"Study: The widening gap between the rich and the rest of us is ‘unsustainable’"

That does not make the slightest bit of sense.

 

Protip: Then stop trying to brainwash the rest of the country into believing that they have no opportunity for upward mobility. The body can only achieve what the mind can conceive. And you guys on the left have done your damnedest to make sure that most regular people cannot conceive of a life any better than what they currently have. Your politicians do it to keep you loyal to them at election time through creating an artificial need for their services, and the rest of you just honestly don't know any better. It is your naivety and staunch commitment to what you think you know that keeps you stuck where you are. If you people were truly as open-minded as you tell yourselves you are, you'd constantly be questioning your own beliefs - examining them for accuracy. How often do you truly do that? Be honest.

 

I'm sure the romans thought the same thing.....

 

How in the world can you say the Democrats?

The liberalism that at one time did help others besides the elites is now faux liberalism. Clinton and Obama are the most recent examples. Clinton with his signing of NAFTA, with signing the republican welfare reform committed treason against non elites. The democrats do not represent average americans, but represent the oligarchs, just as the republican party does.

The genuine liberal democrats surely need to divorce themselves from the democratic party, or bring it back to what it once was. I don't any genuine liberals. I only see faux liberals, but of course I have only been on this forum for a week, so there may be a few here.

The right accuses Obama of being liberal. LOL. No sir, he is little different from Pres. Bush Jr. in that wall street and banksters own him. If they didn't own him, he would never have made it to the oval office.

We need to face reality, although it is very harsh, and most liberals are delusional or in utter denial.

 

it is point less because you refuse to educate your self what wealth is you under the ignorance that wealth is money or a tangible resource and it is much more then that

I can come up with an idea to build a better mouse trap I patent the idea and then turn around and sell the patent for a million dollars
that idea that required zero I repeat zero tangible recourses other then brain power had a value of a million dollars worth of wealth

 

Some people don't comprehend that poverty in any society is relative. And so some who are incapable of logic and reason think one has to live like the poor in Africa in order to be considered poor. And if they don't then poverty doesn't exist.

Poverty is the generator of crime. Crime comes about because of perceived deprivation. Market capitalism creates a system that fosters poverty and therefore crime.

And so if we had a society that didn't have a rich class and a poor class, crime would hardly exist, except crime that comes from genuine insanity. How many criminals are in a hunter gather society? How much aberrant behavior do these simple, egalitarian societies generally have?

In all societies there is the fact of symbiosis, which manifests the totality, which is society. Society is bound by interrelationships, yet we act as if undesirable things come from a vacuum. This isn't scientific at all. But science hardly has a place in creating a society, and that creates failures. Instead we leave the engineering of a society up to selfishness, and condition our young to this paradigm. Our society is based upon greed, we worship money, and those that have great hoarded wealth. That it is certain insanity is lost on most people, due to how they have been conditioned to think.

Yet if man is to survive, once capitalism implodes, we have to use science with intelligence in order to create something that is sustainable, that takes into account that infinite economic growth, consumerism, on a finite planet is impossible to maintain. And science and technology finally can provide what all of humanity needs in order to thrive as a species. The sad part is that we will have to crash and burn, with innumerable deaths in order to be pressured into intelligence.

 

Well, we used a socialistic action to bail out the banksters. Privatize profits, socialize risk. Which any proper oligarchy does.

 

What kind of socialism? I don't think we have ever had socialism by the book, have we? In the forms we have seen, an elite class quickly assumes power, and you have exactly what socialism was supposed to negate.

Socialism would probably work, if one could engineer a system that was democratic, and without a monetary system. As soon as you put a monetary system in place, you sow the seeds of corruption, and socialism is no longer something that works for the masses.

Socialism would have to come with a deep personal and social responsibility, and so far, we have been unable to change man's consciousness so that socialism would work well. What has in fact happened with socialism is that the base side of human nature has always corrupted socialism. And that will remain the 800 pound ape inhabiting the corner.

Also any socialistic model would have to be resource based, understanding that infinite growth on a finite planet is not sustainable.

 

I grew up next door in Montreal. Obviously I love Vermont. I skiied there a lot. Its my favourite state. That said with due respect Vermont and New Hampshire my other fave state, you must admit are unique states.

Its very hard to discuss what would work in your state with say for example what is needed in New Jersey.

That's one of the interesting things about the US. Some of your states are so vastly different than others in terms of population p attern, economic structure, natural resources, its difficult to comment on policies that could work in both. There's too much regional disparity pretty much like it is with our provinces in Canada.

Your comments of course do not surprise me. Anyone who knows Vermont knows your comments on the cumbersome regulations are just a fact. I know you mentioned Democrats and so on the face its a partisan comment, but its still a fact.

I think even Democrats in your state would now agree with you although I of course defer to you Vermonters on that.

What I will say is this though, I just am not sure if any government, Republican, Democrat in the US, Conservative/Liebral-Socialist in Canada, etc., regardless of what they claim their agendas are, are in fact grass roots let alone thinking of the common folk.

I am just not sure if any politician in organized politics in the west remains in touch with the people, once they are elected. The power and position corupts and distances politicians from the people they claim to represent.

Its interesting because in the US Obama tried to implement what we in Canada think was a milked down, butchered versin of our medicare system. He was called a socialist-communist because of it. To me any government in the US, state or federal if it was in touch with its people, would know how many are dying because they can't afford medical care. To me that appears a non partisan issue. It is seen though in the US as a partisan issue, i.e., if you care about the common man not being able to get medical care, that makes you a Democrat.

Is it not possible there are moderate Republicans who agree that the poor need medical care?

Is it that black and white in the US, i.e., only Democrats care about the poor?

That I understand came about when of course FDR during the depression implemented his new deal and the Democrats became the party of the poor. I get that. But since then?

I am not sure how in touch a guy like Obama would be with the poor. He claims he is. But is he? I mean who lobbies for the poor on capitol hill?

In Canada we have a Liberal Party leader who claims he speaks for the poor. His name is Justin Trudea. He worked one year as a drama teacher. That is the whole sum of his work experience. Inherited his family's trust fund. How the hell does he talk for the poor?

Then we have another guy, Mulcair claiming he runs the New Democatic Party which is like Britain's Labour party. It was originally a creation of the cooperative movement of farmers from out in Western Canada. In theory its socialist. In reality like the Liberals it thinks the way to deal with poverty is through government spending programs but the fact is Mulcair is a wealthy lawyer. He never went a day without food neither did his socialist party members who all make over $100,000 per year plus perks and expenses.

I just do not see any politician as a legitimate representative of the poor, right or left.

As for the left who claim to represent the poor I never felt they have a monopoly on that. Some right wingers are very socially concerned and progressive but might feel the best way to help the poor is not through government involvement but through non government charities and non profit organizations that teach and promote self sufficiency.

So I just do not know anymore. The only thing I know is in the winter skiing in Vermont is the best and in the summer its got some beautiful lakes. To me its very similiar to Quebec only its people drive better.

 

Proof please.

 

I want you to explain how products or services no one will (or can) consume will be supplied.

We have a consumption based economy. If we had a supply based economy, we'd have 0% unemployment and full production.

 

At a given point in time wealth that is available for distribution is finite. You can have a million good ideas but the value of those ideas is limited to the amount of wealth available at a given point of time.

 

The right always needs a bogeyman

Race (to scare people)
Taxes (to make people angry)
Racism (it's everywhere donchaknow)

 

by creating wealth

 

Race, the obsession of the left. Taxes, the obsession of the left. Racism, a second time, see first.

 

Wow. Its frightening that there are actually people who believe that nonsense.

 

You don't create any wealth by creating a product no one can or will buy.

If there is no demand for products and service, they won't be produced.

- - - Updated - - -

That's what I was thinking in the post I responded to.

 

for the richest? Yup that's political nonsense and untrue, everyone gains under republican policy, under democrat policy, wealth is distributed, government takes care of you and nobody really gains anyhting, and in fact everyone loses.

 

farmer A plants a crop of corn farmer B plants a crop of tomatoes farmer A trades some of his corn for farmer B tomatoes both farmer A and B both had to produce a product so each then can consume from the trade what the other produced

broke it down to the simplest form of a capitalist free market so you might understand how capitalism works from the supply side

both sides had to produce wealth before hand there for to exchange that wealth for what the other produced

 

They could be supplied by creating demand through the increase in the circulation of money in our Institution of money based markets. Compensating labor for being unemployed can circulate those funds more directly.

 

that compensation still had to be produced by some one first
all you are doing is taking away what some one else produced to give to some one who didn't produce it. your not increasing buying power you just redistributed it
it would be the same as having oranges in a basket you take a few oranges from that basket and but it into another. you didn't increase the number of oranges did you?
nothing was produced. wealth hasn't been created

 

The Republican party has one priority and has had that one priority for decades: Make the richest richer and (*)(*)(*)(*) on everyone else. They prove it in their every action.

 

Producers won't produce more stuff if people don't have the wherewithal to buy their products.

broke it down to the simplest form of a capitalist free market so you might understand how capitalism works from the consumption side.

If it were solely on supply side, we'd have 0% unemployment and the economy running at 100%.

 

and how do people get the wherewithal to buy products? they produce their own wealth usually as compensation from their labor. and they use the wealth they produced for their self to trade for what others have produced

 

Therein lies the problem, doesn't it? If people don't have the wherewithal to buy products because they either don't have jobs or get (*)(*)(*)(*)ty wages, and aren't producing much wealth, the answer is to get more people producing and pay them more so they'll have more wealth to spend, creating more production opportunity. Of course, if people don't have jobs and are getting (*)(*)(*)(*)ty wages, they aren't producing the wealth to buy more stuff and justify more production and hiring.

It's a self-fulfilling dilemma, right? So, when we have a slack economy with 15 million unemployed and industry at about 60% of production capacity, how do we get producers to produce more, when folks don't have the wealth to buy their products?