to ballet class, NEW OIL RESOURCES ACTUALLY ARE GENERATED!
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"The fact is that resources ARE limited, and when one class grows faster than the economy, the other classes lose."
I do not accept this as true , why am I wrong?
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You are right as rain, Plane.
When a bazillionaire builds his McMansion, new real estate is created, new metal is created for the plumbing, new forests sprout, new energy is created to form thre plastics and glass and carpets. The planet actually GROWS in such as way that there is more acreage available. The purchase of second and third homes has NO IMPACT on the price of other real estate. When a wealthy person drives his Humvee, taking his daughter Becky-Sue to ballet class, NEW OIL RESOURCES ACTUALLY ARE GENERATED!
Are you just now realiseing this?
Only a century ago it was realised that Oil was a resorce , Petrolium was a rather unpopular laxitive before the advent of the Kerosene lamp and the gasoline engine , the demand for light and locomotion went searching for the new resorce.
There is a growing demand for energy that is NOT petrolium based and as this demand grows the likely hood that the answers will be found grow, absent the demand there is little search.
Right now, the most fuel effecient vehicles , electric vehicles and Hydrogen powered vehicles can't be made inexpensive enough for Joe Six Pack to buy , thank God for the rich who are willing to be early adopters and supporters of infant industrys.
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thank God for the rich who are willing to be early adopters and supporters of infant industrys.
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Yeah sure, Rupert Murdoch and Dick Cheney have just purchased Hydrogen Fuel cell cars.
THis is nonsense, by the way.
Jimmy Carter put solar power cells on the White House, and Reagan had them stripped off as soon as he was elected.
It would be ever so nice if what you said were even remotely true, but it isn't.
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thank God for the rich who are willing to be early adopters and supporters of infant industrys.
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Yeah sure, Rupert Murdoch and Dick Cheney have just purchased Hydrogen Fuel cell cars.
THis is nonsense, by the way.
Jimmy Carter put solar power cells on the White House, and Reagan had them stripped off as soon as he was elected.
It would be ever so nice if what you said were even remotely true, but it isn't.
I think Reagan would have kept the solar water heaters if they had been working.
But in what sense is this not true?
The early adopters of Solar power are already around , but they are not mostly poor.
You can buy an alternative fuel car right now , but it will cost a lot .
I don't think I am satisfied with your rebuttal , I still think that the rich lead to many new resorces.
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http://www.forbesautos.com/buyersguide/hybrids/?partner=fdc_module_hbbg_title
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I think Reagan would have kept the solar water heaters if they had been working.
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They were working. A solar water heater is not any sort of supertechnical device. It is essentially a grid of copper pipes filled with water, mounted on the roof. They are painted a dark color so as to absorb heat from the Sun. A majority of people in Israel have been using them for years. They were very popular in South Florida until the hurricane of 1960 tore a lot of them off people's roofs. My house once had one.
Reagan not only had the solar water heaters and solar electric devices removed from the roof, he also ended government tax breaks for solar devices of any description. It was done deliberately, to thumb his aged nose at Carter and his "tree-hugger" friends. He also appointed religious wacko James Watt as Sec of the Interior. Watt said that logging national forests was okay, because he thought that that the Apocalypse and Jesus would come before all the redwoods and other trees were gone.
Reagan, of course, was just a figurehead, an actor they brought in to read his part, which he did quite well, despite his impending Altzheimer's. But he was more often than not out to lunch when dealing with such things.
So believe whatever you want. But remember that beliving something really hard doesn't make it true, unless you are in the audience of "Peter Pan". Then you can resurrect Tinkerbelle. Other than that, nada.
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Neither does disbeleiveing something make it untrue.
The first cars were expensive , the first telephones were expensive the first computers were expensive the first cell phones were expensive .
The exceptions are few , the welthy are needed for startup industrys .
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I don't think of society haveing a proper model , I think of things as they are with poor and rich being unaviodable phenomina.
Really? I'm sure you think of society as having improper models, which means by consequence you must believe in some sort of proper model - even if you have not fully developed it.
For example, I bet you do not accept Nazi Germany's model society as a proper model society for us to have. Therefore, there must be elements within a Nazi utopia that you do not accept in your idea of a proper society. If you do not believe in gay marriage or abortion then those would be elements that would not fit into your vision of a proper society.
Therefore I have doubts that you have no belief in a proper societal model.
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I don't think of society haveing a proper model , I think of things as they are with poor and rich being unaviodable phenomina.
Really? I'm sure you think of society as having improper models, which means by consequence you must believe in some sort of proper model - even if you have not fully developed it.
For example, I bet you do not accept Nazi Germany's model society as a proper model society for us to have. Therefore, there must be elements within a Nazi utopia that you do not accept in your idea of a proper society. If you do not believe in gay marriage or abortion then those would be elements that would not fit into your vision of a proper society.
Therefore I have doubts that you have no belief in a proper societal model.
You have here proven that haveing a government approved model for society can get you in trouble.
How will you prove that not haveing a government approved model for society is a mistake?
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You have here proven that haveing a government approved model for society can get you in trouble. How will you prove that not haveing a government approved model for society is a mistake?
Civil War Somalia, Second Congolese Civil War, Rwanda, Bosnia.
But that isn't what I've proven. I've proven that you have your own personal beliefs for what society should and should not be. Even believing in a lack of government is a personal belief in society.
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Neither does disbeleiveing something make it untrue.
The first cars were expensive , the first telephones were expensive the first computers were expensive the first cell phones were expensive .
The exceptions are few , the welthy are needed for startup industrys .
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The early adapters of technology were not the ultra-wealthy, but those who had an actual need for the technology in their occupations. The first cars were bought by doctors. The first motorized vehicles were buses, trucks and such, The first computers belonged to banks and governmental agencies, then hobbyists who paid $400 or so for their Sinclair ZX-80's, then TRS-80's TI-99-4a's, Commodore 64's and such. The first adaptors of computers and the internet were NOT the wealthy, but middle class geeks.
The first cellphones were bought by doctors and health professionals and others who needed instant access in cases where their access was a matter of life and death for their patients. Lawyers and stockbrokers followed. At the exact same time, beepers, which used much of the same technology, became available at $20 per month or less. It was not the extremely wealthy that bought either cellphones or beepers, but those who needed them in their work.
The top 1% of the population was not and is not the financier of innovation. There aren't enough of them.
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If not the top one percent then certainly the top ten percent , which would include your afore mentioned Doctors.
The top one percent are presently supporting the Russian space program , not a little either.