Double dip Recession?

[antryg]

Great article TL. It clearly articulates what is happening but so few want to admit.

[Hindsight]

I don't know if this has been posted yet. I just saw it on AOL/Netscape news:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/tw...c1_lnk3|170599

[Timber Loftis]

The Angry Rich
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Anger is sweeping America. True, this white-hot rage is a minority phenomenon, not something that characterizes most of our fellow citizens. But the angry minority is angry indeed, consisting of people who feel that things to which they are entitled are being taken away. And they’re out for revenge.

No, I’m not talking about the Tea Partiers. I’m talking about the rich.

These are terrible times for many people in this country. Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they’ll never work again.

Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans. You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.

The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office. At first, however, it was largely confined to Wall Street. Thus when New York magazine published an article titled “The Wail Of the 1%,” it was talking about financial wheeler-dealers whose firms had been bailed out with taxpayer funds, but were furious at suggestions that the price of these bailouts should include temporary limits on bonuses. When the billionaire Stephen Schwarzman compared an Obama proposal to the Nazi invasion of Poland, the proposal in question would have closed a tax loophole that specifically benefits fund managers like him.

Now, however, as decision time looms for the fate of the Bush tax cuts — will top tax rates go back to Clinton-era levels? — the rage of the rich has broadened, and also in some ways changed its character.

For one thing, craziness has gone mainstream. It’s one thing when a billionaire rants at a dinner event. It’s another when Forbes magazine runs a cover story alleging that the president of the United States is deliberately trying to bring America down as part of his Kenyan, “anticolonialist” agenda, that “the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s.” When it comes to defending the interests of the rich, it seems, the normal rules of civilized (and rational) discourse no longer apply.

At the same time, self-pity among the privileged has become acceptable, even fashionable.

Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families. Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.

These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.

And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it. “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago.

The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.

You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions, but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their hopes.

And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.

But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.

[johnny]

Hey...i know...let's try communism.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally Posted by johnny Hey...i know...let's try communism.

Well, basically... we are.

Traditional "communist" governments, such as Russian communism, have used the excuse of "the good of the people" to basically funnel money up to the party powers, who were in essence de facto dictators. Every time Stalin had one of the "ribbon-cutting" cermonies for new train stations to dedicate them to "the people" he would get angry -- because he considered himself to be the owner of them.

Since 1975 we have pushed our wealth to the top 1% in great bundles. In 1975 that top 1% owned about 9% of the country, and now it owns about 23%. Sounds a lot more like Russian style communism than it does anything else, actually.

The worst news is that this great transfer of wealth has been done with borrowed money. We quit taxing the rich, but we didn't quit doling out the government benefits. Well, somebody had to pay for this, and in the absence of a tax base guess who the benefactor was? Yep, China.

What I yearn for is a return to the government policies we had circa mid-1950's to 1980ish, before the big wealth transfer, and before we as a country basically started living on a maxed out credit card. That model, my friend, is much further afield from communism than is the current "corporatism" we live in today.

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally Posted by Timber Loftis Quit being a douche. Whatever I post here, the intent is never to lie or convey false evidence. You discredit yourself by claiming such, I think most would agree. And I didn't read your link. Because you're a douche. So... quit being a douche.

I know man, you be "skeered" to see that your re-posted drivel is, well, just that, drivel. Now stop being such a whiner and except what you posted is wholly incorrect, and backed up by the "house.gov".

[Timber Loftis]

Originally Posted by Felix The Assassin I know man, you be "skeered"

"Skeered" ain't got nothing to do with it. Debating who's right and wrong is one thing, but to call me a liar is to challenge the motive.

If I'm here to lie and present falsehood, then there is no debate.

If you're here to score points instead of have a conversation, then it's a masturbatory exercise for us both, and worthless of our time.

And it's "accept," you mouth breathing idiot.