The Obamanation

[sugarpop]

I am talking about the disparity of income in this country. If we didn't have such a huge gap, everyone could live more comfortably. The gap was not always this huge. Couples in the middle class used to be able to afford living on one income even while buying a house. The middle class is what made this country strong. The middle class is disappearing because the people at the top keep demanding ever higher incomes. We need things to swing in the other direction for a while to bring us back into balance. And NO, I do not mean that everyone should have the same things and earn the same amount. We DO have the ability to end poverty in this country. Maybe we need to snatch some of the power away from the people at the top in order to acheive this. Greed has brought us to the brink of destruction. It's time to do something about that.

And don't think those at the bottom will continue to just take it from the rich. One day people will rise up and we will have a bloody revolution on our hands if these things are not addressed.

[lookout123]

Couples in the middle class used to be able to afford living on one income even while buying a house.

How much did that house cost? Did they have two new(er)cars? Did they multiple cell phones? Big screen TV's? The gap between the richest and poorest has increased obscenely but what you seem to ignore is that neither is standing still. The middle class and in fact the lower class are have and do much more than they did 30/50/70 years ago. Once playthings for the rich, luxuries like these are available to most of the people you see in day to day life.

I know many middle class couples today who live on one income. That is a choice they made based on their priorities. They live within their means knowing they earn less than dual income middle class couples.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

I am talking about the disparity of income in this country.

There will always be a gap and there should be a gap, otherwise we call it socialism. We do not live in a socialistic society.

[lookout123]

We do not live in a socialistic society.

Prove it.

IMO it all boils down to the fact that I don't really care what the rich have. If they gained it by playing inside the lines then good for them. There will always be a poverty line and there will always be some beneath it. I don't care at all about the amount it is set at because that will change. I support trying to make life tolerable with safety net programs designed to help them back on their feet and moving upward. Very few people genuinely don't have the ability to better their position in life if they see it as a priority and are willing to work at it.

[TheMercenary]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/morr...890/hammer.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bogd.../socialism.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=lSm...um=6&ct=result

Q. What do people mean when they say they are "socialists"?

A. As for "socialist", there are again two types - genuine ones fighting for the abolishment of wage labor and the rule of capital, and reformists. Many reformists call themselves "socialist" but have generally imperialist policies. For example, the French government is currently "socialist" - yet they are pursuing criminal imperialist aims such as the bombing of Yugoslavia! In Marxist terms, socialism is generally regarded as the period of transition between capitalism and communism - the transition to a system in which we can truly have "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". So genuine Marxists can be interchangeably called socialists so long as they have as their goal the abolishment of capitalism and the establishment of genuine worker controlled, democratic socialism. Just remember, those who call themselves "socialists" need to be taken with a grain of salt - look at the contents of the jar before you eat it - don't rely only on the label!

http://www.newyouth.com/content/view/117/60/

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

There will always be a gap and there should be a gap, otherwise we call it socialism. We do not live in a socialistic society.

We live in a society that is influenced by socialism. It isn't black and white.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

We live in a society that is influenced by socialism. It isn't black and white.

But thank God the influence of Capitolism far outweighs it. And we need to be sure we are talking about the same "socialism" as I have defined above.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by lookout123

How much did that house cost? Did they have two new(er)cars? Did they multiple cell phones? Big screen TV's? The gap between the richest and poorest has increased obscenely but what you seem to ignore is that neither is standing still. The middle class and in fact the lower class are have and do much more than they did 30/50/70 years ago.

This is going off on a tangent, but most of that material wealth is just disposable crap.

Houses today are built with drywall and plastic siding, not plaster and wooden clapboards. Plastic windows instead of wood. Furniture is mostly particleboard crap. Electronics are meant to be thrown away after 5 years. My last TV lasted 20 years. Think my new one will? We were recently looking for a dresser for my daughter. To find a decent one built of hardwood, it was $2000 to buy new one from a furniture store. Fortunately, we found an antique for less. The $400 dressers from IKEA will be in the trash in 10 years. Look at lot sizes for houses. They are tiny.

I understand what you are saying, but we live in a disposable society today, and if you want to buy quality items that last, you have to pay a fortune. Most people buy disposable crap and throw it away after a few years. Cars are about the only material thing we have that are better than what our parents had.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

There will always be a gap and there should be a gap, otherwise we call it socialism. We do not live in a socialistic society.

Merc, you repeatedly miss her point. The AMOUNT of the gap is her issue.

[lookout123]

I understand the tangent Glatt and I'll readily agree that the quality of everyday mass consumption items has gone down. Of course to say that we have to compare them to items that weren't everyday mass consumption items when they were made.

My point is that the lower income brackets have filled their lives with stuff that would have been viewed as pure luxuries to the lower brackets thirty and forty years ago. Hell, I remember when my uncle got one of those big rear projection tv's in the late 70's - early '80's. EVERYONE knew about it. It was an event when someone in our low blue collar town made a luxury purchase like that. A new (used) car was worth whistling at for a week or two. I didn't know anyone who purchased a new-new car until I was in high school and that guy owned the biggest construction company in the area.

The quality of items may be lower, but that goes with mass production. If we remove the nostalgia from the equation it is fairly clear that the lower income brackets have access to much more than they did before. I'm not saying they shouldn't grow anymore, I'm just saying that while the rich have grown richer, so have the poor. We live in a society where it is a tragedy if someone can't have a cellphone from the company of their choosing.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

Merc, you repeatedly miss her point. The AMOUNT of the gap is her issue.

I have known her for years. She her focus is always on the top 1%. But when you look at the overall discussion it is not so much about the top 1% as it is about the bottom 60% or so and how she believes that those who make more should make less so the wealth can be transfered to the lower socio-economic class.

[classicman]

So what you are saying is that the disparity between the top and the bottom should be less.

[TheMercenary]

Actually, I am really not concerned that much about the disparity. I believe that there will always be uber rich and uber poor. I believe it is a natural distribution of society.

[classicman]

See, now was that so hard?

[TheMercenary]

And from our friend Barney the Purple Congressman:

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/po...-42158597.html

nice.