My goal is not to promote hate of the wealthy at all, and that wasn't the tone of my post, if you hadn't noticed. It was to talk about values and priorities. It's to talk about other alternatives than a tiny percentage of humanity controlling most of the world's resources. Is it possible to do that without free market people like yourself starting to yell "class warfare" and pretend that riots will be incited and the mobs will start gathering at the gate if we let them know the actual facts of wealth concentration? Personally, I have zero ambition to be a billionaire. What a bother. But, as I said in earlier discussions with you, to me the notion that the power of the vastly wealthy won't always need to be counterbalanced by a gov't of the people is a fantasy.At least you do acknowledge that "the wealth gap is an issue", while not talking about how to address it. From my point of view, the wealth gap, as I said, is beyond an issue, it's an absurdity. I don't at all assume that redistributing the wealth from the rich to everyone will solve the world's problems. It won't. But I'm certain that the "free market" cult's idea that the unregulated free market on its own - particularly at this point in history - can create anything close to a world that worth living in for the vast majority of people is utter nonsense, and all the historical evidence I see is to the contrary. It's going to take a balance between free market and gov't. Every study I've seen shows better health care under government supported systems in other countries but as I say, if we can't agree on facts, we're just not going to be able to have a discussion, are we? Keeping blinders on in the service of a belief benefits no one. You can say I'm doing that, and I can say you're doing that - sadly, then, it's time to give up, and we can each talk to people we find more open with whom we share more world perceptions and more agreement on facts.
I like to debate from the extremes - I'm sure no one has noticed that.
Anyway, I don't think the character or morality of the individual is near as important as you believe. Let's take a quick stab at some "moral" demographics (totally a guess on my part):
- 5 % of the population are saints - The Jesus Christ types
- 5 % of the population are very good, will help anyone with little concern for themselves
- 80 % of the population is neutral - looks out for themselves, family and neighbors, really just care about living and will help others occasionally during times of crisis
- 5 % of the population are bad, the criminals who will steal from others as long as they don't get caught, care little for anyone other than their family
- 5% are the Hitlers, psychopaths who it's only for them, throw grandma under the bus if it would get them more.
I also belive that responsiblity is a learned characteristic. You learn to be responsible when your free to choose actions that create discomfort for you (starvation, cold, social outcast, etc). If you are forced instead, you now can blame your problems on the one that forced you and you never learn responsiblity. Responsibility comes from natural feedback loops. If you treat people well, run a business that provides good products, then you do well. If you are mean, or provide bad service you fail. If you can't force your will onto others you have to win them over. This applies to business and personal relationships.
So let get back to our monetary/energy situation. Germany (and the US) has picked PV as the winner. Government has decided for you to funnel money into PV, its it right? What if concentrated large solar plants was a much better choice - they are now priced out of the market. What if conserving or putting the money into efficiency was a better payoff than PV? All we see is what was done, not what might have been done.
Hmm, I guess by that logic, the majority of the US believes the wars are right and that the bankers needed to be bailed out. Do you agree? What you have in Germany is just like you have here. I'm sure there are strong political and monetary interest using govenment to force it's citizens to comply. The only difference is this time the force is for something you believe in. Next time it won't be…
Bob,
Thanks for colorful answer, lol. However, the story you cite is of the average schmuck trying to deal with the tax system the way some other average schmuck has told him to deal with the tax system. What you seem to overlook is folks such as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers who have set up trusts and foundations and other tax avoidance and reduction strategies and walked away paying to little or no taxes (and very capably defend their ability to do so). Obviously, they're politically connected on the grandest scale on this planet but one can learn from their model which is exactly what I intend to do. And if you're honest, accurate, and thorough with what you do, there's much less angst and expense associated with a meeting with the IRS folks. I know of one family that set up businesses, trusts, foundations, etc. employing various family members in various capacities and reduced their taxes to next to nothing. They then had one of those dreaded meetings with the IRS folks and after it was over, they were actually congratulated by the IRS for how ably they had use the tax code to their benefit while still abiding by the law.
By the way, I got a nice tax refund this year on my extension of $7617 with using what I learned this past year. I even went down to the local IRS office to make sure it all met with their approval but interestingly, the folks there seemed to know less about their own tax code than I did.
In the 60's "bullshit" was called on the government and the Elites, and we found ourselves with pacifying results that actually benefited society but led to Nixon. We called Nixon out but not until he closed the Gold window and as they say that was that.
Great strides were then made through the years by the radical now turned liberals. Along the way their kind hearts gave away the house, and the Super Doctors extended life beyond the 67 year mark that was the ceiling for collecting the greatest social engineering project ever conceived in the Social Security Act of the Roosevelt Administration. If only we had just raised the bar for when you could collect SSI commensurate with life expectancy then our issues would be less a predicament and more a problem solver type thing. That being just raise the age to 69, 70, 72, 74, 77, then 79, then 83. SSI taxes would just stay as they are or we sell a little more tax instead of an economy buster larger tax. We were NOT ever suppose to see a dime of SSI and is why people saved and planned a different retirement. Once we could see that we would have SSI as a supplement to our savings we realized we could consume ever larger portions of our future needs now, enjoy life while we were young and kick back when we were older.
The problem is the predicament now, and to change that will be no small task.
So we have "managed population" discussions. We have burned through more energy because instead of being frugal we went for it all and burned the shit out of dead things. We became glutinous and greedy as we all envisioned the rich life style, and are now stuck with debt that we spent on future desires and ate them all up in the present and we call foul because we are saddled with extreme debt that we and the government must pay back. What is so unfair is that we point the finger at government and don't think to point the finger at ourselves, and we are the government. You know, "government by the people for the people". We got what we wanted Folks. So I call "bullshit" on the people, That means you and me.
Along the way we forgot the only truth in existence and that is math. How would things look if SSI couldn't be collected until the age of 75. Would this problem be solved or is it to be managed as a predicament. How would things look if we weren't buying so much from the future that we had more than enough dead things to manage a future, and had the energy to do that?
Now we get cute with the math, if only we extend and pretend maybe the numbers will change when in fact the numbers will crush us as the moment of truth is finally set free.
I must get out of my office.
Have a good weekend
BOB
[quote]It's going to take a balance between free market and gov't. Every study I've seen shows better health care under government supported systems in other countries but as I say, if we can't agree on facts, we're just not going to be able to have a discussion, are we? Keeping blinders on in the service of a belief benefits no one.[/quote]Say it brother! Last I heard the US was first in healthcare costs and 37th in healthcare results. The entire advanced world is on socialized healthcare and provides better healthcare at lower prices. At some point you have to deal with facts.
Doug
I'm Canadian and I am thankful for, and fully supportive of our public healthcare system. And I am also greatly admire Tommy Douglas, the founder of our public system. But I also realise that it will be very challenging to maintain our system especially as our population continues to get older.Of course nothing is perfect, but I believe that most Canadians are thankful for what we have here. And that they would not like to have a for profit US style health care system. J.
ao, I took liberty as I sometimes do for effect and levity, thank you for enjoying it a bit. You are very bright ao and I am certain that you have things pretty worked out for your circumstance. Good Luck.
Hey, I had a visit with the tax man, and I was very intimidated but it ended rather harmlessly. It is where I got some of my material to respond, and then just let things go way to far! LOL
Regards
BOB
John said:"…I also realise that it will be very challenging to maintain our system especially as our population continues to get older. Of course nothing is perfect, but I believe that most Canadians are thankful for what we have here. And that they would not like to have a for profit US style health care system."
IMO, it makes a huge difference what a community or a society's values and priorities are, and how directly and realistically they can talk about what works and what doesn't work, about how to adapt. I really respect that Canada and most sane countries have made it a priority to find a way to provide healthcare to citizens. At this point, US healthcare is like a Rube Goldberg contraption, an outcome reflecting the schizophrenic shouting match caused by the over-dominance of healthcare insurers and other big political funders in public healthcare debate in 2009. As John says, Canada may have a hard time making its system work as the population ages, as will likely be true everywhere. They may have to make changes, and may even have to scale back benefits in some respects. Maybe they'll have to strongly curtail the extremely high end-of-life care expenses can be typical, and only provide them for people who have chosen to buy additional insurance for that purpose or want to pay out of pocket, or develop some other scheme. I read a post recently in which a guy said his brother spent more in healthcare on the day he died than the rest of his entire life.
But the point is, Canadians and other countries made a priority of providing universal health care, and that has a major impact on people's feeling about their relationship to their government and the basic fairness of their society. Math will always be math, but a country that makes a priority of providing health care, and provides heathcare information to its citizens that helps bring down its healthcare costs may end up in a better spot than a country that idealizes lifestyles of the rich and famous who made a ton of money setting up trashy fast food chains that make citizens fat and chronically prone to be sick, for example, and with some tendency to suppress health facts that would be a buzz kill for those businesses and cut into profits.
Thanks Kelvinator for expanding on my comment.And I especially agree with this comment in your post,
"Canadians and other countries made a priority of providing universal health care, and that has a magor impact on people's feeling about their relationship to their government and the basic fairness or their society. "
And it is certainly about values, and keeping integrity healthy.
A Definition Of Integrity
Integrity is a personal choice, and uncompromising and predictably consistant commitment to honour moral, ethical, spiritual, and artistic values and principles.
And Plato shared Soctrates's belief that that there should be an "art of living".
"Similiarily a man can live well only if he knows clearly what is the end of his life, what things are of real value, and how they are to be obtained… If man imagines that the end of life is to gain wealth or power, which are valueless in themselves, all his actions will be misdirected"
Plato also believed that society must be ruled by leaders who have "learnt, by long and severe training, not only the true end of human life, but the meaning of goodness in all it's forms"
"The Bush and Obama administrations have seen exploding debt and deficit levels accompanied by staggering issuance of new money by the Federal Reserve…
"…In this way, the government is taking future wealth from our children's pockets."
"…And it seems increasingly clear that the government will take more of the current wealth from ours, too. Rather than take the pain of reigning in spending, government demonstrates, time and again, its preference to raise revenues via taxation."
I read so much misguided hysteria in the press and it usually all wrong. This article is no different.
First of all, how do you define wealth? Is it a million dollars? $25 million? How about $50 million? But, that's only money. Its not wealth. Money is just a score card for figuring out how well or poorly you are doing. And as a measure of wealth its not very reliable. Real wealth is the clean air we breath. The forests we depend upon for producing all kinds of products. Its the seas filled with marine life. Its the magnificent views and mother nature. Its the ecosystem. Wealth is technology and innovation. Its patents and processes. Its a highly educated workforce.
Adam Taggart suggests that the government is squandering our future. Well he's right, but in a totally different way than he means. Our governments are focusing on entirely the wrong problems. For example, in Canada our government is determined to exploit the Alberta oilsands. For what? Money! In the process it is degrading not only Alberta, but its also destroying YOUR climate as well. In thirty years time when we have passed the tipping point of runaway global warming we will be shaking our heads and screaming bloody murder because our governments were warned over and over again to fix the problem. Sadly, we will realize what fools we all are. We could have solved the REAL problems.
As for the debt or deficits. I strongly recommend you read a book by Randall Wray called Understanding Modern Money.
From this book you will learn that governments. Particularly the US Government can borrow UNLIMITED amounts of money and it can create UNLIMITED amounts of money. Morover, taxation is not theft as so many right wing ideologes believe. Taxation is a way for governments to keep control of inflation and the money supply.
What is absurd is that Right Wing Republicans would have everbody beleive that "exploding debt and deficit levels accompanied by staggering issuance of new money by the Federal Reserve is taking future wealth from our children's pockets."
Interesting how when Bush and Cheney were in power, Cheney declared "deficits don't matter". Suddenly they do. Another inconsistency is when the Right screams "SOCIALISM" when ordinary people are taken care of, but when the financial system is destroyed by the Banks and Financial system then its OK to pump trillions of Dollars into the banks to save them. And its OK to spend trillions of dollars on unecessary wars with Iraq and Afganistan but its not OK to spend money on healthcare or infrastructure or education. Mitt Romney declared that one of the first things he would do is get rid of PBS.
People in America don't really understand what wealth is. You think its money. Its not. Its the 300 million people whos tallents drive the richest nation on Earth. And no matter how many trillions of dollars is pumped out by the Federal Reserve, that wealth is still going to be there. So too is the land, and the resources of the United States.
On the other hand if you don't make sure your people are educated and taken care of. If you don't protect the environment and if you let your infrastructure fall appart, you really will take the future wealth from your children. Its time for America to get its priorities right.
Would someone give me some suggestions, directions and recommendations regarding my strong
feelings that my $US? would be better exchanged into Candadian or Australian $ and bonds ?
Thanks Richard, John and Kelvinator for your excellent thoughts. To echo your same sentiments, its all about values and our relationship with each other and natural systems. The “economy” could be doing “great” and we still could walking off a cliff ecologically and spiritually. Thank god the money system and economy is crashing, if we had found some way to keep our “economy” “going” in its present form, we would be committing collective suicide.
Native Americans called europeans the fat takers, riding across the great plains in our iron horses slaughtering buffalo by the millions just for sport. Building McMansions and buying expensive cars for what? Have things changed? The question is will human being grow up and get beyond their petty self centered small minded thinking, my gold, my silver, my house, my money, my stuff. How will I survive?
If we don't change I, me and mine with we, us and ours we collectively are done. And that “we” needs to be inclusive of all the people and species on the planet. The foundation of capitalism, that if fervently seek to maximize my own personal utility, my own personal gain that is really not self centered and greedy, because if I become rich, then I will create jobs and everybody will get rich. Bulls@#%! You can throw all the higher math and pontifications ivy league Phd's at it but those are still the psychopathic musings of a 2 year old. How can we say that and pass the red face test as grown adults. Yet that has been the rationalization for this insanity we call western “culture” for decades. Forget the ism's, gold standards, free markets, big government, small government, whatever, we need to grow up or perish!!
If you read the quote, Ben Franklin he is saying something quite different from what Chris Martenson is suggesting.
My reading of the Ben Franklin quote is that if political parties are elected on the basis of all the public money that is handed out to their supporters then the Republic is in real trouble. You only need to look at Greece to see how true that is. And I totally agree with that sentiment.
As for the public demanding that the rich be taxed on the same basis as the working poor, how will that destroy the Republic?
If you look at the facts you will see the complete opposite has taken place over the past 20-30 years.
The rich are paying far less of their income than they ever have. Romney's tax rate of 14% on income of many millions is obscene when compared to the tax rates paid by the rest of us.
CEO's have seen their incomes increase from 50 -100 times their average employe's wages to 500 times their employees wages. That is unconscionable.
Middle class Americans have seen their incomes and standard of living stay the same or decline, by contrast, the further you go up the income ladder the better the richest 5%, 1%, 0.1% have done over the same period.
America's economy is becoming more and more like Zimbabwe where the rich own and control everything and everybody else owns nothing… If the rich own and control everything and the lower and middle class own just barely enough to eat, who is going to buy all the products the economy produces? I realize that globalization has on balance increased wealth and prosperity for everyone, but now that we (in North America) have outsourced all the jobs to China, which in turn will reduce their production costs by replacing workers with robots, who is going to buy all the stuff our economies produce if huge swaths of the economy is unempolyed or too poor to buy the products our economies produce?
In fact, the election was a turning point. The people were not voting themselves more money, they were voting for more equity. They were voting to change the warped and distorted system of government in America where the richest can purchase an election. Somehow, the people saw through the blizzard of lies and disinformation and realized "if we don't get our economy back now, in the future we will merely be indentured servants of the richest 1%.
Both the Canadian $ and the Australian $ represent a claim on Canadian and Australian assets respectively. And because both countries are rich in natural resources in a world wich resources are depleting at an ever increasing rate it is percieved that these currencies are good investments. On the other hand, the US $ represents a claim on the real wealth of the United States.Fact # 1: If you look at GNP per capita PPP (which represents the real productive capacity of a country) Canada produces $40,041 per person annually. On the other hand the US GNP per capita PPP you will see that the US produces $48,441 Australia produces $39,465 GNP per capita at PPP. (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-per-capita-ppp)
Fact # 2: Canadians travel to the US to buy many products and services because they are 20-30% cheaper. For example its cheaper to buy a car in the US vs Canada. So infact the Canadian $ is overvalued quite significantly.
So if you really want to protect your wealth, a better way of doing it is buying great American Companies like Apple or Oracle, or Google or Stryker. These are the entities that produce real wealth. Money is not wealth. Its only a medium of exchange. It doesn't matter if the American $ evaporates in value. Every other currency in the world will also evaporate at the same rate, since inflation will be transmitted to all the other currencies in the world. If America devalues its currency, other countries will be forced to devalue their currencies otherwise their manufacturing sectors will become less competitive.
The truth is America's economy is still strong. Are there problems? Certainly! But there are problems everywhere.
What's going in California is what's going on in the rest of the country. The price of education, both public and private, has been rising and is out of reach for many families and municipalities. The return on this education is now questionable, just ask any recent college grad. How much debt must a student incur for the employment market that's available? If you really want to know what's wrong with all our schools right now, talk with teachers (not administrators).
As a teacher, I can tell you there is not a day that goes by that I don't think of leaving the profession. Too much emphasis is placed on one type of education, cognitive learning. Science and Math, that's all we hear. It's the only thing we heard from Obama's mouth when he addressed the subject of education. Ask yourself why that is? Are these the things that are going to save our future? Isn't Chris's book a testament to the fact that these are the very things that have created the predicament we're in? We are slowly killing true education one test at a time. I see it every day. Teachers teaching to the standardized tests, SATs, ACTs, APs, IBs. How many of you have proctored an SAT exam? I did a few weeks ago. Students sitting in rows filling in little bubbles - this is not education, it's a narrow quantification of content retention. It tells you very little about a student, but it's what we emphasize in education - grades and test scores. I'm not saying we should get rid of tests and assessment, but right now, it seems these are the only things that matter. Stop trying to quantify our children!!!
Now we want more "effecient" methods of teaching…on-line/asynchronous courses, computerized/teacherless courses. This is what is being heralded as the solution to our budgetary problems. You wouldn't want a sociopath teaching your child, well… a computer has no capacity for empathy. The estimates are that 70 to 75 percent of higher ed faculty are part-time adjuncts, and 2012 is the first year in history where administrations outnumber full-time faculty on every campus in the U.S.
My recommendation? Return education to those who teach. Administrations are way too big and they are making curriculum/class decisions on a daily basis. They are stepping into our classrooms and telling us what to teach, how to teach, and how to assess. Core syllabi are becoming the norm. There is very little room for the teacher to bring his or her life experience to the classroom, but this is the very thing that needs to happen to bring back true education and the love of learning! The changes that were supposed to reform education have come from the top, many of whom never taught in the classroom (Corporations - Federal Politicians - State Politicians - Administrators). So please, stop blaming teachers. Those at the top need to take a look in the mirror if they want to know what's wrong with education!
Globaljoe, I would pay attention to the Canadian and Australian dollar as they are commodity driven, and the housing problems now imploding will cause their dollars to get slammed a bit. I would bet their printers will get fired up as well. Hey, everyone's doing it so…Tough situation everywhere are my thoughts.
Respectfully Given
BOB
Petition for Texas to Succeed from the Union
and a list of current petitions:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions
How much of this has to do with our extremely unhealthy diet?
about how to acquire investments in tangibles such as livestock, timber, etc?
That's a good question and I have not had much success if finding an answer. The closest I came is this article that, first, states that the US has the highest obesity rate, but then suggests that socialized systems have more leverage to persuade people to pursue more healthy lifestyles:
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/u-s-health-care-costs-more-than-socialized-european-medicine/
[quote]“However, the overall level of health spending in the United States is so high that public (i.e. government) spending on health per capita is still greater than in all other O.E.C.D. countries, except Norway and the Netherlands,” according to the Paris-based organization’s Health Data 2012 report.
Combined public and private spending on health care in the U.S. came to $8,233 per person in 2010, more than twice as much as relatively rich European countries such as France, Sweden and Britain that provide universal health care.
Are Americans healthier as a result? The U.S. has fewer doctors per capita than comparable countries, and fewer hospital beds. But more is spent on advanced diagnostic equipment and health tests.
Life expectancy has risen in line with that in other developed countries, but the average American life span of 78.7 years in 2010 was below the O.E.C.D. average. Obesity in the U.S. was the highest in the 34-nation survey.[/quote]
[quote]Commenting on the latest O.E.C.D. figures, an editorial in Gannett’s The Advertiser noted: “America pays big-time money for health care and gets Third World results.”
“The greatest public good comes from universal access to care that emphasizes prevention and health education,” according to article. “The European systems, often socialized or with health insurers forced to offer basic plans to everyone, can do that. Ours doesn’t.”[/quote]
I don't know how that leverage works, but it would be worthwhile finding out to see if its workable in our system and/or under Obamacare. I doubt it.
Doug