Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge Economic dream = nightmare

In case you didn't already know it ...

Wake up, Americans. Your economic dream is a nightmare

Well, the tone of that piece is a bit patronizing. It could be that plenty of Americans are wide awake and in touch with our economic reality but that our interests are increasingly removed from representation in the halls of power (now that corporations are people and so can dominate the financing of politics; see the Koch brothers—"the Standard Oil of our times"—for the prime example).

And those who are supposed to represent our interests are also wide awake; they're just dancing to the tune of a different fiddler: the very well-off, whose well-offness has continued to grow more or less continuously since the days of Ronald Reagan. If you're a major stockholder and profits are soaring, who cares if the company's not hiring?

Of course it's patronizing. That's how one has to deal with "children" (those who can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy), whose only response to the economic malaise is to lash out blindly and wildly, blaming all and sundry for their misfortunes, rather than focusing on the root of the problem (namely, themselves). Just like the imbeciles who still think that one or another vaccine causes autism (are you listening, Jenny McCarthy?). Or just like 51% of Americans, according to a recent poll, who still believe that Obama isn't a native-born American.
{Aah, that little rant — let's say rantlet — feels oh, so good.}
Like Scrooge McDuck, I'm going to spend my free time diving in and out of my money vault.

Could you give me a cite for that recent poll…would love to read it
tks

.......which will be okay as long as you can keep it full.

Considering we have some history not much different than south of the border (just behind in time) you might face future challenges keeping the vault full.

The Americans had Reagan who handed a giant financial problem to Clinton. Clinton fixed it and handed a giant surplus to Bush, who changed it into a huge financial mess that he turned over to Obama.

We had Mulroney who handed a giant financial problem to Chretien. Chretien's Minister of Finance Paul Martin fixed it and they gave a giant surplus to the Conservatives who have now reversed it.

And Prime Minister Harper isn't done yet. Like Republicans he thinks we should be spending billions on new jails, even though crime statistics have dropped. He's handed more than 35 billion in tax cuts to corporations who are already awash in cash but not generating meaningful jobs, and he's let the civil service balloon by 12.5%.

I find Harper's fiscal achievement more than a bit worrisome.

ryck

Jay-bird: I wish I could give a citation, but I only fleetingly caught the commentary on a Canadian newscast last week (and I can't even recall which of the 3 networks it was on).
So I just punched it up on a search engine and came up with a poll reported on February 16 —
http://globalgrind.com/channel/news/cont...t-do-you-think/
So I was a tad off: Only 51% of Republican primary voters registered that opinion.

Yeah, I'm going to have to give Harper a little leeway, given that he's had to take the brunt of the bomb-out recession over the past couple years.

As for my money vault qua pit, if necessary, I can always downsize the content from gold Maple Leaves and Krugerrands to silver dollars to 50¢ pieces .... Actually, the smaller coins are a lot easier to swim in.

Glad to see you got your facts straight...

people want more from their government... *

elect republican
taxes cut
govt spending increased
people receive more benefits, services, and govt handouts
national debt grows
national economy collapses

people want economy fixed...

elect democrat
taxes raised
govt spending lowered
people receive fewer benefits, services, and govt handouts
national debt declines
national economy repaired

people want more from their government... *

rinse, repeat.

that's the USA for you. you can't blame the democrats OR the republicans, it's the VOTERS that are doing it to us... If I were to have to sum it up I'd say it's the (*) moments where the voters get greedy that cause this to happen over and over. Call it "robbing the future for a lavish today".

What did I say?! Morons flailing about as though their behavior wasn't haphazard.
Ah, sweet serendipity ... or should that be stupidity. Potayto, potahto.