global1
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Wed Jul-12-06 08:55 PM
Original message |
If The Middle Class Gets Wiped Out By *Co And His Corporate.... |
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cronies. If the repugs don't vote to raise the minimum wage. If gas prices keep going up. If all other commodity prices keep going up because of the high price of gas. Won't they be shooting themselves in the foot. How will the corporations continue to exist? We americans won't be able to afford the goods that they are trying to foist on us. Seems to me the auto industry will go down the tubes before they have a chance to retool and get us energy efficient cars. The travel industry will begin to dry up - hotels, cruises, fun getaway venues (Disney, etc). Cable TV, Cell Phones, XM Radio, gourmet foods, restaurants and on and on and on.
I predict that as the crunch gets worse on us middle class - a lot of the frills that we currently partake in will be eliminated out of necessity. We will need to cloth, feed and house our families and not much more.
Prices keep going up. Wages stay the same or go down. They're working us harder to squeeze out more profit. We won't even have money to save - it will all be going out.
All the new technological advances that will be coming out of corporate america will be neat - but very few of us will be able to afford them. Eventually even those rich corporations will have to start cutting back themselves and soon some of those people that border on the fringe of being rich will have to cut back as well. I see a continual downhill spiral.
Seems to me that it makes more sense to raise the minimum wage. Pick up the poor and middle classes so that they can continue to fuel the fire and continue to create more wealth.
I sorry for this rant - but what is going on in this country just doesn't make sense for the whole. Seems to me that the only way the whole will do better is if everybody does better.
They keep trying to squeeze out more and more from us - but it seems to me there will be a point of diminishing returns and eventually it will effect those very corporations that are doing this to us.
Those repugs and * apologists (Fox, Coulter, Hannity, Rush, Malkin, etc) that are selling us down the river will ultimately be hit by the very thing that they are talking out for. Whose going to be able to afford Ann Coulter's garbage. People will be using her books to burn to generate heat to warm their families.
Those people that will continue to vote for this Repug machine are only hurting themselves. Just like putting a lobster in a pot of water and turning up the heat to a boil. Right now it seems comfy for them - but when when the boiling starts - they won't be able to climb out of the pot.
Am I wrong here? Am I reading this the wrong way? Am I missing something?
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blm
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:00 PM
Response to Original message |
1. They are almost at their Service Economy - The wealthy and the servers |
jaxx
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:04 PM
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2. Throw in the electric rates. |
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Ours are proposed to go up 50% in Jan. No kidding. Let's see, what can I cut out to pay this..........health ins, food? People everywhere are going downhill.
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FloridaPat
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:06 PM
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3. That's why you're not running the country (this year). You don't know |
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how the system worked. Somehow we got stuck with FDR 60 years ago who put safety nets in place for a lot of the 60% of the population that was dirt poor and in bad shape during the Depression. But times have changed. There are too many middle class people getting to millionaire status. Some not even repubs! The plan is to have all the wealth with the wealthy and the rest - they don't care. We're on your own. It's a very old game. Countries that do have what you were talking about have a very large middle class and happy people. Unhappy rich people because they can't take advantage of people.
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acmavm
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:26 PM
Response to Reply #3 |
10. It's a foolish move and yes, they're shooting themselves in the foot |
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(so to speak). Reducing us to the place where we can't buy WalMart crap, and the rich isn't going to want that junk, so they're killing off their cash cow.
BUT, if things get bad enough, if the economy can't support the American people, we will become a society with nothing to lose. And a populace with nothing to lose is not a good thing for the wealthy. Look at the unrest all over the globe due to poverty and the tremendous divide between the richest and the poorest.
The bad thing is that the situation always has to get to the point of nothing to lose before people start to sit up and take notice. Before they get motivated. Before they face the fact that something has to be done.
They bush** administration would like to run this country like the situation you find in the Mariannas (those good old pals of Tom DeLay). The master and slave labor thing. But I think that if things ever get that bad you'll see a lot of unrest in this country. Remember reading/hearing about the early days of the unions? The riots and demonstrations? People taking to the streets even though they knew that the 'bosses' would call out the goon squads and try to beat them into submission? When people have to watch their children do without the necessities, they get angry. When a large group of people have to watch their families go without, they start a movement (for better or worse).
I've always thought that it is a damn shame that Upton Sinclair's works are never required reading in any high school reading class. I heard about him from my Dad. And we don't read Zola. Or any of the greats who dealt with the subject of the eternal struggle between those that have plenty but can never get enough, and those who have nothing.
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FloridaPat
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:48 PM
Response to Reply #10 |
12. What really scares me is that during the last Depression, most |
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people worked on farms. People in the Dust Bowl area had a big problem, but a lot of people in the rest of the country could at least eat. Should we get anything that bad again - look at the food chain. 1-2% of the population work on farms. Most of the food in the stores is crap. Most of it isn't even food. It will get mighty hungry out there. Our gov't has destroyed us. And it was so easy.
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acmavm
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:52 PM
Response to Reply #12 |
14. Yep, it was sooooo easy that we should be ashamed. We got stupid, |
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fat, and lazy. We forgot (or some of us never knew) what those before us had to go through so we could live the way we do/did. And I guess that we're going to be finding out that you have to fight for whatever you have in this world.
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Hardrada
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:07 PM
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4. This is why the New Deal happened. FDR realized |
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capitalism could not survive if the middle and working classes were impoverished and starving and angry. The New Deal was to save the capitalist order from violent revolution. It worked but if it is unraveled, who is to say what would happen now. A lot of people would prefer to sell their lives dearly than to become peons for the upper 5%.
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TankLV
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:07 PM
Response to Original message |
5. You forgot about the CREDIT CARD industry. |
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It's a win-win for them and a lose-lose one for the rest of us!
No bankruptcy allowed anymore.
No cap on user fees and interest rates.
It costs money to challenge charges.
It's a perfect world if you're a repuke.
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NYC
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:16 PM
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8. It costs money to challenge charges? |
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Tell me about that, please.
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FloridaPat
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:50 PM
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13. Postage for letters. Maybe some money to find out how to do it. |
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If you have no assets, they won't go after you.
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NYC
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Wed Jul-12-06 10:15 PM
Response to Reply #13 |
15. Okay. I thought the post meant that the credit card companies |
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had started charging people for contesting charges. If we're not careful, they'll start doing just that.
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FloridaPat
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Thu Jul-13-06 05:53 AM
Response to Reply #15 |
17. They charge interest and late fees while you're contesting. |
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They sure don't need fees regulated by laws. It would hold them back too much.
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dapper
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:08 PM
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It must be rant night.
Thanks for your post!
Dap
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Betsy Ross
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:10 PM
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7. Keep shopping at Wal-Mart |
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until your job goes off shore and you can't even buy the Chinese made crap. We are in a serious downward economic spiral.
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Cobalt-60
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:48 PM
Response to Reply #7 |
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We cant stop the pigtards from attacking. We can limit their effectiveness by reducing our consumption of money. Our goal is to end up with and KEEP a cash surplus at the end of each month.
Stop using the credit cards TODAY. The first non productive item to put over the side is interest.Every dollar spent with a credit card strengthens our enemies.
Stop using your atm card TODAY. Walk into the bank and cash a check when you need money. ATM fees fatten the pigtards and return nothing. It is entirely inappropriate that we have to pay for the privelege of using our own money.
Next come restaraunts. It's just too expensive to pay others to cook for us. Keep the money in your pocket. You'll get better quality of preparation and less exposure to foreign diseases.
Stop buying things at gas stations Today. These dicks are reaming us for fuel. We might not be able to do anything about the gas prices. We can stop buying other things there.
THe bottom line is to ask yourself" "is this expenditure really necessary" . The Pigtards have installed themselves everywhere in the economy but your pocket. Keeping money ther keeps it from being used against you.
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Greyhound
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Wed Jul-12-06 09:22 PM
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9. Newsflash: it is already happening. In fact, it has been happening |
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for over 1/4 century. The difference today is that the symptoms are getting to severe to cover up and the numbers effected are approaching the critical mass. Unfortunately, once it is bad enough to wake the sheep, it will be too late.
It has never made sense for the whole, but that was never the intent. It is, however, unimaginably lucrative for the few that really count.
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Patchuli
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Wed Jul-12-06 11:51 PM
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16. The Snake is eating its own tail! nt |
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