Won't you help me respond to this shit-for-brains conservative?

[MrMickeysMom]

The idiot I'm talking about is my best friend's brother. I'm sure she knows what a right winger snot he is, but I respect that to her blood is thicker than water and she mostly laughs at what he says. My friend from time to time gets a conversation going (sometimes heated) about current events, and in this case, the NYT's article which quotes David Stockman, someone all the conservatives can pontificate about. I don't always weigh with equal expertise, but I don't hold my opinions back. However, when I heard her brother's retort, I'd just had to think that he's worse than ever.

So, I want to provide the original comment inviting responses...

....and I'm not trying to wind anybody up. Don't avoid the link because you see New York Times. This opinion was written by David Stockman, who was Reagan's Director of OMB in the early '80's. Stockman states the obvious that the politicos don't want to discuss and most of the public pretends doesn't exist.
Happy Easter,
:)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/opinion/24stockman.html?_r=1

So, here's her brother's response ...

Wow Stockman has really lost it. Vitriolic writing and, other than stating the obvious “We have a deficit!”, his claims are breathtakingly ignorant. Even when he was in the Reagan administration I never really liked either his intellectual basis nor communication skills, though the media did which was warning enough.

1. Capital Gains are “windfalls” to the ultra rich. Not true in general. Most often they are the old-age cashing out from businesses and investment over a lifetime. One time affairs. If you study the names in the top 1% of income you’ll likely find they change substantially every year and almost entirely turn over in 10 years. Capital gains also accrue to pension funds, 401Ks, mutual funds, &etc which are owned by all of us, not some amorphous ultra rich class.
2. Yes the top earners garner more income than the bottom earners today compared to long ago. This is only bad if the bottom has been stagnant or declining, which they haven’t. Yes, yes I know you hear that the “poor” have “lost ground” from the 1980s. But add in government transfers and they are doing much better. Seen any malnourished Americans in WalMart lately? Oh, you didn’t hear about that report while watching NBC, CBS, etc.? Wonder why it wasn’t broadcast.
3. Regardless of actions by Congress or The One™ taxes are going up now and will rise further. In a word, inflation. Inflation is a pernicious tax on all income and wealth. Politicians love it because they don’t have to vote for it and can demagogue the issue. Poor Ben Bernanke! Idiot that he is he’s doing Congress’ bidding and trying to mask monetizing the debt with terms like QEII and pretending to help the “recovery” by preventing “deflation.” Gold price Jan 2009 was around $900/oz…today over $1500/oz. Nice work Ben! Same basic story for all commodities although other government policies have piled on to hurt everyone pricewise due to government mandated supply restrictions.

When the unfunded liabilities of Soc Sec, Medicare, Medicaid are added to the general indebtedness ($9+ trillion) you will find that the U.S. “debt” obligation is 500% of GDP. Worse than any of the PIIGS by far. Right now it’s a game of musical chairs. Who will get stuck when the music stops. The political class is sitting on their hands until collapse whence they can blame someone else (the other party, foreigners, bankers unless they donated to Obama, evil oil companies, etc). At this point events will dictate events, not politicians. Just as with the climate “debate” - where our CO2 doesn’t change anything - only our ego makes us think we can “fix” climate. Only a supreme ego would still believe the political class could or even really wants to fix things. But those groups of politicians/leaders are few and far between as history shows. Last time we had them here in sufficient numbers was…1776 or thereabouts.

It’s time to entrench. Study the Soviet Union à Russia between 1989 and 2000 to see what empire collapse in the modern world looks like. Observe what happened to their “pensions” and other government largess. Here’s a nice summary, although I don’t recommend the “World Bank” pension scheme discussed: https://www2.bc.edu/~jbw/documents/JBW42006.pdf Page 2 for the Soviet pension system’s description, page 3 for the historical collapse.

“…Decreased industrial output, coupled with high inflation, produced a sharp decrease in both employment levels and real wages. With the decrease in employment and wages, poverty rates increased. This trend continued over the better part of a decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union, resulting in a situation where wages in 2000 were one-third of their 1990 levels….

…The increased poverty and the wage crisis pushed many workers into the informal economy…

…By the end of 1999 the purchasing power for the average pensioner had fallen from 120% of the subsistence minimum to between 60% and 70% of that minimum.”

Precursors sound familiar? Winning the Cold War only bought us 10-20 years more debt-stimulated good times. Buy ammo and canned goods.

There are some obvious fallacies in the form of the article he refers to which points to the Russian Social Security and pensions modeled on the World Bank. How far do some people have to go to make a point about the destruction of the middle class. And, according to this idiot, he mates "unfunded liabilities" with our Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, which in my view (and according to any law as I've read is not unfunded, but illegally raided. I honestly can't believe how deluded he must be.

Here's my question: Do you think this is the type of response of someone who is just a narcissistic pseudo-intellect (he apparently is an structural engineer who has great talent in math and all things "enginery". He's a selfish little snot, so I might just continue to not respond. But if I would respond, just where do I start? Would YOU respond? Would you even try???

Hey, really THANKS! I don't blame you if you just cluck your tongue and leave it for dead. He's clearly dead between the ears. That's what bothers me about people who should be able to intellectualize some hard truths in society, but when their attitude is this crass, my blood just boils.

MMM

[MrMickeysMom]

1. Self kick... Should I have posted this elsewhere?

[freshwest]

2. If I took a long time, I could find articles to refute this. We have some posts your can find with..

The search function that go into a lot of this. A great deal of what the wingnut is spouting is from Boortz, Rush, etc.

The problem with getting through, which you understand well, is the persistence and exaggeration of certain factors being used by him. Because he hears these words and then starts with the emotional stuff, the mockery, the fake intellectualism, etc.

Search for Mises, the Austrian school, the philosophy of liberty, Milton Friedman, and the other fallacies here in posts at DU. And then be sure to go into the underlying philosophy and beliefs of what he thinks society and humans are here for, without labels.

I've talked to this type online before, and they are very low vibration so to speak, constipated mentally. There are places to turn up the heat and get them to say what they really think and not what pundits tell them to think.

Sorry I can't really help you because that was very complicated there. I think General Discussion would be better or one of the forums. This is more for fun here. Good luck.

[MrMickeysMom]

3. Thank you... This in itself is quite helpful...

I'm figuring Limbaugh would influence him.

After a little more thought, I think I'll just keep my thoughts to myself... You can't fix attitudes like this, so why put energy into it?