Let the healing begin.

What remained of the middle class that the Democrats hadn't destroyed through bad fiscal policy.

 

There is no such thing as "real full employment". Even if you had a socialist system guaranteeing everyone a job you will still have those that are unemployed. Its human nature.

"There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics". Don't remember who said that atm but its true none the less. You can switch those numbers around to push any agenda you wanted. Even so, no one has a Right to other peoples money just to live. Yes, the government has the power to tax. But that doesn't mean that they have the power to tax willy nilly. There are restrictions and one of those restrictions is peoples willingness to be taxed. All those 100 billionaires have to do is move themselves and their businesses elsewhere. Then who are you going to tax? The next top 10%? What if they move? Eventually you're going to run out of rich people to tax. Then you'll just end up taxing the poor who can't move. And they'll be even poorer because you chased away all those that hired them. Pure socialism never works.

 

Yes it is a crisis. Just like it was a crisis in 2008 when the UN declared:

Or in 2000, when David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit of University of East Anglia predicted:

Or in 2004 when Dr Jeremy Williams of Bangor University (Lecturer in Geomatics) predicted:

More than a hundred climate catastrophe predictions made by climate change experts over the past three decades and all of them failed spectacularly. I am sure the new predictions are the right ones though.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/the-big-list-of-failed-climate-predictions/

In the meantime, enjoy the greening of the planet and the exponential growth in crop yields. Apparently the climate experts have not made the connection between crop yields and the world's ability to feed itself. It is rather difficult to have human extinction event in the face of the greatest surplus of food in human history.... hell America is using nearly half it's corn yield to make ethanol.

NOW FOR THE GOOD PART. I have supplied failed predictions of catastrophe. I challenge you to find a single prediction (JUST ONE) of predicted climate catastrophes that came true.

 

Wrong they are poor almost entirely because they don't make such choices. The problem with leftist pie in the sky is in the main the falcity of it's underlying assumptions concerning human beings

 

Only half the story... and misleading as well.

Soaring income inequality ie, CEO wages 300 times that of median wages, is caused by.......free market forces. Hence market intervention is required.

Soaring wealth inequality eg 90% of household wealth owned by 10% of the population, is due to asset price inflation aided by low interest rates, among other things.

So various redistribution methods are required including raising taxes on the top income groups.

Sheer evil neoliberal orthodoxy. You are correct: human nature is competitive and greedy.

A system that is fair AND free requires an alternative to your evil neoliberal orthodoxy (see MMT) ; or at the very least, 90% tax rates on incomes over $1 million plus wealth taxes.

It wasn't the Dems bad fiscal policy that decimated the middle class, it was your evil neoliberal economic orthodoxy. And you haven't mentioned the working poor and the unemployed.

 

Evil neoliberal nonsense. Everyone will want to work, if guaranteed an above poverty job.

You aren't kidding. Like saying 3.6% unemployment is 'full employment', when the total un+under+hidden unemployment was greater than 10%. Like claiming a person who has worked ONE hour in a week is considered 'employed' by the stats office.

Sheer lies.

"other peoples' money": sheer lies perpetrated by your evil neoliberal orthodoxy. Government benefits all of us, including Bezos who relies on the nation's and the world's internet and public transport and education infrastructure

Taxing "nilly willy" ? Of course not; taxing has very specific purposes which should be clearly and transparently articulated.

Quite so. People are greedy. So one way around that is for government to demonstrate clearly and transparently the trade-offs gained by taxing abnormally high incomes at, say, 90%, to pay for free education and universal health care for the poor.

A better way is to utilize the capacity of a sovereign currency issuing government (with a treasury and central bank) to create and spend its own currency* without taxing or borrowing the money from the private sector, to ensure full utilization of the nation's available resources and potential productive capacity including fully utilizing its available working age labour (see MMT).
* if the resources on which to spend the money are available.

The 700 US billionaires could simply be barred from taking wealth overseas...duh.

The rich already have access to a thriving tax avoidance industry (because like all of us they are greedy) which also needs to be closed down.

 

I'll give you credit. It takes a big pair to condemn the Dems when you have Trump actively advocating against masks and holding rallies.

 

Trump is not advocating against wearing masks; he's just not advocating wearing masks all the time, everywhere, even in the solitude of your own car, which is patently absurd. In other words, he's not advocating wearing masks to the point of grandstanding or virtue-signaling, like you see in the avatars on Democrats' accounts on Twitter. Additionally, he's not advocating passing draconian measures, such as shutting down economies and mandating mask-wearing and social distancing.

Democrats who advocate passing draconian measures, such as shutting down economies and mandating mask-wearing and social distancing, are held to a higher standard. And when they fall short of it, they must be criticized more sharply. So when Democrats blatantly, uncaringly violate their own standards that they have imposed on the rest of us--standards that restrict our freedom, standards that have led to people killing themselves, since they've lost their jobs--they must be, in no uncertain terms, lambasted by both sides. Unfortunately, a lot of Democrats, including those on this forum, out of pure partisanship, do not censure their side for their outright hypocrisy.

 

HAH! Now THAT is funny. Do you really think that people WANT to work? Human beings are lazy by nature. Why do you think we keep inventing ways to make life easier? Beds, chairs, the computer you're typing on...all of it is designed to make life easier.

People want to work....

Not lies. A person that worked one hour still worked. That is a fact.

We get it...no one owns anything under socialism. And governments only benefit when they are used for necessary things. Like defense. Government can also be a hindrance.

Just because you can articulate something clearly and transparently doesn't mean that what you want them to do is a good thing.

And who is government ran by? People. So, you admit that people are greedy...and you want to give them the keys to be even more greedy.

Bar them from taking wealth overseas? How are you going to impose such a law? Lets take Google for example. How are you going to impose such a law on Google? The answer is of course...you can't. They're a global company that gets money from all around the globe.

 

Meanwhile in the rose garden........

 

Meanwhile in Tulsa.

 

And then there is this.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson revealed Friday that he was "extremely sick" from COVID-19. Carson is among several who tested positive for the virus after attending an election night event at the White House.

In a Facebook post Friday, 69-year-old Carson said he initially saw "dramatic improvement" from a product he took, which is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration nor a proven coronavirus treatment.

"However, I have several co-morbidities and after a brief period when I only experienced minor discomfort, the symptoms accelerated and I became desperately ill," wrote Carson, who tested positive for the coronavirus last Monday.

 

Haven't you ever noticed the sheer panic experienced by people who are about to be made redundant, or unemployed?

Stop talking out of blind ideology.

Yes...so that wonderful - and fictitious - 3.7% unemployment rate achieved by Trump before the pandemic included people who were only able to find ONE HOUR of work in a week.

Stop banging on about "socialism"; it only shows your inability to mount an argument or think outside the box.
aka the TINA fallacy.

Government is necessary to avoid anarchy. Good governance will create a fair and free society.
OTOH, government via neoliberal orthodoxy will create the entrenched poverty and soaring inequality we see at present.

Regarding the issue at hand, ie the trade-off between tax and community cohesion, transparency is very necessary for the community to decide how to achieve both fairness and freedom - which IS a good thing.

Government is accountable to the people, yes. [That means there should be NO private donations to government at all].

Yes we are all greedy. Government needs to manage that greed on behalf of community cohesion.

By legislation....we have rule of law. There are 'only' 700 billionaires....shouldn't be too hard to get congress to deal with the problem, if the electorate are aware of the issues (transparency, remember).

In fact Google along with the other FANGS are already facing 'anti-trust' concerns. As for global companies, the G20 are tackling these issues as we speak.

 

Meanwhile the largest scientific study done on mask use in prevention of Covid has found them ineffective. Now you will give me the reasons to NOT "believe the science."

https://www.thelocal.dk/20201118/da...-masks-protect-wearer-from-covid-19-infection

 

Ask not what your mask can do for you, but ask what your mask can do for others.

 

Now that you're telling us the whole story, please remind us, this happened on Biden's watch, not Trump's didn't it? All these 48 years that Biden was in the government, all 40 years that Biden was in the Senate, all 8 years Biden was VP this inequality you're now so horrified about was getting worse and worse...And Biden never moved a finger.

Except for the last 4 years when the median income finally jump $6,000 a year and tens of millions of americans were lifted out of poverty, that is. The last 4 years, when Biden was not in the government and Trump was in charge of it.

 

Agreed 100%!

(btw, Obama should have nationalized the banks in 2009, jailed their CEOs, and ordered the US Treasury to fund all mortgage payments until stability was returned to the financial system. But Obama had no knowledge of economics, and was rolled by the orthodox neoliberal quacks who were complicit in causing the GFC).

But since the triumph of neo-liberalism, which occurred as a result of economists' misunderstandings of the causes of stagflation in the 70's, as well as capital's determination to take back profit share that went to workers in the immediate post war years (1945-1970's), parties of the Left have been constrained in realizing their social policy programs. (As always, the Right don't need/aren't interested in social policy ...."let them eat cake"...)

Even granting this is all true, median wages have been flat-lining during the entire neo-liberal era beginning in the 70's; and of course the explosive increase in inequality since the GFC, as a result of asset price appreciation is nothing short of catastrophic in its consequences for a cohesive community, aided and abetted by Trump's tax cuts overwhelmingly favoring the wealthy.

 

Constrained? No my friend, they've been owned... and they are ever more owned now than ever before. 95% of Wall Street donations went to Biden, 99% of Silicon Valley donations went to Biden, Biden enjoyed overwhelming support of Billionaires, the Insurance industry, the super rich Hollywood, the credit card industry, the drug industry, the lobbyists, the military industrial complex...

Are you seriously suggesting that they don't own Biden, that Biden won't send good middle class American jobs to China to pay them back, just like Obama and Bush and Clinton did, that he won't find a gazillion ways to screw the middle class in favor of his real supporters and donors? Let's get real here, dude, let's not confuse lip service with actions.. The only real actions to help the middle class were accomplished by Trump, not Obama, not Biden, not their predecessors.

PS and thanks for reminding us about tax cuts, the middle class got to keep more of their money. Isn't that something?

 

There is no system that doesn't replace freedom to earn as much as you want with pure tyranny. You can system in which government determines how much you make or one in which you determine how much you make by being as good at your job as you can be.

In the end system that are not competitive are also not productive.

 

More on the triumph of neoliberalism:

Monday, November 16, 2020 – Bill Mitchell – Modern Monetary Theory (economicoutlook.net)

"When the conservative fight back against the social democratic era following the Second World War began in earnest with the publication of the Powell Manifesto on August 23, 1971. The US Chamber of Commerce commissioned lawyer, Lewis Powell, to craft a strategy to restore the dominant position of corporate America, which had felt diminished by the gains made by workers and citizens from social democratic policies. The memo was published as the – Attack on American Free Enterprise System. The agenda spelt out by Powell in the memo was wide-ranging and was subsequently implemented with spectacular success".

It's time to reclaim the economy, so that it works for all.

 

I still agree with you, except by "constrained" I am referring to the taxation and borrowing constraint placed on governments by the evil neoliberal system. Read post # 70 for more details.

1. Trump is on the losing side re coal; the whole world is closing the industry down. Those jobs aren't coming back.
2. I think the trade deficit with China has not decreased in the last 4 years, while Trump has had to cough up $50 billion to farmers in compensation for lost Chinese trade (soybeans etc)
3. Those inner city ghettos and the rust belt remain as egregious examples of the evil neoliberal system.

But it was a massive mis-allocation of resources; the money quantum of the tax cuts went overwhelmingly to the wealthy, when that money should have gone to public infrastructure upgrade, and paying down student debt.

 

Glad you dropped any attempts to convince us that the left has even an iota of interest to help the middle class, it's a step in the right direction

1 Those (coal) jobs aren't going anywhere regardless of what the rest of the world does if Trump is president, they are gone if Biden is.

2. Trump collected $100 billion in tariffs and did compensate the farmers out of the loot. It's win-win for the US, not so much for China. Not sure whether the trade deficit decreased during the last 4 years but it was skyrocketing during the previous 30 years. it takes more than a couple of years to win a [trade] war and reverse a 30 year long trend... especially in light of the left's and swamp's sabotage. Trump's predecessors had no guts to even contemplate it, lest we forget that they are owned by China

3. The ghettos is how the dems like it, bussing their dwellers to polling stations once every 4 years and forgetting about them till the next elections. The Republicans haven't been any better but at least they were not making empty promises.... and Trump lifted tens of millions out of poverty and those ghettos.... so says the census.

4. Tax cut money can't go overwhelmingly to not wealthy because not wealthy pay tiny amounts of taxes to begin with. If you pay $3,000 in taxes you can't get $5,000 in tax cuts... that said if the dems wanted better structured tax cuts they should have cooperated with Trump, if 10 of dems were willing to work with Trump he would not have to rely on the most conservative reactionary republicans to pass the bill. The dems chose to sabotage and boycott though, their complaints now are disingenuous.

 

Freedom to earn much as you want?
I think you mean: freedom to earn as much as you are capable of earning....we all WANT to earn heaps....

In fact, the system that prevents some of us from participating at above poverty level is unjust (forget about tyranny...)

You can have a system that implements both, except in the first case it's NOT "determining how much you make" but a guaranteed minimum wage set by government acting as employer of last resort (since there is an infinite amount of work to be done, whether in the private or public sector)

Systems that are not competitive? Yet the international space station is priceless, for its advancement of the science of space discovery cf with a profit-seeking competition on national/international markets, to produce plonk, for example.

 

Republican misunderstandings are truly unbelievable, and they say them right out showing their abysmal ignorance of the real facts for all to see

Tariffs are paid by the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, they are additional TAXES on helpless AMERICANS, definitely NOT on the Chinese or anyone else BUT hapless AMERICAN CITIZENS. Please forgive the caps and the repetition but this fundamental nature of tariffs seems utterly and persistently lost on Trump and his puling minions Trump's tariff "loot" is from some of us to others of us with a goodly amount siphoned off to the collectors on the side.

And mirabile dictu the Republican ignorance of fundamental facts of reality continues unabated in their tax "cuts". Apparently, no conservative has ever heard of the idea that large numbers of small things can equal small numbers of large things (also known as the idea of making your profit on volume) and consequently they believe that only reducing taxes for the wealthy will be an effective tax cut. Quite the "economics" one would expect from some lifelong scion of idle and unearned wealth who has never had to look for a lower price in his privileged life.

 

LOL! Do you think anyone takes you seriously when you use such outlandish claims? How 'bout you keep your tree-hugging religious beliefs ("climate sins") to yourself? Nobody here has any more interest in them than you do in what I or the rest of us consider sins.