Al Guardian of Palestine and Wall Street

[Dreadnaught]

"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies ...”
Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23


http://www.princeton.edu/~reinhard/p...ING_CRISIS.pdf

Are you sure you want to go down this route?

"I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared." -- Thomas Jefferson. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collecti.../mtjquote.html

Though Jefferson really wanted the US to reneg on war debts...possibly to get banks comfortable with the idea that individuals could do the same, as Jefferson was perpetually in debt to fund the construction of Monticello and his expensive tastes in wine, food and slaves. Sort of like our government.

[GGT]

What route? I quoted one slide from within the (slightly sarcastic) slideshow, as it fit in the Occupy Wall Street protests and complaints about Big Banks.

[Dreadnaught]

Let's just call it the Originalist interpretation of the protests.

[GGT]

Some OWS folks may be taking a Jeffersonian tack in regard to public debt, plus their private debt. I know there are those pushing for Tax Reform--anywhere from ending Bush tax cuts (easy translation=tax the rich) and return to pre-Reagan progressive models, or a total re-haul.

No comment yet from my link to the CBO findings pre-crisis 1979-2007?

Income for the top 1% grew 275%
Income for the 60% in the middle class grew 40%
Income for the poorest 20% grew by 18%

[Loki]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...-everybody/?hp

I guess it's only bad when Tea Partyers are predominantly white and middle-class. My favorite part of the article:

"It was white, liberal, young people who for the first time in their life are feeling a small percentage of what black and brown communities have been feeling for hundreds of years.”

[Dreadnaught]

Hey, hey, hey. If you support smaller government, you're racist. If you want more government, you're not.

[GGT]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...-everybody/?hp

I guess it's only bad when Tea Partyers are predominantly white and middle-class. My favorite part of the article:

"It was white, liberal, young people who for the first time in their life are feeling a small percentage of what black and brown communities have been feeling for hundreds of years.”

Might be some truth there. After all, Martin Luther King was all about social and economic equality and justice.

How many of the Tea Partiers were ages 18-28? Their race and class probably meant less than their age demographics.

[Wraith]

Fact: Any visible attributes possesed by the average Tea Party member but not by the average OWS member is strongly correlated with racism.

[GGT]

Fact: Any visible attributes possesed by the average Tea Party member but not by the average OWS member is strongly correlated with racism.

Please es'plain this post.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Fact: Any visible attributes possesed by the average Tea Party member but not by the average OWS member is strongly correlated with racism.

You callin' the American flag racist?

[GGT]

You callin' the American flag racist?

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.

[Hazir]

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.

[GGT]

A two term Iraq vet is in critical condition because an Oakland police officer shot him in the head at the Occupy Oakland Protest. That sure as fuck isn't going to help matters.

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.

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.

[Hazir]

Ah, American police, how we all trust and depend on them.

[GGT]

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.

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.

[GGT]

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? 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?

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.

[Loki]

The chart looks at relative income and you're using that to make claims about absolute income.

[GGT]

The chart looks at relative income and you're using that to make claims about absolute income.

Are you saying the CBO analysis is bogus?

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

[Loki]

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?

[Ominous Gamer]

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.

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.

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.

[Dreadnaught]

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

At some point more people will get hurt.

[wiggin]

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?

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.

[Loki]

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.

[Aimless]

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

[Loki]

They're part of inflation...The chart looks at real income, which means it accounts for inflation.

[Aimless]

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:

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.

[Loki]

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?

[Dreadnaught]

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.

[GGT]

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?

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.

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.

Probably explains the explosion in debt and credit, with less savings, and majority of Americans underfunded for retirement. Or living paycheck-to-paycheck.

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.

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.

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?

[Enoch the Red]

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.

Probably explains the explosion in debt and credit, with less savings, and majority of Americans underfunded for retirement. Or living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Could you show us what the top 1% should have earned in that period? That might be more helpful.