The overwhelming fallacy in this article is the notion that there ARE any liberals in power in the U.S. today. There are a few elected liberals, but even the Democratic party ignores them. Of course, it should be no surprise that a publication of the Murdoch Empire (even one as formerly respectable as the WSJ) would promulgate such overt falsehoods in pursuit of their own desire to be relevant (i.e. sell papers and ads).
3 Likes
One crucial difference, guy who registered just to post that, is that unlike the âOccupiersâ or the â99%â or whoever it was precisely that Perkins was drawing a comparison to Nazis with, Bush â like Hitler â was the elected leader of a country who promoted xenophobic policies and unilaterally started wars. Equating Bush to Hitler may have been wrongheaded and excessive, but at least they were in the same broad category. Contrast with violent thugs operating under the orders of a fascist dictator, who have little to nothing in common with the critics of modern-day robber barons.
11 Likes
Some of us on the left compared Bush to Hitler [and George III] because of police state measures, cronyism, and aggressive war. Some of us on the left compare Obama to Hitler [and George III], because of police state measures [such as imprisoning activists to coerce testimony, torturing whistleblowers, spying on the people, etc.], cronyism, and aggressive war.
There are reasonable and unreasonable ways to compare politicians to Hitler. The ones which target aggressive war are more reasonable. The ones which assume both were socialists when neither is are less reasonable.
Of course those of us on the left donât have any voice in the media, unless weâre useful to one or another of the parties on the right, and we may be suffering from ptsd, activist burnout, etc.
3 Likes
A â1%erâ makes something north of $400k per year. The Median US income was about $40k, which we can use as a benchmark for the middle class.
Itâs hard to argue that someone making an order of magnitude more income than the average person should be considered middle class. Now itâs true that someone with that much income may not be financially well off (up to their ears in debt/bad investments), but itâs not fair to call them middle class.
The middle class is a nebulous concept, especially where the transition is to upper class, but it doesnât make sense to push it all the way up to âwearing a monocle on your private jetâ for tax purposes.
IMHO, the most fucked up part of the tax code is the rate for capital gains. Thatâs money that someone made because they started with a ton of money and made a bet that paid off. As opposed to the much higher income tax rate that represents actual work done and value added to the economy. The tax code rewards you enormously for playing games with money on the market, and punishes you for doing actual work. If that isnât proof that the tax system was set up by millionaires and billionaires, I donât know what is.
9 Likes
So. . . theyâre saying fact that he was criticized for making a poor argument proves his poor argument is actually a valid argument? Itâs like dragging out the old âyouâre intolerant of my intoleranceâ argument.
The real question is: are the ultra-wealthy playing fairly or not? If they are not, then anger directed at them is valid. I think they understand this, and so they come up with arguments to justify how a playing field that favors them is actually âfairâ, or try to find ways to discredit any criticism, including attacking the messenger.
4 Likes
Iâm with you on most of that, except for Obamaâs aggressive war. Other than the surge right at the start of his term and some missile launches during the Arab Spring, Obama has been far more focused on winding down Iraq and Afghanistan than pursuing more military action.
1 Like
I think that calling $40,000 âmiddle classâ is laughable for family sizes > 1.
3 Likes
This is where the term âJob Creatorâ[1] came from.
[1] The worst part is that itâs not even true. Companies donât create new jobs, demand does. If you give a company a bunch of money, but no extra demand theyâre going to pocket the money and do nothing. See: most of Bernankeâs policies. To create jobs you need to create demand for the products that the companies canât fill with their existing workforce. If we took all of that money that was shoveled into enormous multinational banks to prop them up when the house of cards they built came tumbling down and instead gave it evenly to the bottom 90% of Americans, we would have been out of the recession in a heartbeatâand the ultra rich would still be bitching about it today.
This is also why lowering the tax rate on businesses makes no sense. The tax rate is just an expense to them, it doesnât affect their day to day operations. Demand is what drives them to expand/hire more people.
8 Likes
Why? Thatâs exactly where the middle class is. For reference, the poverty level is around $20k.
It seems low because the middle class wages have not kept up with inflation for several decades now. While the rich have been getting richer at an ever increasing rate, the middle class has been stuck, basically paying for the rich.
5 Likes
I think to most people, âmiddle classâ is a cultural label we apply to a certain lifestyle that we associate with a comfortable lifestyle that existed in 1950s and 1960s America for a good percentage of the population. In no way shape or form does that jive with a $40K/year median income for a family in 2014. I would submit that youâd need to make somewhere in the realm of $155K-$200K/year for a family of four in todayâs America (obviously with some variation, largely depending on geography and other factors), to achieve the overall lifestyle we associate with the âmiddle classâ label that arose in the middle of the last century. So this is what I refer to when I use that label, and I think most other people do as well. Declining wages, massive increase in education costs, inflation, etc. etc. are all factors in why it takes so much money to reach this level of âmoderate success.â
So itâs with this sentiment that I say the lower end of the 1% is much closer to a traditional middle-class lifestyle, than it is to, say, the very wealthy, and itâs important to have them on the side of the masses, and not alienate them and communicate in a way that makes them feel any sort of allegiance whatsoever to the folks in the top tenth or 100th of the 1%. Given that the lower end of the 1% pays HUGE effective tax rates, I would think typically way above the 10-15% the mega-wealthy pay, it should be relatively easy to get them to side with the bulk of the populace, versus the mega-elite.
3 Likes
Your definition sets the middle class at somewhere near the top 10% of all wage earners in the US. That gives us an incredibly small middle class.
1 Like
Lesson: Words and phrases can have more than one meaning. Yes, median income may dictate that todayâs middle class is $40K/year. That has absolutely nothing to do with the âmiddle class lifestyleâ that most people are referring to, when talking about âmiddle class.â White picket fence, family of four, parents have some free time to spend with kids, nice family vacation every year, dog named Spot, etc. In most of urban USA, a family of four making less than $100K/year is REALLY STRUGGLING with even the basics (which I consider to be things like paying for college, having a modest but decent house that isnât falling apart, reliable healthy food on the table, a nice family vacation every year).
But that means 90% of all Americans are poor. Thatâs sobering.
2 Likes
Yeah, but that ignores Somalia and YemenâŚ
It sure does, and IMHO this has been an extremely deliberate process of shifting the income levels of the first world by those at the top for the past several decades.
⢠Very very small ultra-elite at the top, call it the top tenth of the top 1%. Maybe half of the top 1% living lifestyles that in mid-20th century seem like the definition of ârichâ
⢠A very thin sliver of society, maybe 10-15% of the population, living the traditional âmiddle class lifestyleâ that I spoke of in my earlier posts. Striving like hell to stay there.
⢠80+% of the population either struggling as working poor in uncomfortable circumstances, or absolutely downright destitute
Kind of seems, I dunno, kind of Latin America in some ways, although Iâm not an expert on that regionâs socio-economic strata. But this model is very good if youâre mega-wealthy, thatâs for damn sure.
3 Likes
Using special forces to capture some of the most wanted man in an operation stretches the definition of aggressive military policy IMHO.
Sobering and chilling, and is why Iâm actually somewhat hopeful in the long run, because while the tea party folks are currently aligned with all the wrong demagogues, in reality the vast majority of them are facing the exact same struggles as the folks from the Occupy movement. Better communication needs to be crafted to bridge these worlds.
3 Likes
That is exactly my point.
There is no reasonable way to compare anyone to Hitler. It only demonstrates a complete lack of understanding to the scope of the Final Solution. I mean for goodness sakes, Hitler planned on killing another 35 million Slavs after they won WW2. The man was a charismatic psychopath.
IMHO, I think even in those cases the comparison is unlikely to add to a productive debate. When people think about what made the Nazis so uniquely awful, itâs not just that their leaders were dishonest or that they started unnecessary wars or that they had well-disciplined marching bands or that they promoted fuel-efficient automobiles. What made the Nazis so horrific was the way they coldly and systematically butchered millions of helpless men, women and children.
There are countless examples of past leaders you could compare a modern-day warmonger toâso if youâre gonna pull out the Hitler card, Iâd save it for the ones who commit genocide. (Rwanda, for example.)
3 Likes
