HughBeaumont
HughBeaumont's JournalCan you be pro-Republican Economics and still be considered a Democrat?
Just curious how that works, considering the obvious damage 31 years of never-leaving Reaganomics and top-favoring, top-down business models has done to the population. I thought Democrats in general shouldn't be about voting against your best interests and should be championing a more sustainable, long-term growth model for business, not hailing more debt-increasing tax cuts for the wealthy.
This notion that America "isn't business friendly" has got to the be biggest bunch of bunk I've ever heard. American business controls America and the world. America's tax structure heavily favors American business and the wealthy that run it. Surely we shouldn't be suggesting that American workers lower wages even further while the cost of necessities never decreases.
I edited this to add clarification to this question. By "Pro-Republican economics", I mean "Belief and Support of one or more of the following theories":
* The prime function of a business or corporation is to care for the shareholder's needs only, by which I mostly mean "major".
* Business functions best as a "top down" model; hypothetically speaking, of course.
* You CAN "feed the birds by giving the horse more oats".
* That this country's economic problems have more to do with "high taxes", "high wages" and "strangling regulations" than wealth inequality and top-heavy greed. 
* It's absolutely not possible to pay workers a better wage and still be profitable (an idea that completely ignores the very real fact that Middle/Working/Poor wages haven't risen in real dollars since 1979 while income of the wealthy has outpaced inflation, productivity, their cost of living and lotteries).
* The post-WWII boom cannot be replicated (no one's really saying it HAS to be; that doesn't mean we have no choice but to accept "Trickle-On" . . . there ARE happy mediums).
* The Republican model of Free Trade, a zero-sum proposition that surmises because the price of tchotchkes are going down, the worker is better off . . . among other things (this ignores the very real fact that it's ever-increasing-in-price necessities (i.e. education, housing, health care, transportation, food, etc) that are killing the average American's pocketbooks).
* The Republican model of Globalization, a zero-sum proposition that dictates (for all nations involved) environmental standards, worker rights, worker wages, worker morale, worker safety and business regulations must be destroyed in proportion to the enormous increase in company productivity on the BACKS of those strained workers, layoffs, profits, CEO/management salaries, perk packages, stock options, exit packages and, as we're tragically seeing, governmental influence.
* The Republican model of offshore outsourcing, another zero-sum proposition that laughably states "While we ship low-skill work over THUR, it frees up better jobs fur the higher-skill 'Murkin workers over HERRR!" (yet again ignoring the fact that high-skilled work is ALSO being shipped overseas and companies are getting tax breaks to DO so).
* Americans simply have to accept a lower standard of living adherent to their inevitably lower wages (There's never a discussion on how wages can keep up with the cost of living, productivity and inflation . . . only that we can't participate in a consumer-based economy by proxy, but the wealthy absolutely HAVE to have THEIR needs met first, foremost and often times, ONLY).
"To Each Their Own": Does it give bigots a pass?
Not just here, but a post on FB this morning . . . something about "being intolerant of intolerants", again . . . brings up a question in my head.
When can the phrase "To Each Their Own" stop being used?
I'm supposed to just "live and let live" with people who imply that there's something wrong with four of my relatives? I'm supposed to "be more tolerant" to people who want to deny 1/10th of America simple civil rights?
Verbal abusers and general bigots have real victims. Homophobia, racism and sexism are ugly inheritances that spread poisoned ideas (as we've now seen in the vile result of the AL GOP Primary). I'm not getting how this can be construed as "diversity of thought and belief"?
When does it go too far?
"If People Think There’s Something Wrong With Success, ‘Vote for the Other Guy"
Can R-Money be ANY MORE of a completely out-of-touch ASSHOLE? The answer is "None More Assholey . . . at least until Rick Santorum speaks again."
http://news.yahoo.com/romney-cadillacs-people-think-something-wrong-success-vote-201808513.html
"Governor, can you understand why some voters would be put off by those things?" Wallace asked.
"You know, I can't be perfect," Romney said with a laugh, defending the Cadillac comment by saying his wife has a car at each of their homes, one in Massachusetts and one in California.
He continued, “If people think there’s something wrong with being successful in America, then they’d better vote for the other guy, because I’ve been extraordinarily successful and I want to use that success and that know-how to help the American people."
Riiiiiiiiiight, because you really used that success and know-how when your company nuked jobs, closed companies and pocketed the winnings.
Don't ever stop being you, Giftastic. Just keep on talking and pretend America loves Reaganomics.
Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann.
Proof you CAN get Juris Doctors from a Cracker Jack box.
Seriously . . . between Michele's ideas of "returning the nation to a Christian Theocracy" (uh, wouldn't returning to something imply that we ever had it to begin with) and Rick Sant . . . well, just about ANYthing Rick's been saying lately qualifies here, HOW were these two nutbars ever smart enough to merely walk erect, let alone achieve Juris Doctors?
I don't buy it. Not even for a second. Dubya looks at these two and thinks "DAMN these two are givin' ME a walk fer my money."
How is it possible for someone to be supposedly book-smart (Santorum graduated with honors, if I'm not mistaken) yet whenever you hear them talk about matters historic, economic and governmental, you're just left wondering if someone substituted their brains with rotten tapioca?
And THIS is who we have running for President?
COME on.
To the American Coalition of Hatred: you gotta level with me here . . .
Is it that you only want to see the POOR as nothing but "lazy system gamers who cheat and take mah taxez" while giving the wealthy "system gamers" who pretty much do the same thing a free pass?
Do you honestly believe that no one else worked as hard as you to "get where they're at today" and that everyone ELSE is a freeloading moocher?
Do you really consider everyone to the left of Joe Liebermann a Leninist/"Soshulist"/Communist/Marxist (pick two)?
Do you seriously attest that this is a country founded by the rugged individualist spirit and that no one else's hard work, no resources natural/man-made and/or no accident/fortunate circumstance contributed to it's success?
Is asking for any kind of help something to be ridiculed and used as a political issue?
Do you really believe that killing men, women and children in continuing occupations that have militaries the U.S. could pretty much flyswat without care is somehow "defending our freedoms"?
You don't find it even slightly stupid and rather unfair that you pay for your health care out of your own pocket more or less for the privilege of having a corporation's risk department decide if you're allowed to have that coverage or not?
Have you ever considered that people simply don't have an endless supply of cash to attend multiple trips to college if their career goes away?
Are the "have-too-littles" really the source of all things wrong in America today? What exactly drives this belief?
Do you actually believe that the top-heavy economic system we're seemingly stuck with is really the fairest and most equitable means of goods/labor/service exchange and distribution?
Finally, is it purely out of not wanting to show weakness or would you rather DIE than admit you were wrong?
Yahoo Commenters: reinventing ways to say the "N" word:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gardening-golfing-mall-192402034.htmlThe Pigshit Hog Waller of the Internet proves again and again and again that racism is still very much a problem in this country, just in case anyone thought differently.
It's the price you pay for Free Speech absolutism, I guess . . .
Money Magazine: "Retirement Savings: Will $4 Million be Enough??"
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/retirement-savings-4-million-enough-195700684.html
You hope to have $4 million socked away by the time you retire in 30 years. But what does that figure represent? Is it the amount you project having based on how much you save and what you expect your investments to earn? Is it the amount you think you'll need to maintain your pre-retirement lifestyle?
It's hard to get an accurate fix on how much you'll need to save for a retirement that won't begin for several decades. There are a lot of unknowns -- how much you'll earn in the future, what sort of lifestyle you'll lead over the next 30 years, how long you'll live.
You may not be able to save as much as you envision due to layoffs or higher-than-expected living expenses. Your investments might not earn what you expect. You could be forced into retirement earlier than you wish by health problems or a "rightsizing" at work. No one can foresee how things will shake out over the next 10 years, let alone the next 30. By going to a tool like our Retirement Planner or T. Rowe Price's Retirement Income Calculator, you can make some reasonable assumptions about how much you'll need for retirement, how much you should save and how you should invest. From that, you can get a sense of your chances of achieving a secure retirement.
Walter, four million might as well be four BILLION to about 95% of us. Realistically tell me HOW someone that makes a flat, never changing-in-real-dollars wage of 50-70 thousand a year (if wage trends since 1979 tell us anything) is going to be able to save/compound $4 million in 30 years. Is this person the luckiest commodities trader/stock picker/human being on earth? Plans like this only work if you have no life landmines. AT ALL.
You have to have the right career that makes green out the yin-yang, you can never have a layoff, you can never have a bad financial emergency, you can never have student loan debt, every financial move you make, every buy and sell and shift to cash and entrance - every move has to be the RIGHT one.
That pie-in-the-sky annual rate of return they assume in most financial self-help books isn't happening with regularity in a laissez-fail Boom-Bubble-CRASHfest known as the American economy.
America is no longer time accommodating if a "Plan B" means a relatively quick career switch. We no longer have plants or factories hiring for a living wage on these shores.
A scary look into the mind of a Paul supporter (typed verbatim, unedited) . . .
Me on FB, regarding Ron Paul:
A career politician who's a Republican, an Economic Darwinist, a social safety net destroyer, anti-choicer, anti-human rights, proudly displays photos of him with the man who tossed America's economic future off of a cliff (Reagan), a states rights guy (gee, what do I tell Oklahoma's gay people and women? "Move"??) and would make life far easier for corporations and the rich than it already is, despite people believing the contrary? No thanks.
He doesn't gel with my values. I can't slit poor people's throats in cold blood and concede this nation to the neo-fascists. It'd be a defunded, crime-rampant free-for-all run by the likes of Oathkeepers, corporate "persons" and birfers.
But hey, if weed becomes legal, I bet that will all be worth it . . .
Paul supporter on FB (XXX is me, nothing has been altered):
career politician?(was out of congress over a decade delivering babues)Clinton ran the economic future over a cliff I don't live in Oklahoma not my problem.If you mean make life easier by forcing them to compete instead of Bailouts(your boy Obammie and George Jr)Sorry XXX Your wrong on the poor people (thats Mittens)maybe you should do a lil more research on the republican there XXX he continuously puts down the neocons ans wants to eventually end the federal reserve and I guess sending troops home is the same as slitting there throat????you talk about being poor like you know what it's like well I do first hand and I have busted my tail to get what I want I don't want big brother telling me what I can do where and when i can go if thats your thing and you want to keep listening to the mainstream neocon oligarchy driven beats to the rhyme then enjoy sorry your little 5 minute disertation from the main media ain't right wanna know what the man really stands for and be the "smart guy " you act like on here I challenge you on an intellectual level feel free to check out ronpaul2012.com Neocon indeed!!!
Oh, and he said he'll be back.
Great. Can't wait.
What do I do with that?
Thomas Friedman, shill for the 1% and Corporate America: Average is Over.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/opinion/friedman-average-is-over.html?src=me&ref=generalYes, new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. As they say, if horses could have voted, there never would have been cars. But there’s been an acceleration. As Davidson notes, “In the 10 years ending in 2009, [U.S.] factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs — about 6 million in total — disappeared.”
snip
What the iPad won’t do in an above average way a Chinese worker will. Consider this paragraph from Sunday’s terrific article in The Times by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher about why Apple does so much of its manufacturing in China: “Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly-line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the [Chinese] plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. ‘The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,’ the executive said. ‘There’s no American plant that can match that.’ ”
Hear that? It's BREATHtaking!!!
He's cheerleading executives that liken militaristic gross servitude in the name of winner take everything capitalism as they would describing a Van Eyck painting.
Thomas Friedman. Just when you think the Life Lottery Winner couldn't get any more shameless . . .
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Member since: Fri Aug 13, 2004, 03:12 PMNumber of posts: 24,461
