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| Screwed, Blued and Tattooed in forum [FedUp]
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Docricketts
Posts: 109
Incept: 2008-10-21
Racing to the Bottom
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Quote:Carville: What if the rich lost 40% of their wealth?By James Carville, CNN Contributor
updated 11:17 AM EDT, Thu June 14, 2012
(CNN) -- Let's imagine that yesterday there was a front page story in The New York Times that read the following:
"The recent economic crisis left the top 1% of Americans in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve Monday.
"A hypothetical family richer than the median net worth of the top 1% of the nation's families had a net worth of $77.3 million in 2010, compared with $126.4 million in 2007, the Fed said. The crash of the stock market, in addition to the collapse of housing prices in Greenwich, Connecticut, the Upper East Side of New York City, Beverly Hills, Highland Park in Dallas and the North Shore of Chicago, directly accounted for three-quarters of the loss."
What do you think the reaction would be to that?
The elite would call for the suspension of habeas corpus, the government would call out the National Guard, invade Honduras and the Supreme Court would announce that it is in session 24/7 to take any action deemed necessary to help their friends.
The Wall Street Journal would have a black border on the newspaper. The Financial Times would go from pink to gray. CNBC would play funeral music for nine months. Steve Schwarzman would compare it to the H-word. Cable networks would roadblock all coverage.
Minimum wage laws would be suspended, the 40-hour work week would be thrown out, perhaps they would even do away with child labor laws to get productivity up so profits could increase to make up for lost revenue.
OK, we know that story did not appear in Wednesday's New York Times, and we would certainly agree that a massive loss of wealth in the top 1% would wreak economic havoc on the country. But there was, if anything, a worse story on that front page with only minor variations from our hypothetical scenario.
The story said that the recent economic crisis left the average American family in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, reducing their net worth by almost 40%.
And the response of the national elite, the people Paul Krugman refers to as "very smart people" or I like to call the "chin-scratchers," was a barely audible whimper.
To put it bluntly, the middle class in this country has been screwed, blued and tattooed.
Rising health care costs, job insecurity, declining real estate values, massive cuts to public education and public safety (no Mitt, we don't need fewer police officers, we actually need more of them and yes, the federal government has a large hand in this.)
It is a depressing state of affairs when about two-thirds of our fellow citizens are caught in an economic trap that is wrecking their lives financially and emotionally.
And the reaction to all of this has been limp at best.
The Republicans say that if we just give the rich more tax cuts, it will make everyone's life better -- seems as though we've tried this before, doesn't it?
The Democrats have done some things that have been helpful, such as payroll tax cuts and the Affordable Care Act, but there is much more work to be done. As far as other institutions around the country, the response has been pathetic.
There is an entire industry devoted to denying that this is even a problem.
I read a piece written by Andy Kessler in The Wall Street Journal, stating that thanks to "consumption equality," the wealthy work their 60- to 80-hour weeks inventing things for the masses, but there's not much they can buy with their money that the middle class can't afford.
You can only afford a product, because some rich person invented it for the masses, just like they did with smartphones, hard drives and affordable air travel.
Who cares if you can't afford to send your children to college or pay for your health insurance premium or what you owe on your house is more than what it's worth? Hey, you can buy them a cell phone, now that they don't cost $4,000, and talk to them as they stand in line for a job interview at McDonald's.
Where are our nation's institutions that should be raising holy hell about this? Lets start with my own Catholic Church: They are spending all of their time hunting down masturbators and birth-control takers.
Academics: Have you ever heard of the Princeton Center for Middle Class Studies? Not hardly.
The press: There is much more coverage on George Zimmerman's wife than on the destruction of the middle class in this country.
The lobbyists: Give me a break. When was the last time you heard of a lobbyist for the middle class? The point here is that we are reading the most significant economic story of our time and its effect on the psyche of the people who should know better is minimal.
In the words of Warren Buffett, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
The big scandal in America is that our middle class is shrinking, and no one seems to care. Maybe someone somewhere somehow should consider doing something else. http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/14/opinion/ca.... |
Asimov
Posts: 103848
Incept: 2007-08-26
East Tennessee Eastern Time
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"First they went after the middle class, and I did nothing.
Then they went after the rich, and I did nothing.
...."
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It's justifiably immoral to deal morally with an immoral entity.
If you trade based on what other people say, you will lose money. Especially what I say. I won't be held responsible. Festina lente.
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Grashopa
Posts: 2607
Incept: 2009-02-03
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It is amazing how much crap people can spew when the problem is so simple: inflation. Its not even hard to explain: Bank loans are new money. Who gets bank loans? You or the rich guy? Who pays the higher prices?
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Theft is evil
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Uwe
Posts: 6421
Incept: 2009-01-03
19446
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Quote:the recent economic crisis left the average American family in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, reducing their net worth by almost 40%. They never had that net worth to begin with; it was all paper wealth, a direct result of excess leverage in the system. -Uwe-
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“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.” - John Locke
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Mayorquimby
Posts: 13907
Incept: 2008-09-18
The Archaic Past
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Yup. "Wealth" is one of the most misunderstood words in our vernacular.
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They who wish to hurt you, work within the law.
- Morrissey
Gold is theft.
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Resistance
Posts: 6162
Incept: 2008-09-26
Banned
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Yes, but this does illustrate that those with first access to money generally benefit from inflation, while those who don't generally lose.
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"Why must political experiments always be in the direction of more government? Why not give the free market a county or even a state or two, and see what it can accomplish?"Murray Rothbard - The Fallacy of the Public Sector
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Peterm99
Posts: 4981
Incept: 2009-03-21
SoCal
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Quote:They never had that net worth to begin with; it was all paper wealth . . . Correct, but, so long as the paper wealth does not decline at the same rate across all elements of the economy, the screwing, bluing, and tattooing of the people from whom it is withdrawn first appears VERY real, and, as Resistance points out, those whose paper wealth disappears at the slowest rate, have an inordinately better time of it than the rest. It is no coincidence that it is the government-related, -funded, -supported, and -protected activities that are in the "slowest rate of decline" group.
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". . . the Constitution has died, the economy welters in irreversible decline, we have perpetual war, all power lies in the hands of the executive, the police are supreme, and a surveillance beyond Orwell’s imaginings falls into place." - Fred Reed
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Swingtrader
Posts: 9108
Incept: 2007-08-12
United Oligarchic Goldman Sachs States of America
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I really usually do not like Carville's position, he is such a democrate and leftist - but, I often have said - I wish the libertarians had him in their camp. He is astute, in touch and knows what will resonate.
He also has the ability to verbalize things well.
Sad, to see all that talent go to waste.
Really like the guy, too bad he's such a leftist.
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Swing said "Well, it is collapsing as we watch.This is what it looks like." Australian federal judge Jayne Jagot, doing what US judges need to do!
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