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Hey, I used to have a pair of jeans that had the American stars and stripes on my seat/butt region. Many of us did, and they were really "cool" in the *late 70's* early 80's. It was after the Viet Nam war had ended, and people had stopped spitting on our Vietnam veterans returning home. Still a late and good way to say the whole damn war was as(s)inine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ziggy Stardust
I think it's a bit ridicilous to call that Occupy thing (I wouldn't call it a movement yet) an anti-capitalist impulse. It's diffuse but they are most decidedly not alone in their anger at bankers. I wouldn't be caught dead in their tent camps, but I too am mad as hell at bankers. And I really enjoyed the trashing Angela Merkel is giving them overhere.
That is pathetic and tragic. A vet from Iraq comes home to find his skull fractured by American police forces, while exercising his rights to peacefully protest? These are the kind of democratic ideals we've spent billions of dollars to teach Iraqi police and build their nation? That's disgusting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
When I saw the video of Oakland police in riot gear confronting people sleeping in tents with explosions of tear gas canisters....people running away, pushing someone in a wheelchair, and carrying this injured man with a head wound....I felt a little sick to my stomach. It looked more like a third world country than the US. :mad:
Ah, American police, how we all trust and depend on them.
Ironic, isn't it? The 99% are also protesting on behalf of the Police and Fire Fighters, whose jobs are to "serve and protect the public", while they keep getting downsized or have to buy their own kevlar vests or helmets. :bulb:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Meanwhile, we must spend Billions or Trillions of dollars in countries like Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya... In order to protect our "national interests" in what....foreign OIL?
Disgusting. Pathetic. Tragic. :mad:
Okay, let's try this again. No one commented after my CBO link proved the top 1% gained more income, and faster, than anyone else from 1979 to 2007. Did I link improperly or was it just ignored? :confused: OK here's a different link, then:
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12485
The complete summary shows very clearly that all income classes were moving in tandem, until the late 70's early 80's. That's when the "hollowing out of the middle class" began. It doesn't reflect an envy or resentment for the upper income quintiles, or "anti-capitalism"....that's a distorted way to look at this, since most people aspire to be high income earners!
What's obvious, in graph form, is how the middle classes lost traction. Wages didn't keep up with inflation, or savings. The very wealthy took off, as the Financial industry held a larger share of GDP, and industrial manufacturing held less of GDP. The GAP is very clear. And that gap is where the middle classes used to be, but now have no real place in the economy, or are fighting tooth and nail to hang on. It's tough in a global transitional economy anyway, but even harder if there aren't Jobs Training Programs, Apprenticeships, or Clerkships.
These are the kinds of things private business can do on their own, without government mandates or subsidies, but they're not. $2 TRILLION in cash, sitting around, waiting. Waiting for what? The gov't they claim they don't want to lead the way? :rolleyes:
Time for these CEOs to Invest in America, take the risks of freee market capitalism they say is part of their ideology, and get people working again.
The chart looks at relative income and you're using that to make claims about absolute income. :bored:
Are you saying the CBO analysis is bogus?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Could have sworn I linked the CBO report the day it came out, but whatever...it's out there for anyone who wants to take a look.
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc1248...holdIncome.pdf
Do you not know the difference between a group's share of total income and their gross income? Your claim was that the income of the middle class grew slower than inflation. Your chart simply shows that the income of rich people grew faster than the income of middle class people. Do you not see that those two things are totally different?
I could almost write it off as an accident. A bad bounce, poor aim, something went wrong, but.... When the police proceeded to shoot directly into the small group of people who tried to help him? Thats ridiculously pathetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
It is exceedingly creepy and thuggish that activists are offering rewards and trying to "expose" the identity of whomever may have launched the tear-gas canister that hit this formar Marine.
http://i.imgur.com/mrlqY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mrlqY.jpg
At some point more people will get hurt.
Indeed. There's no question inequality has increased, but there is also no question that most American's real (not nominal) incomes increased over that period. Even the bottom quintile's real after-tax income rose slightly over that period.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
http://media.economist.com/sites/def...029_WOC689.gif
Interestingly enough, the time period when the bottom quintile wasn't growing at all (until roughly 1994) was the time period when the top 1% wasn't growing.
Out of curiosity, how have the costs of important things like healthcare and education developed over the same period?
I'd like to see a good analysis of that graph :noob:
They're part of inflation...The chart looks at real income, which means it accounts for inflation.
I ask because I've heard that healthcare costs and education costs have outpaced inflation by far, over the past few decades!
Re. a good analysis I would specifically like to get a closer look at the features that prompted this remark from you:
:pQuote:
Interestingly enough, the time period when the bottom quintile wasn't growing at all (until roughly 1994) was the time period when the top 1% wasn't growing.
Think logically for a second. If healthcare costs and education costs outpaced inflation, then other major costs worked in the opposite direction. The price of food, for example, has gone down drastically over the last 50 years, as has the cost of cars and technology (relative to income). Meanwhile, about 85% of Americans get their healthcare through their employers, while perhaps a third go to 4-year universities. I.E. The average affect of these changes is less than what you think.
Do you understand what adjusted for inflation means?
Minx- It sounds like you're asking for a chart that removes healthcare and education from the mix. In which case the lines would probably be steeper.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The CBO report has multiple charts (and they're not 'mine'). Incomes grew at roughly the same rate for all groups except the top 1%. The report doesn't have an over-lay of what people spend their income on, but we already know the costs of health care / housing / energy take up over 30-40% of most peoples' money (up from 20-25% in the 80's) and those costs have doubled over the same time period. Add education and it's even worse, whether taxes for K-12 or 300% rise in college costs. ie, Income has not kept up with the inflation in COL.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
Probably explains the explosion in debt and credit, with less savings, and majority of Americans underfunded for retirement. Or living paycheck-to-paycheck.
I agree with minx, and would like to see how income and COL compare on a graph. We've already been shown "real income" for everyone but the top 1% has remained fairly flat since the 80's, and did the threads proving today's workers are working at 1979 inflation-adjusted wage rates. If you think the affects are minimal, using your theories about income and inflation, you're ignoring that all these numbers reflect real people and their lives. You'd also have to ignore things like quality of jobs and living standards. 10% unemployment may mean 90% are employed, but dig deeper into the numbers to see the underemployment, or workers without any benefits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The median income dropped to below $50,000 recently. Relative price savings for food, cars, or tech doesn't translate to more affordable rent/mortgage, utilities, health insurance premiums (or cash costs OOP), medicines, or higher education. Not within that median income, which has shrunk. Why do you suppose there's been so much discussion by Economists and politicians about the shrinking middle class, or the ability of the US to grow its way out of The Great Recession? :confused:
Could you show us what the top 1% should have earned in that period? That might be more helpful.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
That's a plain out lie.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/op...ality.html?hpw
David Brooks wrote something decent for once.
How much of that Soviet Inequity he speaks of is due to the changing pool of college applicants and the shrinking pool of overpaid, mindless labor, you think? Back in the day, plenty of smart people got by and even excelled without a college degree, but these days, not going to college is almost like getting "born to lose" tattooed across the forehead.
It's definitely a major factor. The more information and the ability to process it matters, the less important unskilled sectors of the economy become. After all, why pay an American $10 an hour when you can pay a Vietnamese worker $1 for work that's half as productive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/us...strike.html?hp
The rhetoric seems clearly Marxist to me...
It's not the amount earned that matters, but that their rate of income grew at massively disparate rates, in relation and context to everyone else. There will always be income gaps, but they used to move roughly in tandem, up and down at similar rates. The wealthiest 1% own 43% of all wealth, something not seen since the gilded age of robber barons and monopolies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch the Red
If the any quintile had lost income at a rate of over 250%, people would be appalled.... :bulb:
No, it's not--unless you've forgotten (or ignored) previous discussions (with links) about jobs and middle class shrinking, and income flat or stagnant since the 80's. Interesting you ignored the rest of my post, and a direct question. :donkey:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
j000000000000000000000000000000000s!!!!!
Or do I need to come up with a new one for Marxist shit? I mean, the Marxists have historically been pretty anti-Jew too, so I think it still fits.
Anyway, GeeGee, your eyes aren't just there to keep your eyebrows from falling onto your cheeks. Many of us use our eyes to read things. Things like graphs. Graphs like the one we've all been talking about, which clearly shows the middle class and bottom quintile's real income increasing over time. Now, if those people have their increased income stolen by j00s after the fact, that's a different criticism, and one you need to address differently. Perhaps you could try something different, like blaming the j00... oh, nevermind. But it's still a different criticism.
Nessus wept.
The CBO report has many graphs, use your eyes to read it, and look at more than one. :rolleyes: There's nothing "Marxist" about wanting/needing a healthy middle class (or middle quintile earners) to make the bulk of our economy. There's nothing wrong with preferring a fat and healthy middle majority, over a top or bottom heavy hour-glass economy. Our mixed economy of 70% consumerism, with market capital and labor capital, with some regulatory supervision thrown in to even the playing field.Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
Now, instead of trolling around making insults, it's your fricking turn to post some constructive criticism...not toward me...but as a response to everything in the news that confirms: the shrinking middle class, flat or stagnant wages for two decades (relative to COL that includes healthcare and education inflation), underemployment, unemployment, inadequate retirement, high levels of consumer debt, etc. As published by the CBO, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census Data, and academic Economist analyses (including The Economist or WSJ as 'magazine news', and peer-reviewed published university studies), all of which I've mentioned here and/or linked in other threads.
If you disagree with those results, or see no problem with the dismal growth picture it paints for the US, or have no idea why millions of Americans are angry and fed up.... explain why. With citations. :donkey:
http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-arrest-rec...045625415.html
Totally unexpected.
Marxists being anti-Jewish? Where did you get that nonsense from? Maybe you mixed them up with Bolsheviks etc; Marxism can be accused of a lot, but really not of anti-semitism.Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
People with property and/or good jobs are not allowed to be angry at the way we've all been taken for a ride by bankers?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Shows that they're as much as a part of the "1%" as the bankers they attack.
I would say that with the houses listed in the article, most if not well are still in the bottom 99%, just not as low as you expected :p
I'll do you one better. I personally guarantee that every single one of them are in the bottom 99.9999991%.
With a house in the $500,000 range you score in the 85-90 percentile, still way off from the top 1%. If you own the house free of any liens that is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Also, living in a house doesn't mean you own that house. It could belong to their parents. But none of that is relevant, the fact that they are not homeless and dirt poor doesn't mean they don't have the right to protest against banks running amok.
OK, fine. None of that shit you claim to have cited exists, (at least in any form that says what you're claiming) so stop making shit up and start accepting and understanding reality instead, which is that the middle class is not shrinking, wages are increasing in real terms (for all income classes in Amerika) and j00s are not stealing the Common Man's gold.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
“Sleeping beside the hardcore activists are increasing numbers of wealthy students turning up to make the most of the party atmosphere, drugs and free food,”Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
:haha:
I'm outraged too! Now which way to the pizza and pot? :haha:
History, mainly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Never mind that Bolsheviks are a type of Marxist (and a significant portion of Marxists at that) and Jews have typically emigrated in large numbers from countries adopting Marxist governments. Probably to keep the government from nationalizing all their j00 gold and imprisoning them for worshiping someone other than a dead, discredited German, but it still speaks to the point. Oh, and then there's that bit about rising up against the evil kapitalist money-havers, which in no way disproportionately impacts on the gold-hungry j00s. :bored:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
You know how many Jews were not only Marxist but also leading Marxists? Marxism was a highly appealing ideology for Jews in Europe (especially Russia) as it was explicitly not excluding them. Marx himself was a Jew. Also Bolshevism is a departure from Marxism. It has some similarities in that it references to Marxist ideas, but I doubt Marx could have recognized their travesty as a Marxist society.
None of which is material to the accuracy of the statement that "the Marxists have historically been pretty anti-Jew."Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Just like the US has historically been ruled by a strong central government... despite the fact that it started out on the principles of weak, limited government and [in theory] strong personal liberties and protections for those liberties.
I see. So what would an example of a TrueQuote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Scots...Marxist be, then? :bored:
While I realize my choice of thread title makes this request seem silly, but can we not get sidetracked towards Jewland on this?
Meanwhile, Oakland seems to be breaking-down into low-level riots as people try to start a "general strike".
Have you been in a drug-induced state of ignorant bliss for the last decade, or just since 2007? :donkey: I realize you weren't around the forum for a while, and probably missed several threads discussing the facts surrounding our economic mess, but that's not license to accuse others of making shit up.Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
You also didn't give any links or citations to back up your opinion. :donkey: