Are Americans catching on and increasingly rejecting horses, sparrows, and politicians who try to sell them on more trickle-down tax cuts for the rich?
The Democrats need to make political commercials about Reagan's trickle down theory and how FDR brought America prosperity and Reagan brought America poverty! And how immigration helps bust the unions and how Republicans started immigration.
America is about 34 trillion in debt and the rich have received about $40 trillion in tax breaks since Ronald Reagan. If you throw in the unfunded wars and interest on the national debt and wasted money on capitalist healthcare and tax money lost on offshore banking and corporate welfare and bank bailouts and wasted money and military budgets and much more I'm sure, the right wingers have cost the middle class over 100 trillion dollars the last 60 years! Now the rich have the audacity to blame the poor! At this rate it won't be long until China is the world reserve currency, just like bush, putin, china, saudi arabia...want, all because the spoiled rotten ungrateful maga lunatics are full of hate. They will still have their hate and an empty stomach, no medical or shelter when the GOP gets through with them!
The cruelest irony among many is that the MAGAts actually believe that someday they too will be in the .01 percent club, even when each and every day they awaken as forever members of the 99% and 5th Quintile at best. Great synopsis of reality Bob!👍
That is what the mega millions lottery for! Keeping the sadists hope alive for being able to be a tyrant of their own someday! Sadists are also idiots.
In the 1970s, America was introduced to Linda Taylor, a successful scam-artist who would eventually become known as the Welfare Queen. Taylor utilized 33 different aliases, 30 different addresses in various scenarios to defraud government welfare programs. She became a favorite example of welfare abuse at the expense of working Americans in the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign of 1976.
Although Linda Taylor was a real person, the myth of the welfare queen has been largely perpetrated by anti-welfare coalitions for years and caused prejudice against the poor that persists to this day with the media playing a big role in creating this narrative about public housing and welfare. “It becomes a way for the public to generalize from the worst-case scenarios,“ says Lawrence Vale, Historian, East Lake Meadows.
I was enlisted and applied for a Bootstrap commissioning program, accept, graduated with honors commission in the top s 7% of the officer training class.
I noted then the ridiculousness of "lifting yourself up by your bootstraps".
They are used to pull the boot on, but tug as you will you can't lift yourself up by your bootstraps.
People are so focused on job security and survival that they only hear part of the message such as the "tax cuts" and "job permanence" excerpts if they hear anything about what's going on except the distractions they hear and see on the news such as Trump's nonsense concerning whether an electric boat that sinks will electrocute you or the shark will eat you. It's partly the lack of the decent education we deserve but don't get anymore and a__holes like Bernanke who think their jobs are to keep working people in precarious situations so they are virtually slaves. (Procariots is the new term for the insecure proletariats?)
I’ve been posting for the last 6 months that “Biden Inflation” is actually fueled by hedge funds buying every bit of Real Estate they can leading to greed driven rent hikes. You can’t get a decent loan rate on a mortgage, frankly anything north of 2.0% is usury. Anyway, it has congealed the market for housing.
As well the ability to lease or buy a new car is now out of range for most owners. Again, people are stuck with 10 year old pieces of junk, or they are upside down in loans/leases. And of course the prevailing interest rate means that your $45,000 car will end up costing in excess of $90,000 over 5 years.
I agree about real estate -- especially in Florida -- and food prices are still too high.
Sunday’s Florida state average gas was $3.30 per gallon, the lowest daily average price since February 28. Florida’s average gas price is now 15 cents less than a week ago, 22 cents less than a month ago and 9 cents less than this time last year.
And other stuff is down. Only suckers buy new cars. The minute you drive it off the lot, the price depreciates 15%. Lots of deals on used cars.
Lat time I bought gas was Apr 9. The cost was $5.69 a gallon, then again I live on an island and gas is transported by Ferry, but on the mainland it is over $4 a gallon.
I get a 3 o 4% raise in social security COLA, and my ISP raises his rate by $10, there goes my COLA, then the pest contact raises their rate, everyone does and almost all food on the shelves at the market have jumped by $1.00,
I just got off the phone with my son. I can see the discontent. Americans even the homeless are given free cell phones now, life better than Kings of old, and are poorest life the lifestyle of oligarchs compared to Sudanese,
The story about the man who had no shoes, till he saw one who had no feet is a parable about humanity.
Never enough, never satisfied, be it at the top of the Maslow heirarchy are in the basement.
There is short term inflation and long term inflation. short term inflation is caused by greed, as you mentioned Cracker. Long term inflation is caused by the interest on the debt that we incur, government, corporate, private even credit cards.
Long term inflation is why my 1965 Mustang cost $2,000 off th lot and today it costs $33,000,It is why the house I bought in 1962 cost $9,000 and why that same house, old, run down, repainted costs a quarter of a million.
Ol Flawida cracker, the FED keeping the interest rates high isn't helping and the oil producing countries raising the cost of oil isn't helping and overpopulation isn't helping and shortages of food (especially Walmart), isn't helping either. I think we are under attack by the globalists trickle down theory?
The horse and sparrow trope reminds me of a more modern phrase: Eat sh*t and die! And the dying part comes without health care, decent wages, the ability to buy a home, and the money to raise and educate your children in relative safety. Oh and by the way, retirement comes with virtually nothing.
Younger Americans are well aware of the fact they get to do all the work, fight wars, and this is what they get along with high student debt. The pandemic sure gave them some perspective, especially the ones putting their lives on the line to keep this country going.
I haven't heard Republicans beating this drum lately, because it's always used in the context of job creation. Unemployment is not the problem these days. It's pretty hard to argue "you should give me tax cuts, and I'll be paying you less for this horrible job at Amazon".
Republicans are selling inflation this go 'round. If unemployment becomes an issue, they will absolutely return to their old "crap" for us little sparrows.
“Trickle Down”: I always conjure a Thomas Nast like image of pig snouted, top hatted, cigar in mouth (and if you will excuse the pun, “joint” in hand) Billionaires urinating on a sea of humanity with perhaps a speech bubble that declares; “Have a drink on us, Takers.”
Of course the Fascist far right will always roll out : Trickle Down, The Laffer Curve, and other Free Market mythologies as something you and I will receive like Mana from Heaven. They have to. How otherwise could they otherwise steal our taxes from the common, enrich themselves beyond our literal wildest imaginations and have us love them for it?
Only when the top 10% return to a tax rate on profits of 90% will I believe in any elected government understanding of a remotely egalitarian society that actually see us as shoulders the rich stand on.
Cracker, they couldn't get away with the scam, were it not for bought off whores and brainwashed idiot. On RR's threads alone there are those that jump in to disrupt for the "oligarchs or plutocrats" either paid disruptors, AI's or brainwashed ideologues,
Regardless, those that suffer most from these reverse robin hood policies, are the people that vote for their tools of implementation (politicians) and what does that tell you about the human condition.?
People consistently act, vote, militate against their own self interest, and why? Because they are either paid, believe that the status quo protects and provides, or are brainwashed.
One approach now in full force to make the rich richer and the poor poorer (in line with other SCOTUS actions decried in Thom's articles) is to abolish abortions, and eliminate birth control access as a right for everyone (coming next on the big screen). These restrictions most greatly affect (and will affect) the poor and lower middle classes, who can ill afford large families. So women will drop out of school, have more children to feed, and be able to work less due to the prohibitive costs of child care. Thus will the lower class expand, a prime objective of the oligarchic game plan. The increased poor will settle for lower wages due to desperation, and, as they will be less educated too, their leverage or ability to demand anything will be minimal. Isn't this picture Eden for Oligarchs?
I had heard the term "trickle-down" for years with some very basic understanding. In recent years I have learned so much about the idea, from the likes of Thom and Rober Reich, as it is referred to as "Neoliberalism". I wish that this was a household term that everyone was familiar with. I do worry a little that it may confuse some with the term "liberal" in it. Yet I will assume that if more people were aware of it, then more people might understand how it has been scamming the middle-class and the poor out of money for over 40 years.
I rarely (never) hear either term mentioned via the mainstream (corporate) media these days. They are more interested in talking about the how the stock market is doing or that the economy appears to be doing well but people just don't feel it. I think some people are starting to feel bad about the last 40 years of neoliberalism but don't realize it. So, the easiest thing for them to do is to blame the current person in charge.
I need to look for some "Neoliberalism Sucks" bumper stickers.
Sorry, for failing to see your comment. The reason is that we choose terms like “Neoliberalism” and the Fascist use terms like “Trickle Down” and “Free Markets” - It’s obscurity versus “sounds good” that makes them so effective. A special thank to master Goebbels follower Frank Lutz.
It would get more attention if still referred to as "Horse and Sparrows." How many of us would want to be seen picking threw the shit of horses for food?
Unfortunately, I fear it is too late now. All of these years of corporate abuse has gutted the economy to the point that the interest on the national debt is now equal to the GDP. To which the GDP is falling due the wars and trade tariffs. Neither party is offering a good solution other than more of the same. Maybe it will change, hopefully, but the democrats are running out of time.
From where I sit, I see Americans as fat, dumb and discontent. They live better than Henry VIII, everyone has a cell phone and that run into the hundreds the cost of a provider alone would feed a person for a couple of weeks. They spend money like a drunken sailor, or rather go into debt like they don't have to pay it back.
In some communities the homeless are given free cell phones and service.
I think that I am the only person in the US that doesn't have a cell phone.
The talk is of the national debt, how about the nation consumer debt, from mortgages to credit cards, the interest on private and corporate debt alone dwarfs the federal debt.
You will never pay off your personal debts, or most of you all want, you will either die and leave them and your estate to your debtors and what is left over to your heirs, or declare bankruptcy, except for student debt.
And the thing with debt is this. Without it, be it government, corporate, private, there would be no money. That's right, no debt equals no money and that equals depression.
True. And that fat, dumb and discontent attitude is what will end this democratic experiment if we don't get off our arses and fix this. or, those of us who try and fail, prepare for the end. I am doing what I can to prepare and become more self sufficient just in case but it sure doesn't look good anymore.
Perhaps I am under a rock; I have not yet heard a platform feature from Joe Biden that goes here. His eagerness to tackle monopoly issues through existing anti-trust law may be a clue, but if one wants to leave a lasting mark on American history, I would think one lets steam out of the pressure cooker. People on both sides if the aisle, as it were, believe that capitalism is flawed to the point of being a nonviable mechanism for managing the economy of a nation, of creating an aspirational society without creating the oligarchy we decry elsewhere but protect here.
The tax cuts elucidated here have never been fully erased. No president has seen fit to champion the middle and lower classes to the point of restoring the tax code of, say, 1960. Others more educated in such matters would have to weigh in as to exactly when we had it essentially right. But it surely seems to me that once corrected to whatever ideal level is determined, said code should be codified so as to be not subject to the whim of whatever president rules the roost at the time. Modest tweaking within a range seems reasonable; severe slashing that benefits always the wealthy seems quite another.
The voters in the proletariat that vote Republican do so because with irrefutable proof, they don't trust the Democrats to defend them and protect them against the wolves of Wall Street. Leaving said red voters with only "trickle-down" as their hope for upward mobility for themselves and their children.
Joe Biden is a mixed bag so far. He has not done everything he needs to do, and in his campaign literature, he does not claim that he wants to:
Revert that Tax Code.
Pass rigid new laws that render useless tax-dodging anonymous financial instruments, and TAX them
Repeal "Citizens United", set strict limits on campaign donations.
Continue to tackle existing monopoly after monopoly, and prevent new ones. Codify this to change corporate culture looking forward.
Revamp higher education costs so as to make education accessible to the majority if Americans without debt.
Revamp the healthcare system, removing private insurance for all that would prefer to use the same Medicare system currently restricted to 65 and up
Mr. Johnson's comment is excellent. Depressing but excellent. 100 TRILLION may be just about right. That much money removed from the general circulation of individuals, small business, cities, counties and states has a "deleterious" effect on lives and infrastructure. And governmental policy has done this, ON PURPOSE. WE can blame the greedy wealthy, and we should. But where has government been, defending the 98% or so?
This isn't me ranting on, here. These ideas and others listed in these comments could change everything, could fix everything, could end a noxious cult. It means going to war with Capitalism. IT means being prepared for it.
Biden has tried to do many of the things you point out need doing. But look at this Congress. You know it is terribly broken when the likes of the vindictive moron MTG are leaders! There is no reasoning - and so, no getting anywhere - with people who are either purposefully irrational (personal gain) or incapable of thinking rationally.
Judith,The GOP would not have won the Congress without the help of Garland not prosecuting them for their role in the insurrection. And Biden hired Garland. If Biden had hired a real attorney general I would be his biggest fan not critic! He can make it up to me though by firing Garland a little late, but better than four more years of Garland!
I agree and am furious at Garland for sitting on his duff for 2 years before confronting the Trump crimes. If Trump is elected, he will be one among a handful of people most instrumental in allowing it to happen.
Peter if we go to war with capitalism, we could end up looking like Sudan or Somalia, that is actually what I believe the capitalists want, like Putin, China, Saudi Arabia and our billionaires... We need to beat them at the ballot box, there is no beating them in a civil war! I agree that Biden is not far enough left, hopefully the next democratically elected president will be? We could have had single payer if Obama didn't settle for the affordable healthcare act also! Bill Clinton helped give us NAFTA. Biden gave us Garland and a GOP Congress! Well regulated free enterprise is a great motivator, but unlimited greed is catastrophically evil!
Pete Rose (you aren't the gambler are you?) Recommendations or rather druthers are spot on, but not realistic or achievable, simply because they are antithetical and a disability of the money powers like Peter Thiel, Jamie Dimon or any one of the thousands of CEO's Chairman of the Boards, Family Trusts and individuals that are major stockholders in USA Inc.
You are asking them to tax themselves, to give up their power and wealth, to deregulate after all of the effort they have gone to , to purchase controlling shares (politicians) in USA Inc.
I look forward to the day that a man's right will be upheld by all. How exactly a mindset would and could exist that allows an unequal outcome. I am sure the future has only good outcomes for all and the mindset that would allow poverty to exist will come to an end in the minds of men. This spiritual outcome is coming in the near future and those that oppose it will experience a change in heart. I only hope that the change is easy for them. I am coming to the point that belief in an enemy is ending. Only thoughts of Love and success. Nothing else. Peace to all.
You are a dreamer Clayton, first humanity, and mammals, will have to survive the rapidlly approaching end of the anthropocene. Melting glaciers, shrinking antarctica, rapidly disappearing Greenland ice cap, increasing polar vortexes, heat domes, pollinators dying off, new virus appearing faster than we can develop a vaccine. Pessimistic estimates we have until 2034, optimistic estimates the 22nd Century.
The co2 tipping point was 350 ppm it is over 400 ppm. Parts per million, tipping point is point of no return)
If true, man kind will be long gone, before it wakes up and reforms itself, but I don't see that happen if we survive 10,000 years. We are the same as we were w hen we walked around naked, beat each other with clubs and rocks, and rubbed sticks together to make fire.
I do feel a sea change coming, everyone even the die hard MAGA with their misguided dedication to Convicted Felon Trump, know down deep they are being screwed!
I am going to go off topic because I am incensed and I smell chicanery
Instead of being sentenced like you and I would. Trump was given 45 days to return to Mar a Lago, let's see if Hunter gets such consideration.
It is worse, the judge has sent a probation officer to interview him, vide Zoom never the less, to assess what sentence he should get. What other convict gets a visit with a probation officer to assess the sentence that should be handed down. Heck what other convict gets a visit from a probation officer before he is jailed. It is only after prison and release.
Trump is not on probation, so why a probation officer, we will not see or hear the interview, instead of the customary one hour it was 30 minutes and Trump had a lawyer at his side, who else has a lawyer at such an interview, much less a pre sentencing interview.
What we have seen is theater folks. Theater to justify Trump being slapped on the wrist for 34 guilty verdicts.
And Merchan and the whole legal system is terrified of Trump and what will happen to them as he seeks revenge. That is the charitable explanation..
Years ago - a bunch of years ago, as a conservative libertarian, I spent some time listening to Rush Limbaugh. One day, he started off with his typical “talent on loan from God” routine. Having listened to him for several months - when he said that this particular day, it just hit me out of nowhere: “If all this talent is ‘On loan from God,’ then where’s the love? I’m not feeling the love. I wonder if maybe the talent’s on loan from somebody else?” That was the last day I listened to Rush.
And here … there may be plenty of ugly truth to go around - but what I’m wondering is, “Where’s the healing? When are we going to quit tearing ourselves to pieces and start putting ourselves back together?”
I get - and even agree with some of the “diagnoses,” — but where’s the “prescription?
Vote democrat?
We evidently have 50+ million people here who are in favor of the present version of the GOP. They aren’t going to vote democrat no matter how correct the diagnosis might be.
My understanding is: 25% of GOP and 15% of DEMS think it’s going to take violence to settle our differences. Well that’s one prescription all right - but not the one I’d like to see implemented.
So where are some functional prescriptions worth having - starting with some alternatives to “Vote Democrat.”
Human nature is what it is, it hasn't changed it won't. The humans of today are the same as in Rome and the humans in Rome were the same as in the Teutoberg forest, which are the same as in China New Guinea and Africa, the only thing different is changes in technology which has led to changes in the social order, but not changes in mankind.
Buddhism is based on self cocooning, self change, but we choose to ignore or forget that Buddhists are also human, that the Chinese and Japanese were, are Buddhist or about armed Buddhist monks, killing Muslims in Thailand.
Google Armed Buddhist monks then click on images.
There is no prescription, there is no savior.. not from ourselves.
A problem has a solution, there is no solution, therefore no problem.
We are faced with difficulties,and we have to learn to live with difficulties and ameliorate their harm
There is a solution to the human condition, and that is the apocalypse of the anthropocene, the extinction of mammalian life
Hi William. I hope you’re not running for any influential office. (-: I’m also kind of a fan of hope, human hope for humans. Doesn’t sound like you have much hope for us. I’m a faith, hope, & Love guy - with the greatest of these being love - which I interpret as the human extension of “life training instinct” - common amongst many animals, and punctuated in us mammals & primates. I think we have it. I think it’s our “best hope” of winning survival for civilization & maybe humanity itself.
We do have a long way to grow, I’ll grant you that. And we may not have much time to get that growing done. I’ll give you that too.
In the meantime, faith, hope, & love — are the things I’m looking for - and looking for people who either promote those values, or at the very least are open to allowing them promoted.
Hi Dan: Too old to run for office, too wise about humanity as well.
Sjmon Rosenberg has an excellent substack called Hopium
Hope always resides in the human "breast"
Why do people climb into a 55 gal drum, why do they dig their own grave, why do they walk to their death, instead of being drugged or dragged.. hope that is why.
When Napoleon breached the walls of a castle the first soliders through were volunteers and the name for them was forlorn hope.
I too have hope, that things will not happen as I think and as events are revealing themselves. I hope Biden gets re elected, but I am prepared for the worst.
I don't delude myself into thinking that my hope is the reality that will come to pass.
Obama is a kind, honest, decent man and I love the dude. He ran on hope and change, lots of hope, but no change, definitely better than the change that would have come if McCain, a right winger, or Romney even worse, had won the election.
Those who had hope for change, were disappointed, especially the black community.
His singular memorable achievement was the ACA, and even that was a sell out to AHIP, 600 pages of gobbledoo gook, written by lawyer lobbyists for AHIP, and months of haggling and meetings in the White House, were Bernie and single payor adovocats were excluded, When all he and Nancy had to do was write a one page bill, that did what Bush did earlier and change the eligibility for Medicare from Age 67 to at birth.
Bu that would have pissed off the Association of Health Insurance Provicers and their neo liberal clone name of Rahm Emanuel who called us progressives fucking retards.
Yet I have hope, that by some fate of fortune Trump does not become a fascist dictator.
And your point Dan: I thought I made it clear that I am deathly afraid of another Trump term, if you are familiar with me and what I have written, the only hope that we have if he is elected is a major catastrophe that will wipe out the facists, be they corporate, racist, religious or sexist.
Dan I have to be honest. I am the nephew of a Southern Baptist Preacher I lived under his roof, watched while he concocted his sermons, he was expert at making up stories like the one you related about the kid in Haiti.
And what that has to do with hope is beyond my ken.
Hi William - we can share the common hope between us that Trump doesn’t make it to dictatorship.
My own father was a Southern Baptist preacher of the liberal genre who once protested to me (never, ever from a pulpit) “We know evolution is true or God is a deceiver!” I asked, “Well how’d you arrive at that?” He replied, “If evolution isn’t true, the God put all this evidence here to deceive us!” At that time I was in my mid-late 50’s , and he was in his 80’s.
So I didn’t argue with him, but I thought, “Well what about the possibility that God put all the evidence here and we’re being incredibly STUPID with it??!!! I think I would at least entertain that possibility before I hauled off and called God a deceiver because we’re dumb.
(I don’t argue the overall idea of evolution - just think we have a lot more to discover in those regards, and the zeitgeist has pretty much slammed the door on further inquiry).
But — here’s to hoping there is no Trump dictatorship. That may be a happy intersection between you & I. And we might find some others. Who knows?
The Democrats need to make political commercials about Reagan's trickle down theory and how FDR brought America prosperity and Reagan brought America poverty! And how immigration helps bust the unions and how Republicans started immigration.
America is about 34 trillion in debt and the rich have received about $40 trillion in tax breaks since Ronald Reagan. If you throw in the unfunded wars and interest on the national debt and wasted money on capitalist healthcare and tax money lost on offshore banking and corporate welfare and bank bailouts and wasted money and military budgets and much more I'm sure, the right wingers have cost the middle class over 100 trillion dollars the last 60 years! Now the rich have the audacity to blame the poor! At this rate it won't be long until China is the world reserve currency, just like bush, putin, china, saudi arabia...want, all because the spoiled rotten ungrateful maga lunatics are full of hate. They will still have their hate and an empty stomach, no medical or shelter when the GOP gets through with them!
The cruelest irony among many is that the MAGAts actually believe that someday they too will be in the .01 percent club, even when each and every day they awaken as forever members of the 99% and 5th Quintile at best. Great synopsis of reality Bob!👍
That is what the mega millions lottery for! Keeping the sadists hope alive for being able to be a tyrant of their own someday! Sadists are also idiots.
"The audacity to blame the poor" is an effective redneck refrain long after Clinton killed "welfare as you knew it. "
Well, I've never worked much
In fact, I've been poor all my life
I guess I really own is
Ten kids and a wife
This house is a lived in mine
But it's really a shack
But I always managed somehow
To drive me a brand new Cadillac
Backdoor steps
They done fell plum down
Front screen door's off and laying
Somewhere out there on the ground
Wind just now whupped another piece
Of that old tar roofing off the back
Sure hope it don't skin up that new Cadillac
Front porch
They're loose at the bottom
It don't make no sense to fix them
Cause that floor just too darn rotten
Wintertime, we sometimes have some snow
That blows in through the cracks
It gets too bad, we just all pile up
Sleep out there in that new Cadillac
I know the place ain't much
But I sure don't pay no rent
I get the check the first of every month
From this here federal government
Every Wednesday, I get commodities
Sometimes, four or five sacks
Pick em up down at the welfare office
Driving that new Cadillac
Some folks say I'm crazy
And I'd even been called a fool
But my kids get free books and
All them there free lunches at school
We get peanut butter and cheese
And, man, they give us flour by the sack
Course them welfare checks
They make the payments on this new Cadillac
The way that I see it
These other folks are the fools
They're working and paying taxes
Just to send my youngins through school
Salvation Army cuts our hair
And gives us the clothes we wear on our back
So we can dress up and ride around
And show off this new Cadillac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq-hx73or30
In the 1970s, America was introduced to Linda Taylor, a successful scam-artist who would eventually become known as the Welfare Queen. Taylor utilized 33 different aliases, 30 different addresses in various scenarios to defraud government welfare programs. She became a favorite example of welfare abuse at the expense of working Americans in the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign of 1976.
Although Linda Taylor was a real person, the myth of the welfare queen has been largely perpetrated by anti-welfare coalitions for years and caused prejudice against the poor that persists to this day with the media playing a big role in creating this narrative about public housing and welfare. “It becomes a way for the public to generalize from the worst-case scenarios,“ says Lawrence Vale, Historian, East Lake Meadows.
https://florida.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/east-lake-meadows-stereotyping/east-lake-meadows-a-public-housing-story-video/
Thanks to Ronald Reagan who not only perpetrated the Wefare Queen, but conflated every person receiving welfare as a scamming, lazy black woman.
It's the old Horatio Alger story, rags to riches.
Lifting by one’s bootstraps <—- Did anyone ever get the irony of this phrase?
I was enlisted and applied for a Bootstrap commissioning program, accept, graduated with honors commission in the top s 7% of the officer training class.
I noted then the ridiculousness of "lifting yourself up by your bootstraps".
They are used to pull the boot on, but tug as you will you can't lift yourself up by your bootstraps.
People are so focused on job security and survival that they only hear part of the message such as the "tax cuts" and "job permanence" excerpts if they hear anything about what's going on except the distractions they hear and see on the news such as Trump's nonsense concerning whether an electric boat that sinks will electrocute you or the shark will eat you. It's partly the lack of the decent education we deserve but don't get anymore and a__holes like Bernanke who think their jobs are to keep working people in precarious situations so they are virtually slaves. (Procariots is the new term for the insecure proletariats?)
I’ve been posting for the last 6 months that “Biden Inflation” is actually fueled by hedge funds buying every bit of Real Estate they can leading to greed driven rent hikes. You can’t get a decent loan rate on a mortgage, frankly anything north of 2.0% is usury. Anyway, it has congealed the market for housing.
As well the ability to lease or buy a new car is now out of range for most owners. Again, people are stuck with 10 year old pieces of junk, or they are upside down in loans/leases. And of course the prevailing interest rate means that your $45,000 car will end up costing in excess of $90,000 over 5 years.
Welcome to the dawn of the Fedual Society
I agree about real estate -- especially in Florida -- and food prices are still too high.
Sunday’s Florida state average gas was $3.30 per gallon, the lowest daily average price since February 28. Florida’s average gas price is now 15 cents less than a week ago, 22 cents less than a month ago and 9 cents less than this time last year.
And other stuff is down. Only suckers buy new cars. The minute you drive it off the lot, the price depreciates 15%. Lots of deals on used cars.
https://caredge.com/guides/used-car-prices-june-2024#:~:text=Used%20car%20prices%20are%20falling%20as%20we%20head%20into%20summer,high%20APRs%20and%20high%20prices.
Lat time I bought gas was Apr 9. The cost was $5.69 a gallon, then again I live on an island and gas is transported by Ferry, but on the mainland it is over $4 a gallon.
I get a 3 o 4% raise in social security COLA, and my ISP raises his rate by $10, there goes my COLA, then the pest contact raises their rate, everyone does and almost all food on the shelves at the market have jumped by $1.00,
I just got off the phone with my son. I can see the discontent. Americans even the homeless are given free cell phones now, life better than Kings of old, and are poorest life the lifestyle of oligarchs compared to Sudanese,
The story about the man who had no shoes, till he saw one who had no feet is a parable about humanity.
Never enough, never satisfied, be it at the top of the Maslow heirarchy are in the basement.
There is short term inflation and long term inflation. short term inflation is caused by greed, as you mentioned Cracker. Long term inflation is caused by the interest on the debt that we incur, government, corporate, private even credit cards.
Long term inflation is why my 1965 Mustang cost $2,000 off th lot and today it costs $33,000,It is why the house I bought in 1962 cost $9,000 and why that same house, old, run down, repainted costs a quarter of a million.
Ol Flawida cracker, the FED keeping the interest rates high isn't helping and the oil producing countries raising the cost of oil isn't helping and overpopulation isn't helping and shortages of food (especially Walmart), isn't helping either. I think we are under attack by the globalists trickle down theory?
The horse and sparrow trope reminds me of a more modern phrase: Eat sh*t and die! And the dying part comes without health care, decent wages, the ability to buy a home, and the money to raise and educate your children in relative safety. Oh and by the way, retirement comes with virtually nothing.
Younger Americans are well aware of the fact they get to do all the work, fight wars, and this is what they get along with high student debt. The pandemic sure gave them some perspective, especially the ones putting their lives on the line to keep this country going.
I haven't heard Republicans beating this drum lately, because it's always used in the context of job creation. Unemployment is not the problem these days. It's pretty hard to argue "you should give me tax cuts, and I'll be paying you less for this horrible job at Amazon".
Republicans are selling inflation this go 'round. If unemployment becomes an issue, they will absolutely return to their old "crap" for us little sparrows.
Thanks for yet another educational piece, Thom, but you've ruined my appetite for oats! Keep up the wonderful political history vignettes.
The horse and sparrow analogy has a clear message- eat shit
“Trickle Down”: I always conjure a Thomas Nast like image of pig snouted, top hatted, cigar in mouth (and if you will excuse the pun, “joint” in hand) Billionaires urinating on a sea of humanity with perhaps a speech bubble that declares; “Have a drink on us, Takers.”
Of course the Fascist far right will always roll out : Trickle Down, The Laffer Curve, and other Free Market mythologies as something you and I will receive like Mana from Heaven. They have to. How otherwise could they otherwise steal our taxes from the common, enrich themselves beyond our literal wildest imaginations and have us love them for it?
Only when the top 10% return to a tax rate on profits of 90% will I believe in any elected government understanding of a remotely egalitarian society that actually see us as shoulders the rich stand on.
Cracker, they couldn't get away with the scam, were it not for bought off whores and brainwashed idiot. On RR's threads alone there are those that jump in to disrupt for the "oligarchs or plutocrats" either paid disruptors, AI's or brainwashed ideologues,
Regardless, those that suffer most from these reverse robin hood policies, are the people that vote for their tools of implementation (politicians) and what does that tell you about the human condition.?
People consistently act, vote, militate against their own self interest, and why? Because they are either paid, believe that the status quo protects and provides, or are brainwashed.
One approach now in full force to make the rich richer and the poor poorer (in line with other SCOTUS actions decried in Thom's articles) is to abolish abortions, and eliminate birth control access as a right for everyone (coming next on the big screen). These restrictions most greatly affect (and will affect) the poor and lower middle classes, who can ill afford large families. So women will drop out of school, have more children to feed, and be able to work less due to the prohibitive costs of child care. Thus will the lower class expand, a prime objective of the oligarchic game plan. The increased poor will settle for lower wages due to desperation, and, as they will be less educated too, their leverage or ability to demand anything will be minimal. Isn't this picture Eden for Oligarchs?
anything.
That is also a if you will Evangelical Nirvana 🤣
So true.
I had heard the term "trickle-down" for years with some very basic understanding. In recent years I have learned so much about the idea, from the likes of Thom and Rober Reich, as it is referred to as "Neoliberalism". I wish that this was a household term that everyone was familiar with. I do worry a little that it may confuse some with the term "liberal" in it. Yet I will assume that if more people were aware of it, then more people might understand how it has been scamming the middle-class and the poor out of money for over 40 years.
I rarely (never) hear either term mentioned via the mainstream (corporate) media these days. They are more interested in talking about the how the stock market is doing or that the economy appears to be doing well but people just don't feel it. I think some people are starting to feel bad about the last 40 years of neoliberalism but don't realize it. So, the easiest thing for them to do is to blame the current person in charge.
I need to look for some "Neoliberalism Sucks" bumper stickers.
Sorry, for failing to see your comment. The reason is that we choose terms like “Neoliberalism” and the Fascist use terms like “Trickle Down” and “Free Markets” - It’s obscurity versus “sounds good” that makes them so effective. A special thank to master Goebbels follower Frank Lutz.
"trickle down sucks"
It would get more attention if still referred to as "Horse and Sparrows." How many of us would want to be seen picking threw the shit of horses for food?
Unfortunately, I fear it is too late now. All of these years of corporate abuse has gutted the economy to the point that the interest on the national debt is now equal to the GDP. To which the GDP is falling due the wars and trade tariffs. Neither party is offering a good solution other than more of the same. Maybe it will change, hopefully, but the democrats are running out of time.
From where I sit, I see Americans as fat, dumb and discontent. They live better than Henry VIII, everyone has a cell phone and that run into the hundreds the cost of a provider alone would feed a person for a couple of weeks. They spend money like a drunken sailor, or rather go into debt like they don't have to pay it back.
In some communities the homeless are given free cell phones and service.
I think that I am the only person in the US that doesn't have a cell phone.
The talk is of the national debt, how about the nation consumer debt, from mortgages to credit cards, the interest on private and corporate debt alone dwarfs the federal debt.
You will never pay off your personal debts, or most of you all want, you will either die and leave them and your estate to your debtors and what is left over to your heirs, or declare bankruptcy, except for student debt.
And the thing with debt is this. Without it, be it government, corporate, private, there would be no money. That's right, no debt equals no money and that equals depression.
True. And that fat, dumb and discontent attitude is what will end this democratic experiment if we don't get off our arses and fix this. or, those of us who try and fail, prepare for the end. I am doing what I can to prepare and become more self sufficient just in case but it sure doesn't look good anymore.
I am so glad I cam across this Report.
Perhaps I am under a rock; I have not yet heard a platform feature from Joe Biden that goes here. His eagerness to tackle monopoly issues through existing anti-trust law may be a clue, but if one wants to leave a lasting mark on American history, I would think one lets steam out of the pressure cooker. People on both sides if the aisle, as it were, believe that capitalism is flawed to the point of being a nonviable mechanism for managing the economy of a nation, of creating an aspirational society without creating the oligarchy we decry elsewhere but protect here.
The tax cuts elucidated here have never been fully erased. No president has seen fit to champion the middle and lower classes to the point of restoring the tax code of, say, 1960. Others more educated in such matters would have to weigh in as to exactly when we had it essentially right. But it surely seems to me that once corrected to whatever ideal level is determined, said code should be codified so as to be not subject to the whim of whatever president rules the roost at the time. Modest tweaking within a range seems reasonable; severe slashing that benefits always the wealthy seems quite another.
The voters in the proletariat that vote Republican do so because with irrefutable proof, they don't trust the Democrats to defend them and protect them against the wolves of Wall Street. Leaving said red voters with only "trickle-down" as their hope for upward mobility for themselves and their children.
Joe Biden is a mixed bag so far. He has not done everything he needs to do, and in his campaign literature, he does not claim that he wants to:
Revert that Tax Code.
Pass rigid new laws that render useless tax-dodging anonymous financial instruments, and TAX them
Repeal "Citizens United", set strict limits on campaign donations.
Continue to tackle existing monopoly after monopoly, and prevent new ones. Codify this to change corporate culture looking forward.
Revamp higher education costs so as to make education accessible to the majority if Americans without debt.
Revamp the healthcare system, removing private insurance for all that would prefer to use the same Medicare system currently restricted to 65 and up
Mr. Johnson's comment is excellent. Depressing but excellent. 100 TRILLION may be just about right. That much money removed from the general circulation of individuals, small business, cities, counties and states has a "deleterious" effect on lives and infrastructure. And governmental policy has done this, ON PURPOSE. WE can blame the greedy wealthy, and we should. But where has government been, defending the 98% or so?
This isn't me ranting on, here. These ideas and others listed in these comments could change everything, could fix everything, could end a noxious cult. It means going to war with Capitalism. IT means being prepared for it.
Biden has tried to do many of the things you point out need doing. But look at this Congress. You know it is terribly broken when the likes of the vindictive moron MTG are leaders! There is no reasoning - and so, no getting anywhere - with people who are either purposefully irrational (personal gain) or incapable of thinking rationally.
Judith,The GOP would not have won the Congress without the help of Garland not prosecuting them for their role in the insurrection. And Biden hired Garland. If Biden had hired a real attorney general I would be his biggest fan not critic! He can make it up to me though by firing Garland a little late, but better than four more years of Garland!
I agree and am furious at Garland for sitting on his duff for 2 years before confronting the Trump crimes. If Trump is elected, he will be one among a handful of people most instrumental in allowing it to happen.
Peter if we go to war with capitalism, we could end up looking like Sudan or Somalia, that is actually what I believe the capitalists want, like Putin, China, Saudi Arabia and our billionaires... We need to beat them at the ballot box, there is no beating them in a civil war! I agree that Biden is not far enough left, hopefully the next democratically elected president will be? We could have had single payer if Obama didn't settle for the affordable healthcare act also! Bill Clinton helped give us NAFTA. Biden gave us Garland and a GOP Congress! Well regulated free enterprise is a great motivator, but unlimited greed is catastrophically evil!
Pete Rose (you aren't the gambler are you?) Recommendations or rather druthers are spot on, but not realistic or achievable, simply because they are antithetical and a disability of the money powers like Peter Thiel, Jamie Dimon or any one of the thousands of CEO's Chairman of the Boards, Family Trusts and individuals that are major stockholders in USA Inc.
You are asking them to tax themselves, to give up their power and wealth, to deregulate after all of the effort they have gone to , to purchase controlling shares (politicians) in USA Inc.
"A problem has a solution, there is no solution, therefore no problem". Wrote this one done on a card and hung it on my "I like wry" wall space.
"Tax the rich; feed the poor; until there are no rich no more!" - Ten Years After
I look forward to the day that a man's right will be upheld by all. How exactly a mindset would and could exist that allows an unequal outcome. I am sure the future has only good outcomes for all and the mindset that would allow poverty to exist will come to an end in the minds of men. This spiritual outcome is coming in the near future and those that oppose it will experience a change in heart. I only hope that the change is easy for them. I am coming to the point that belief in an enemy is ending. Only thoughts of Love and success. Nothing else. Peace to all.
You are a dreamer Clayton, first humanity, and mammals, will have to survive the rapidlly approaching end of the anthropocene. Melting glaciers, shrinking antarctica, rapidly disappearing Greenland ice cap, increasing polar vortexes, heat domes, pollinators dying off, new virus appearing faster than we can develop a vaccine. Pessimistic estimates we have until 2034, optimistic estimates the 22nd Century.
The co2 tipping point was 350 ppm it is over 400 ppm. Parts per million, tipping point is point of no return)
If true, man kind will be long gone, before it wakes up and reforms itself, but I don't see that happen if we survive 10,000 years. We are the same as we were w hen we walked around naked, beat each other with clubs and rocks, and rubbed sticks together to make fire.
I do feel a sea change coming, everyone even the die hard MAGA with their misguided dedication to Convicted Felon Trump, know down deep they are being screwed!
I am going to go off topic because I am incensed and I smell chicanery
Instead of being sentenced like you and I would. Trump was given 45 days to return to Mar a Lago, let's see if Hunter gets such consideration.
It is worse, the judge has sent a probation officer to interview him, vide Zoom never the less, to assess what sentence he should get. What other convict gets a visit with a probation officer to assess the sentence that should be handed down. Heck what other convict gets a visit from a probation officer before he is jailed. It is only after prison and release.
Trump is not on probation, so why a probation officer, we will not see or hear the interview, instead of the customary one hour it was 30 minutes and Trump had a lawyer at his side, who else has a lawyer at such an interview, much less a pre sentencing interview.
What we have seen is theater folks. Theater to justify Trump being slapped on the wrist for 34 guilty verdicts.
And Merchan and the whole legal system is terrified of Trump and what will happen to them as he seeks revenge. That is the charitable explanation..
Years ago - a bunch of years ago, as a conservative libertarian, I spent some time listening to Rush Limbaugh. One day, he started off with his typical “talent on loan from God” routine. Having listened to him for several months - when he said that this particular day, it just hit me out of nowhere: “If all this talent is ‘On loan from God,’ then where’s the love? I’m not feeling the love. I wonder if maybe the talent’s on loan from somebody else?” That was the last day I listened to Rush.
And here … there may be plenty of ugly truth to go around - but what I’m wondering is, “Where’s the healing? When are we going to quit tearing ourselves to pieces and start putting ourselves back together?”
I get - and even agree with some of the “diagnoses,” — but where’s the “prescription?
Vote democrat?
We evidently have 50+ million people here who are in favor of the present version of the GOP. They aren’t going to vote democrat no matter how correct the diagnosis might be.
My understanding is: 25% of GOP and 15% of DEMS think it’s going to take violence to settle our differences. Well that’s one prescription all right - but not the one I’d like to see implemented.
So where are some functional prescriptions worth having - starting with some alternatives to “Vote Democrat.”
With Rush - I couldn’t find the Love.
With Thom, I’m wondering, “Where’s the healing?”
You are asking that a leopard change it's spots.
Human nature is what it is, it hasn't changed it won't. The humans of today are the same as in Rome and the humans in Rome were the same as in the Teutoberg forest, which are the same as in China New Guinea and Africa, the only thing different is changes in technology which has led to changes in the social order, but not changes in mankind.
Buddhism is based on self cocooning, self change, but we choose to ignore or forget that Buddhists are also human, that the Chinese and Japanese were, are Buddhist or about armed Buddhist monks, killing Muslims in Thailand.
Google Armed Buddhist monks then click on images.
There is no prescription, there is no savior.. not from ourselves.
A problem has a solution, there is no solution, therefore no problem.
We are faced with difficulties,and we have to learn to live with difficulties and ameliorate their harm
There is a solution to the human condition, and that is the apocalypse of the anthropocene, the extinction of mammalian life
Hi William. I hope you’re not running for any influential office. (-: I’m also kind of a fan of hope, human hope for humans. Doesn’t sound like you have much hope for us. I’m a faith, hope, & Love guy - with the greatest of these being love - which I interpret as the human extension of “life training instinct” - common amongst many animals, and punctuated in us mammals & primates. I think we have it. I think it’s our “best hope” of winning survival for civilization & maybe humanity itself.
We do have a long way to grow, I’ll grant you that. And we may not have much time to get that growing done. I’ll give you that too.
In the meantime, faith, hope, & love — are the things I’m looking for - and looking for people who either promote those values, or at the very least are open to allowing them promoted.
Hi Dan: Too old to run for office, too wise about humanity as well.
Sjmon Rosenberg has an excellent substack called Hopium
Hope always resides in the human "breast"
Why do people climb into a 55 gal drum, why do they dig their own grave, why do they walk to their death, instead of being drugged or dragged.. hope that is why.
When Napoleon breached the walls of a castle the first soliders through were volunteers and the name for them was forlorn hope.
I too have hope, that things will not happen as I think and as events are revealing themselves. I hope Biden gets re elected, but I am prepared for the worst.
I don't delude myself into thinking that my hope is the reality that will come to pass.
Obama is a kind, honest, decent man and I love the dude. He ran on hope and change, lots of hope, but no change, definitely better than the change that would have come if McCain, a right winger, or Romney even worse, had won the election.
Those who had hope for change, were disappointed, especially the black community.
His singular memorable achievement was the ACA, and even that was a sell out to AHIP, 600 pages of gobbledoo gook, written by lawyer lobbyists for AHIP, and months of haggling and meetings in the White House, were Bernie and single payor adovocats were excluded, When all he and Nancy had to do was write a one page bill, that did what Bush did earlier and change the eligibility for Medicare from Age 67 to at birth.
Bu that would have pissed off the Association of Health Insurance Provicers and their neo liberal clone name of Rahm Emanuel who called us progressives fucking retards.
Yet I have hope, that by some fate of fortune Trump does not become a fascist dictator.
I’m no Obama fan. But even more afraid of another Trump term.
I met a child in Haiti - a “Zero Baby” - one designated by his family as the one who would get zero resources, and be left under a tree to die.
He watched them build his coffin in anticipation of the result of their choice. He was about 3 or 4 years old at that time.
Several years later, about age 10, he was about 30% blind from birth transmitted STD -
But he was alive to tell me about it.
Hope.
And your point Dan: I thought I made it clear that I am deathly afraid of another Trump term, if you are familiar with me and what I have written, the only hope that we have if he is elected is a major catastrophe that will wipe out the facists, be they corporate, racist, religious or sexist.
Dan I have to be honest. I am the nephew of a Southern Baptist Preacher I lived under his roof, watched while he concocted his sermons, he was expert at making up stories like the one you related about the kid in Haiti.
And what that has to do with hope is beyond my ken.
Hi William - we can share the common hope between us that Trump doesn’t make it to dictatorship.
My own father was a Southern Baptist preacher of the liberal genre who once protested to me (never, ever from a pulpit) “We know evolution is true or God is a deceiver!” I asked, “Well how’d you arrive at that?” He replied, “If evolution isn’t true, the God put all this evidence here to deceive us!” At that time I was in my mid-late 50’s , and he was in his 80’s.
So I didn’t argue with him, but I thought, “Well what about the possibility that God put all the evidence here and we’re being incredibly STUPID with it??!!! I think I would at least entertain that possibility before I hauled off and called God a deceiver because we’re dumb.
(I don’t argue the overall idea of evolution - just think we have a lot more to discover in those regards, and the zeitgeist has pretty much slammed the door on further inquiry).
But — here’s to hoping there is no Trump dictatorship. That may be a happy intersection between you & I. And we might find some others. Who knows?