applegrove
applegrove's JournalWe in Canada cut our debt in the good
times. Thay has really made us stronger. Clinton did the same thing during his presidency. But of course you don't cut debt in a recession. We all knew this after the great depression. But the GOP myth machine went into overdrive after Bush crashed the economy and loaded the country up with debt during the 'good times'(when he should have been paying for his two wars). So not only are the GOP wrong about how to get out of a recession, they are wrong about what you do during the good times. They are the complete mirror image of what sound economic policy should look like. They truly are KAOS. They want to 'crack the back' of government. They want no entity to be as powerful as their corporations. They truly want to muck things up for the middle class and the poor.
So republicans like to think of their foes, members of the public, in pain and afraid during a
crisis? That's interesting. Do Liberals feel happy when people were hurt in texas fertilizer plant explosion? I doubt it. And if this man was so comfortable saying this out loud, what are republicans whispering amongst themselves? Sure looks like they have a negative fire and brimstone 'narrative' for the portion of the public that don't vote like they do. And they enjoy it.
Remember how the public treated
McCarthy once they got wise? They shut him down. But that generation had already dealt with Hitler and knew the stakes. Remember Lee Atwater or Karl Rove and how they were so admired for their tricky moves by the right. Seems every generation has to learn the hard way about sociopaths. Every generation needs to learn to get wise and, as a whole, rejected the outright exploitation of of their society. Occupy was a start - the 99% - would have been a great movement. But it got shut down by the powers that be and pushed back into being a left wing movement. Obama is trying to build such a consensus now. I wish him well with getting moderates to 'get wise'.
It isn‘t “capitalism“ vs. “socialism“. That
just isolates the left. We should be talking “crony capitalism“ vs. “mixed markets“, Mixed markets are what beat communism. Mixed markets allow for single payer health care. Mixed markets include social programs. Crony capitalism in South America made for horrid inequality and thus perpetuated communism as an alternative on that continent in the 20th century. Don‘t let the fringe right define the parameters of the debate by imposing language on us all that slices & dices the electorate up to their advantage. We are for mixed markets on the DU. We are not for privatising everything like crony capitalism.
Does deeming to even talk about the role of government or unions with republicans give
their position gravitas? Yes. And of course Dems do not talk industrial relationships between business, unions and government. Which they should. Even if they have to do it amongst themselves. Dems should be the party embracing the future. The party that sees how wealth has decoupled from jobs. The party that sees we need new relationships between business, government, unions, through taxes and regulations, that work for the middle class. Dems are not talking about it and that delegitimizes unions and government by not putting government & unions at the forefront of the middle class' future.
The Europeans are doing fine on the gini equality scale. That was my point. As to
banking deregulation are you really saying it is not a right wing idea? That right wing ideas and a banking crisis is not the cause of economic woe in Europe right now? Deregulations? Really? I know Bill Clinton did in G/S. He was taking ideas generated by the right. No? Are you going to call me a conspiracist (which I reject and which you know I would seeing as how you use the technique called stereotyping to get me to change my behaviour, a technique used by psychopaths to control people.....why do you want to control me? What have I on you that makes me so scary that I must be controlled?)? I must be very powerful with my ideas to get you to behave so. Does that mean the right really is engaging in misdirection by making the debate about the legitimacy of government or unions rather that proactive relationships between business, government and unions?
Where is the discussion on the various ways the middle class is going to get to share in the wealth
created by computers? Europe is having it. Why not North America?
Misdirection so that the discussion is on past issues, not new relationships
between corporations, government and workers.
Free trade makes countries specialize at what they do best. Jobs are lost to the sometimes medium
sized corporations that are not the world's best. Fewer corporations in a country mean fewer people profiting as mid managers, stockholders, paid workers in a plant. Another reason why the rich get richer and the middle class gets smaller. Another reason why we need to have the discussion about how the country is going to share the wealth these huge winning corporations make by replacing humans with robots, outsourcing, free trade competition, etc. Because, like it or not, governments around the world have provided the environment for the best corporations to get bigger and richer. If not now, when do we have the discussion of large corporations place in OUR world. The right has done a good job of shutting that discussion up in the USA. That discussion has taken place in places like Singapore or Germany where there are partnerships between workers, government and business. If the right can keep us debating government's role in the economy, or free trade, they can keep us from discussing new relationships and how to slice up the pie more equitably. The debates on free trade and whether government is evil are mis-direction.
Ayn Rand books are all about the reader being bashed over the head with a particular world
view until they succumb and give in to the masterful protagonist. Little people, like me, will buy into what is being hammered into their brains rather than have their polllyanna worldview destroyed by the might of such a master. Thankfully, I only ever went halfway into denial about how bad the guy who went after me was and believing the lie. And then I had overwhelming evidence of me being a target so I had to learn to live with the truth of living in a world much scarier than I would have ever been prepared to live in. Took me a while. Years. But now I have a skeptical side that kicks in when things don't add up. And I am thankful for it. This is definitely what Ryan is up to. He's the hammer. He'll bash the American public again and again with his 'truth'. And some, pollyannas who don't want to go through the loss to themselves of having to live in a sometimes evil world and thus accept that the GOP is evil, will succumb. A small percent is all he needs. Compared to a manipulator like Paul Ryan, many Americans are pollyannas.
That being said, those psychopaths often have many reasons behind what they do and how they manipulate. So it could be both reasons the Economist talks about.
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