From the Guardian, here: If the task is left to the Reserve Bank alone, we won't be getting a pay rise any time soon Excerpt: Let's face it, boyz-'n-girlz, the piss has gone out of this expansion - one of the longest corrections to an historic Great Recession. That correction, btw, and despite whatever Donald Dork has to say in the matter, started in the third-year of Obama's second administration (namely January, 2014 - see here from the BLS). Moreover, the entire SubPrime Mess was handed to Obama on-a-platter by Bush-the-son. As well, having won the presidency, in his first mid-term election, Obama lost the HofR. Which, in Replicant hands, refused any further Stimulus Spending for a quicker economic repair precisely to cause him to lose the election for his second-term in 2011. Replicant political strategy, time and time again, shows how (at all levels state and national) their only "game plan" is to win, win, win. So the ultra-rich are requisitioned to pay for monumental TV-adverts that help that cause. And that works in an America literally "glued to the TV-set". (Americans watch TV more hours than any developed country on earth.) You want a Functional Democracy? Me too! But that aint what we got today! What we have today is a very sick-man doing his utmost to obtain a second-term because he has no other option driven narcissistically as he is and always has been ...
From the same source above: The above does not mean that the economy is heading for its second Great Recession. But, it does signal that the economy is going to slow down to" catch-its-breath". That's fine, some will think. But the fundamentals of the American lifestyle are not consonant with what is happening in the world. We think that all that is necessary to be happy is to "have a good job". Well, that's the problem. The well-remunerated industrial jobs all left for China in the 1990s. What's left for far too many people are the low-paying drudgery-work on one end and the very well paying jobs on the other end. This latter notably for those with the proper Post-secondary Degree credentials. And that is the crucial point! At present, the largest debt-sector in America today is that necessary to fund a post-secondary education. Which is the greatest impediment to our lower-classes who cannot possibly afford such debt. Hillary borrowed Bernie's plan to subsidize the lower-class that wanted a higher education. And thus exit their condition and accede to a better paying job. And what did our democracy do to them? Slap them in the face with an Electoral College manipulation of the popular-vote! That is NOT the kind of democracy we deserve. And far, far from it ...
I have never understood the love affair for the popular vote. It's as if some magic will happen if enough like minded people, regardless where they live , come together and agree on what is right for everyone. Clearly, a few densely populated areas with their own specific issues and desires are able to use a popular vote to control and punish the other half (-1) of the country. The USA is not America, it is the United States of America. The electoral college provides every state with representation, states that may have very diverse values of those in densely populated cities. The electoral college demands presidential candidates appeal to a broad spectrum of voters from across the country, not just to a concentration of like minded voters.
Surprise, surprise! It is the very essence of any fundamentally correct "democracy" whether or not that democracy is a "republic" ... The list "other countries" that employ an Electoral College (from here): And why not? The EC is renowned for manipulation of the popular-vote by a less-than-honest system of public voting ...
