Our two party system is as close as we can get to fascism without having the name stick. It reminds me of The Blues Brothers movie where they ask the barmaid what type of music is played in the bar. She answers, "Oh! We have both Country AND Western!"
Change will occur when our irate dissension surpasses our rate of descension.
Sadly, unemployment is an essential part of our type of capitalism. It has become a civic duty. Maintaining unemployment levels in the millions creates artificially low wages at the bottom and artificially high wages at the top. It's like a big hand squeezing money upwards.
Remember back when Clinton was president and unemployment was getting "dangerously low." So low, in fact, that Alan Greenspan had to step in and adjust interest rates to encourage more layoffs and allow the unemployment rate to rise back up to "acceptable levels." So from my point of view, these people doing their civic duty of being unemployed should at least be taken care of by the rest of us, preferably by those who benefit most from their situation.
Inflation is another tool used to consolidate wealth. If the worker's raise is less than the rate of inflation, then it is really a pay cut, but given...and often accepted with a smile.
For anybody interested, I created a graph of the effect of Trickle Down Economics. Mouse over the graph and it adjusts for inflation. http://tinyurl.com/c3nqa4n
O'Reilly attempted to make mention of Bush a red herring, yet his contribution to the debt remains. As does Reagan's and Bush Senior's. Just because they're gone, doesn't mean that they have no bearing on today's economy. Reagan ran on a platform that chided Carter for letting the debt reach a trillion dollars, in spite of the fact that it was the lowest as percent of GDP in many decades. In two terms, he tripled it. We're still paying on the interest from that!
Remember too that Dubya's TARP idea postponed much of the "redistribution of wealth to the top" until AFTER Obama took office.
Reagan's Trickle Down Economics Policy is not A Free Market policy. It separates a person's wages from his productivity, allowing the money made from his productivity to be distributed upwards, while wages remain stagnant. SO we've had a redistribution of wealth for over 3 decades...from the bottom to the top. In 1980, the top 1% earned half of that of the bottom 50%. By 2006, the top 1% were making three times as much as the bottom 50%, and not by doing more work, but by capitalizing on the work done by the bottom 50%...keeping it for themselves. In TDE, only the debt trickles. And remembering physics, work is measured in joules. However, the work of a Wall Street Hedge Fund manager making $1.5 million per hour is measured in jewels!
Our Health Care System also lies outside the domain of the Free Market. It's a very regulated market. O'Reilly stated at first that he wanted it run by insurance companies... which only squeezes more non-medical people between me an my doctor, raising the costs. Then a few minutes later, when Stewart was arguing for government control, O'Reilly said he wanted it run by the medical profession. Insurance companies are not medical professionals.
Germany is a social democracy and they don't place health care on the backs of businesses. This allows them to create quality products like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche and Volkswagen. Here in the USA, with all the costs of health care being placed on businesses, we instead opt for the Polished Turd paradigm of manufacturing, often outsourcing the both the manufacturing and polishing of turds, giving them warranties that expire as soon as the new owner realizes he bought a piece of crap.
I was disappointed that Jon didn't recognize the difference between the debt and the deficit, but overall, I'd say he slam dunked the debate.
Our two party system is as close as we can get to fascism without having the name stick. It reminds me of The Blues Brothers movie where they ask the barmaid what type of music is played in the bar. She answers, "Oh! We have both Country AND Western!"
Change will occur when our irate dissension surpasses our rate of descension.
Sadly, unemployment is an essential part of our type of capitalism. It has become a civic duty. Maintaining unemployment levels in the millions creates artificially low wages at the bottom and artificially high wages at the top. It's like a big hand squeezing money upwards.
Remember back when Clinton was president and unemployment was getting "dangerously low." So low, in fact, that Alan Greenspan had to step in and adjust interest rates to encourage more layoffs and allow the unemployment rate to rise back up to "acceptable levels." So from my point of view, these people doing their civic duty of being unemployed should at least be taken care of by the rest of us, preferably by those who benefit most from their situation.
Inflation is another tool used to consolidate wealth. If the worker's raise is less than the rate of inflation, then it is really a pay cut, but given...and often accepted with a smile.
For anybody interested, I created a graph of the effect of Trickle Down Economics. Mouse over the graph and it adjusts for inflation. http://tinyurl.com/c3nqa4n
O'Reilly attempted to make mention of Bush a red herring, yet his contribution to the debt remains. As does Reagan's and Bush Senior's. Just because they're gone, doesn't mean that they have no bearing on today's economy. Reagan ran on a platform that chided Carter for letting the debt reach a trillion dollars, in spite of the fact that it was the lowest as percent of GDP in many decades. In two terms, he tripled it. We're still paying on the interest from that!
Remember too that Dubya's TARP idea postponed much of the "redistribution of wealth to the top" until AFTER Obama took office.
Reagan's Trickle Down Economics Policy is not A Free Market policy. It separates a person's wages from his productivity, allowing the money made from his productivity to be distributed upwards, while wages remain stagnant. SO we've had a redistribution of wealth for over 3 decades...from the bottom to the top. In 1980, the top 1% earned half of that of the bottom 50%. By 2006, the top 1% were making three times as much as the bottom 50%, and not by doing more work, but by capitalizing on the work done by the bottom 50%...keeping it for themselves. In TDE, only the debt trickles. And remembering physics, work is measured in joules. However, the work of a Wall Street Hedge Fund manager making $1.5 million per hour is measured in jewels!
Our Health Care System also lies outside the domain of the Free Market. It's a very regulated market. O'Reilly stated at first that he wanted it run by insurance companies... which only squeezes more non-medical people between me an my doctor, raising the costs. Then a few minutes later, when Stewart was arguing for government control, O'Reilly said he wanted it run by the medical profession. Insurance companies are not medical professionals.
Germany is a social democracy and they don't place health care on the backs of businesses. This allows them to create quality products like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche and Volkswagen. Here in the USA, with all the costs of health care being placed on businesses, we instead opt for the Polished Turd paradigm of manufacturing, often outsourcing the both the manufacturing and polishing of turds, giving them warranties that expire as soon as the new owner realizes he bought a piece of crap.
I was disappointed that Jon didn't recognize the difference between the debt and the deficit, but overall, I'd say he slam dunked the debate.
😉