billybud wrote:Eric...the problem is not one of 51% or 49%.
It is one of the top 1/5 of the country's people having 80% of the wealth. It is the fact that between 1975 and current, the bottom 80% of the income brackets have seen a decline in their income. Bloomberg.com recently reported on a study showing that "top private-equity and hedge fund managers made more in 10 minutes than average-paid U.S. workers earned all of last year". We have princes and serfs.
It is a fact that the rich have been getting richer and the rest poorer. And maybe that isn't a great thing for America. More of us are beginning to believe that. Not that it has changed our attitude about government's role in attaining a more equal distribution of wealth.
Americans are far more likely than Europeans to believe that individuals, not society, are responsible for their own failures. It is inbred, part of our cultural tradition. If the individual fails economically, we believe that he is at fault. If he had worked harder, gone to school longer, been wiser, he would have been successful.
I don't get it BB? I know Doss, Derek, Spence, myself and others to some degree have seen many, many, many people...family, extended family, acquaintances, neighbors, neighbors of family, friends of family....we are talking personal witness...of people who play the system! I never heard much witness form you...are you writing from 1935? How is the weather? Do you miss the flapper girls? Did you hear about that big Dam and the TVA...man so much you must be seeing!
I am talking about people who uh-hmmm "borrow" from family. Go to churches and get food, get food stamps, get unemployment or low earnings (working a whopping 22 hours a week) or don't work and have a welfare check, getting medical cards, their kids get free school breakfast and lunch and free supplies at school...then back to the church again. And guess what...got beer in the fridge and a $50 bag of weed in the boot behind the recliner and some recreational scrips (brought to you by your friendly neighborhood medical card of somebodies somewhere!) Oh, yeah, and they sell "just a little dope", sew the insurance company here or there, and some got hurt a few times and have medical problems so they get a SS check too. Then the ones that work 350 to 1600 hours a year at a BS job file taxes and they get 7,500 back some how after paying in 2,250.
And don't get me on the Old Folk. How many people do you know down there that worked a cumulative 0 to 11 years their entire life and they get a Social Security check. I had these in the family too! I had more physical work under my belt by the time I was 22 than 15% of the people I see getting checks...and you can take that too the bank!
BB, I really love your view point on a wide variety of things but I don't know where all of these "poor down trodden", "taken advantage of", "never had a chance coming out of the gate" people are! Because the ones I describe to the ones you outline in my experience since the mid-80's is about 25 or 40:1.
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
R. Reagan