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Open thread Nov. 16, 2012

Dan Crawford | November 16, 2012 2:24 pm

Tags: open thread Comments (19) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
19 Comments
  • Jack says:
    November 17, 2012 at 1:17 pm

    Here is a really first rate assessment by David Atkins (@Hullabaloo) responding to a description of the ever increasing disparity in income in this country over the past thirty years.
    “Given this reprehensible situation, anyone complaining about how poorly the rich are treated in America is a moral cretin.”

    And I do like his description of Mitt(ens)in reference to the demands of the “47%” and the gifts being promised to them by Obama. “The fact that a vulture capitalist fat cat who directly benefits from and spent his entire career helping to exacerbate this very inequality can dare turn around and accuse his victorious opponent of wanting to lavish the less fortunate with “gifts” speaks to a deep-seated personal moral insanity.”

    Mitt and his ilk point out to the rest of us the personal depravity of many of the excessively wealthy
    (through little fault of their own). Does the term avaricious greed ring any bells in his belfry?

  • coberly says:
    November 17, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    Jack

    it probably doesnt. people have ways of rationalizing their own behavior.

    on the other hand, i get mistaken for a Mitt supporter when I try to suggest that a little moderation in the left’s rhetoric might win them more support from us blue collar types, who are invariably portrayed as right wing, racist, evil white men.

    workers don’t like to see themselves as victims who don’t take responsibility for their lives, but i find it funny as hell that the Left, while riding the meme, want to turn workers into exactly that.

  • Jack says:
    November 17, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    The left? What is that? There hasn’t been a real left wing in this country for the past 50 years.
    There are plenty of progressive people who recognize the needs of all participants in our econoomy, even those who have either retired from or stepped out of that economy. There is a great deal of propaganda that parades as journalism and political commentary that would have us believe that those who demand a fair share of the economic productivity of America are leftist socialists. So much crap and so few shovels.

    Talk to the working man and woman, but listen to their bosses. Guys like Romney and Bill O’Reilly don’t know the meaning of fair and honest. They only know that they want more of every thing.

  • coberly says:
    November 17, 2012 at 4:22 pm

    Jack

    that’s true mostly. but “the left” i am talking about is right here, where “greedy white men” and chortling about the demise of the white working class voter are so “natural” that they slip past both the reader and the writer without conscious thought. they don’t slip past the white worker, who would probably vote for the Democrats if the left didn’t help the right do such a good job of scaring and offending them.

    as for “fair share” i am still having trouble dealing with the concept that “the rich” should pay their fair share of your retirement, when you can pay for it yourself with an extra eighty cents per week per year.

    (for those who notice, eighty cents has replaced forty cents in my rhetoric because the recession has meant that the forty cents per week per year over the next eighty years needs to be paid “up front.” it still averages forty cents per week over that eighty years, and a lot less over the infinite horizon.)

  • coberly says:
    November 17, 2012 at 4:25 pm

    oh, and for those who care

    i started out here thinking i was on the left… at least on most issues… and i find i have been treated by people calling themselves progressives in a way that reminds me of the soviet communism we read in fiction (including newspapers) that want us to be afraid of communists.

    my god, if you don’t want to be called that, stop sounding like that.

  • Joel says:
    November 18, 2012 at 8:26 am

    “my god, if you don’t want to be called that, stop sounding like that.”

    *sigh*

    If only it were true. Out here in the real world, one is called a “socialist” for supporting public schools and libraries.

    People who call progressives “communists” or “socialists” are not doing so because they understand these words, or because they are reminded of communist or socialist rhetoric in the speech of progressives. They are simply using these words as epithets.

  • coberly says:
    November 18, 2012 at 3:14 pm

    Joel

    for the most part you are entirely correct.

    and i have no certainty that if we stopped using the rhetoric of “evil white men” or stopped favoring policies of “tax the rich but don’t tax me” that we would win the hearts and minds

    But to be perfectly honest the Progressives have lost me as a friend… though i still tend to agree with them about substantive issues… by sounding like, and sometimes acting like, good Party members… complete with a secret membership and a complete intolerance of persons… now former persons… who disagree with the party line, even in the pursuit of more effective ways to achieve their stated goal of helping workers.

    to be fair, i can see no difference in the way these people operate between them and the evil corporate management we both hate.

  • Jack says:
    November 18, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    “…. i am still having trouble dealing with the concept that “the rich” should pay their fair share of your retirement, when you can pay for it yourself with an extra eighty cents per week per year.”

    Dale
    When you read “fair share” in any comment I may make know that I am talking about the general budget and the taxes required to “balance” that budget. I don’t want to put too much emphasis on balanced budget, but to the extent taxes are necessary to support that budget the fair share is essential.
    The rich by the very nature of their wealth accumulation have taken far more out of the economy than has any other citizen. Therefore, the rich need to pay the major share of general taxes.

    Social Security shouldn’t even be a part of the discussion of the budget. There is no combined budget other than what exists in the greedy minds of those who would rather use your retirement savings accumulated in the Social Security Trust Fund as a slush fund for paying down the deficit. If they don’t want Social Security to contribute to the deficit (and it certainly doesn’t contribute to the debt) then the excess FICA collections should be invested in Chinese or Japanese government debt. When the propagandist scum stop claiming that Social Security is a debt problem I’ll be happy to think they are trying to honestly approach a resolution to the current recession and deficit.

  • coberly says:
    November 18, 2012 at 6:03 pm

    Jack

    please understand that i agree with you entirely about substantive issues.

    even the rhetoric about fair share doesn’t offend me personally, but first, you are not the only person i am arguing with here. i have been burned pretty badly by people calling themselves progressives who think that turning Social Security into welfare as we knew it would be a coup for cosmic justice by forcing the rich to pay their “fair share.” *

    as if they could. but worse, “the rich” already pay more for SS than the not-rich, something the “fair share” folks can’t seem to understand. and second, the rich believe they pay more than their fair share of income tax. they do not. but “fair share” is not the way to reach them.

    i’m talking about the honest rich. the propagandist scum cannot be reached by any means short of sheer power. i would like the workers to find they have such power short of the Robespierre method.

    *(The burning comes not from their disagreeing with me, but from their treating me as a non-person in a manner quite reminiscent to me of what we used to hear about the Communist Party.)

  • hancke says:
    November 19, 2012 at 12:20 am

    So if SS should not be part of the discussion on taxing the rich, then what is “fair share”? Is Medicare excluded on the same basis? That leaves the actual operation of the US government and of course “spending in the tax code” aka welfare. How much welfare does the rich need to pay to measure up to a “fair share”? SS is a debt problem in that it’s so called surplus was borrowed to finance more debt and of course more taxpayer funds are required to pay it back….with interest. Unless we are operating with a balanced budget then it is all about debt.

  • coberly says:
    November 19, 2012 at 11:07 am

    hancke

    of course “the rich” need to pay back the money they borrowed FROM Social Security. that is NOT paying FOR Social Security.

    currently Medicare is mostly paid for by the rich through general taxes. This leads to stupid ideas like cutting Medicare to “save” it… while forcing the elderly to try to find a way to pay for their medical care. If workers paid the whole expected cost while they were still working, then they wouldn’t have to scramble or starve or do without need care when they are no longer working.

    The rich DO need to pay more taxes at least until “the deficit” is no longer a political issue. But the rhetoric of “making the rich pay their fair share” is sterile and obnoxious. The rich already pay for MOST of government, and they believe they are already paying more than their fair share. And it is obnoxious to me that people making twice as much money as i ever did hold up their hurt paw and say “i’m not rich, don’t tax me.” As long as “we” are that dishonest with ourselves, we can hardly expect the rich to be any more honest with themselves.

    btw SS could continue without having the Trust Fund debt repaid without missing a beat.. so it is NOT “all about debt.”

    i think your thinking is confused by the “who got the biggest piece of burfday cake” syndrome.

  • hancke says:
    November 19, 2012 at 11:28 am

    Coberly, Why is it obnoxious to you that someone can EARN twice as much as you do? I find it obnoxious that anyone thinks that freedom is obnoxious. Some call it envy or greed.

  • coberly says:
    November 19, 2012 at 11:49 am

    hancke

    try to read the whole sentence. it is not obnoxious to me that some people make twice what i do, or even a lot more than that.

    it is obnoxious to me that those making twice what i do claim they are not rich and shouldn’t have to pay taxes.

    it is very tedious to have to argue with people who can’t read.

  • Jack says:
    November 19, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    “SS is a debt problem in that it’s so called surplus was borrowed to finance more debt and of course more taxpayer funds are required to pay it back….with interest. Unless we are operating with a balanced budget then it is all about debt.” hancke

    Are you really that stupid? Or is it mearly a matter of ignorance that leads to your not understanding that the SS Trust Fund is only one of ma ny significant creditors to the general budget. There’s China, Japan and Korea near the top of the accumulated Treasury debt list. There are also individuals both directly and through investment organizations. And there are big banks that also hold Treasury notes. All are Treasury bond holders. Treasury issued increasing amounts of such debt in order to make up for the generosity of the Bush tax cuts and the stupidity of the war expenditures in the middle east.
    So it’s time to end the tax holiday being enjoyed by the wealthiest sectors of our economy.

  • coberly says:
    November 19, 2012 at 4:22 pm

    Jack

    hanke is that stupid. he can’t tell the difference between lent and borrowed. money i owe you and money you owe me.

  • hancke says:
    November 19, 2012 at 7:50 pm

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

  • coberly says:
    November 20, 2012 at 11:55 am

    blog administrator

    i tried to delete my comment and nothing happened.

    i don’t need to be mean to hanke, but some days it takes more mental energy than i have to be diplomatic.

    the level of misinformation based on lies and bad thinking about Social Security is so overwhelming that it makes me grouchy.

  • hancke says:
    November 21, 2012 at 12:35 am

    Nice censoring here.

  • coberly says:
    November 21, 2012 at 11:11 am

    hancke

    i am not sure i understand why your comment was deleted. it was no more offensive than mine. which i was unable to delete myself.

    but i think it may be a problem of “the general level of the comments.” watch out.. no insult is intended, but it is going to sound like that.

    i like to think my comments are “generally” useful.

    you don’t have a record of being generally useful here. recent comments disagreeing with me and jerry critter are actually useful even if (i think they are) wrong. and i tried to answer them usefully.

    but about up to this point your comments have been .. “not useful.”

    i hope you can see the difference. i am trying to work on my own not-useful replies.

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