The thing to remember is that politicians seldom do as they say…..I have been harping on this point for years and few listen…..it is always about the election never the action with these political types……the last election was all about the size of government and the federal spending frenzy that the Dems are accused of having started…..all that is a steaming pile of chicken crap (to use a term uttered by the GOP statesman, John Boehner)….
Come on people…politicians have always been liars and thieves…look at the hero of the small government Right, Thomas Jefferson….he had written much about the limited size of government and the ails it would beget if it got too big….but yet once he was elected president…he over saw an increase in the size of the government with the Louisiana Purchase which was to be governed by an extensive system of military governors and their administrations……yes it did increase the size of the country, but it also increased the size of government and government spending…..so if the lies have been uttered since the early 1800’s what makes you think that they will be truthful 200 years later?
There are those amongst us that do not feel that the deficit is the huge problem that the Right wants it to be……read what James Galbraith has to say about the deficit….
The starting point of the deficit contrarians’ argument is that the deficit was caused not by over-spending and under-taxation, as the current debate would have it, but by the collapse in tax revenues that resulted from the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent economic slump.
In prepared testimony before the presidential debt commission this summer, James Galbraith, a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, argued that this means the only way to reduce the deficit is to reduce unemployment, not to cut spending or raise taxes. Galbraith (pictured above) argued that the only way to reduce unemployment without adding to the deficit through more government spending is to get banks lending again, by fixing the root problems in the financial sector that caused the financial crisis in the first place.
Galbraith — a former director of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, and the son of the renowned liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith — went on to address the idea that cutting Social Security benefits can help close the deficit. That’s been a mainstay of the debate, and it’s a notion that the commission’s co-chairs appear to subscribe to, judging from their recent proposal, which recommends significant cuts to the program. But Social Security, Galbraith noted, isn’t a spending program at all. It simply transfers wealth from today’s taxpayers to low-income elderly people in the future. “One can favor or oppose [cutting benefits] on its own merits as social policy,” Galbraith said. “But one cannot argue that it would save real resources that are otherwise being ‘consumed’ by the government sector.”
Next, Galbraith took on the argument that deficits will produce higher long-term interest rates, making it prohibitively expensive for the government to borrow in the future. That’s not true, he countered, because the government doesn’t spend in the same way that private individuals or companies do. “So long as U.S. banks are required to accept U.S. government checks — which is to say so long as the Republic exists — then the government can and does spend without borrowing, if it chooses to do so,” he declared.
All in all, Galbraith said, the current mania for deficit reduction is disastrously misplaced. “The right economic objectives are to meet real problems, not those conjured from thin air by economists,” he concluded. “Bringing about a rapid end to unemployment, caring properly for an aging population, cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico, coping with our energy insecurity and with climate change are all far more important objectives than reducing a projection of future budget deficits.”
This is all smoke and mirrors….and remember nothing being said about future deficits is written in stone….they are ALL projections….they are NOT gospel…and to try and sell them as such is just another trick of the political parasites…..
About the only thing that these people are serious about is to make the Middle Class pay for the crimes and misjudgments of the upper class….and you still do NOT believe there is a class war? (tune in tomorrow for the post on that very subject)
Of course there’s no class war, Lobotero – that’s simply political crap and the perpetuation of that myth is what is killing the EU for sure and probably the US too! The war is between well off assholes and not so well off or poor assholes, but those involved in the war are still mostly ASSHOLES whatever their status or class. The vast MAJORITY of ordinary folk who don’t give a toss about class and just want to get on with their lives are the unfortunates who are caught in the middle of this conflict between insignificant minorities and are paying most, if not all, of the bills for it, both directly and indirectly.
I totally disagree with you for once and I’m surprised at you. The real problem about all this thinking is that politicians regard money collected in taxes as THEIR money and that they have a right to spend it how they please. THAT is simply not true – in fact I suspect it’s even illegal under current law!
If we use the old “Marxist” definition …then I agree….but if we look at the votes and the issues there can be a case made for it…..all that will be covered in my post (I hope)…..I may have been mistaken….it may not be tomorrow’s post….a little premature….bear with me….
Yes, of course – I just don’t think there ever was a class war – certainly not in living memory.
In fact, I dispute the existence even of classes (except what I call the middle class – for want of a better name – which includes people from all sorts of what others might call “classes”).
The middle group, or class, or whatever you wish to call them make up the bulk of the people and are the REAL lifeblood of every democratic country. The rest are, to me, mostly self important charlatans and bigots who want to CREATE an impression that there is a “class war” for their own ends. That’s my view and I’ll take a lot of convincing otherwise.
To me, such struggle or conflict as there is, is about greed and selfishness of one sort or another and references to “class” are simply a distraction, since it is something that only really exists in the minds of those who already believe in it and is all too frequently used as an excuse for greed, selfishness and indolence.
I see what you are saying…..but (there it is) to me there seems to be a division but like you say it is more about greed and stuff than it is about where one works or the job on does…..
However, there can be a way to see that it is about class…..especially when dealing with the 2 parties….
Yes, there can indeed be a way to see it as being about class and there are those on the left – at least the very left – who encourage that because it gives their politics extra “legitimacy”. However, I don’t see it as being anything like that “high-minded”. It is certainly “them and us”, but as long as you make some kind of virtue out of being poor reality will never rear its head and I suspect that’s what some want (on both sides of the financial divide). A selfish, bigotted asshole will always be that way whether rich or poor and THAT to me is the real point.
In my opinion, humanity wastes most of its time and energy on issues that are artificial instead of facing up to reality – that, to me, means looking at society and seeing it for the load of crap that it is. Our conventions, mythologies, beliefs, values and general principles by which so many live are, I believe, little more than a whole steaming pile of horse manure. We are so vain and arrogant as a species – there is NOTHING special about the human race except for what it could and, just possibly, might achieve in the future, if it ever manages to get it’s collective head out of its metaphorical ass for long enough to spot reality as it races past!
I could not agree more……..slogans and titles seem to rule our lives……here in the good old US…..the division between those who shower before work and those that shower after work grows wider every year….and it has been so for at least 20 yrs…probably longer…now the word “war” maybe a bit strong but there is a struggle going on…… the manure is getting stronger with each passing month……
The news out of the FED is that the recession ended 15 months ago….but yet there is about 12 million people unemployed and Wall Street is making billions and yet there are NO jobs……there is something to be said about a couple of Marx’s observations……
No doubt you are right – in a way – but the truth is that it has nothing to do with class, but far more to do with your system of government. The politicians are in the pockets of the rich and the rich see that manufacturing has in many cases moved abroad. That fact, though, doesn’t matter to them because they are making vast sums of money out of such enterprises as Wall Street, which is no longer of any tangible value whatsoever to the country as a whole, since it makes absolutely NOTHING – except for more money for the already rich – mostly at the expense and risk of the less wealthy.
I repeat, it’s not about class, its about money, greed and selfishness and your system of government – specifically your system of financing candidates – almost guarantees that this will happen!
Yes, I agree with the money, greed etc…..but it can still be broken down by class…..and like I say we can agree until we are both old men (damn! too late!) but it can still be viewed through the eyes as a class division….(Tuesday looks like the day for the post)…..
You can call it what you like – I guess class has a slightly different meaning the US anyway – but the “upper class” are not always rich and are in fact often poor just as quite a lot of the so called “working class” may be quite wealthy. It’s a feud between the “haves” and the “have-nots” – the wealthy and the poor – and, in my view, “class” in its traditional sense is pretty much irrelevent.
Yes, the whole Left’s thing about class warfare never got a foothold here……I use it as there is not another word to use in a short sentence that can explain the division that the people can understand……like the adjectives used in a sporting event……they use the battle or war or conflict analog to describe….
Oh, I do agree and understand – but that’s the point (unfortunately) when sound bite politics seems to rule more and more these days – we all have to start using “catchy” phrases and then the hyperbole creeps in further.
The thing that I see (maybe it’s just my bias and I’d accept that), but I feel that even the right encourages this belief in the class thing because, whilst everyone’s busy worrying about that, the wealthy and the elite can carry on screwing people and they barely even notice.
Many conserv pundits claim that there is No class war…..but when you talk about ALL working peoples entitlements while cheerleading tax cuts for billionaires….it is hard for me to agree with them……the so-called Left wants the class war and the so-called Right pretends there is nothing there….and yet the middle class has lost ground for 20 years……maybe we should call it a class conflict and not a war……
I still don’t think it’s got much to do with class because I think the word that is wrong is “class”, not “war”!
But it’s not even that really – would you REALLY expect a rich person to say, “OK – I’ll give a up big chunk of my money and let those who are less well off tread all over me.” Would you? I wouldn’t and I wouldn’t do it in their shoes either – they protect their own interests and I don’t see what’s wrong with that – so they should…
What IS wrong is that this relatively small number of people and their organisations have acquired VAST and utterly disproportionate power and control over government (particularly in the US) and that’s because YOU, the people, have sat back and argued amongst yourselves over petty details and minor issues about black, white, smoking, farting, CLASS and whatever else that doesn’t really matter that much, whilst it happened…
Basically, they stole the bloody government whilst you weren’t looking!
To your point ….there are a few wealthy that say they should pay more taxes….like Warren Buffet and Donny Duetsch, there are others that do not feel that they are paying their share of the government debt…….but the majority will not admit it, they just keep making and not spending….the government is fueling the conflict……look at the tax bill……it protects only the wealthy……
Yeah, but just because there are a few “good-guys” doesn’t make them right or even necessary.
The problem, like I said, is that you good as gave away your government to the rich guys – so what do you bloody well expect???!!!
Oh I know….but at least there are a few that see the writing on the wall….maybe they can make a difference…….probably not….