Wealth Gap Thread Excerpts

Blackhearted Pirate Lee:

In addition, the decline of the labor movement has crippled the unions' ability to shape public policy that currently shifts the tax burden away from the rich resulting in shrinking revenues for health care, education and infrastructure projects that benefit the middle class.

Wayne:

Unions drove the three largest employers out of Racine with high wages and benefits demands.
Look at the UAW and what they did to Ford etc. $25+ to put on 4 bolts is insane.
The Teacher Unions only insure that those who do not care about kids keep their jobs and not allow those who do to teach. In Milwaukee less then 50% of Black kids get out of high school the teacher unions prevent change. Please do not tell me about large unions.

I also do not believe the 58% want to join unions. If that was indeed true unions would be gaining members not losing them. Also we would see more Dems elected into office.
For far too long big unions has been big business.

Blackhearted Pirate Lee:

OK. Where is Tampico? Isn’t he back YET? Lol

Orion Blaster:

A bit misleading as 401K, IRAs, and other retirement plans actually own most of the corporate stock and while managed by big banks and financial companies the stock is owned by the middle-class but they cannot touch it until retirement.Also if a poor person working in the USA for minimum wage, they are considered rich in a third world nation like Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, etc who usually earn like $100 to $300 a month, instead of $1200 a month in the USA. Over ten times the money a third world poor person earns if you consider most third world nations have poor people that earn $100 or less a month in some sweat shop making goods to be sold to the USA. I've been outside of the USA, so I know that. It is one of the main reasons why third world nations hate the USA because even our poorest citizens are considered rich in their nations. But their poor go without heat, electricity, TV, and have to beg for food most of the time, while our poor earn ten times as much and microwave food they buy or get food stamps for while watching Cable TV and driving an economy car.I think the main problem is that a lot of good paying jobs in the USA require higher education and not everyone can afford college. Plus a lot of good paying jobs get offshored to other countries and people who used to work in factories are now working minimum wage jobs in retail stores or restaurants. A lot of computer and engineering people I know, for example work for Wal-Mart now because those jobs got offshored to Asia by Clinton and when Bush took over he did nothing to fix that by raise the level of H1B Visas for people to come to the USA and work computer and engineering jobs for close to minimum wage, cheaper than a US citizen will work. It seems for every high paying job that gets eliminated, a low paying job in retail, food, or services gets created. So unless one works for a union or gets promoted to management, they are going to keep losing income unless they are lucky enough to have a job for life (like a federal government job that is almost like communism as they allow federal employees to goof off and not get fired and waste tax payers dollars until they retire and earn a pension, but not all federal employees are like that, but some of them are).

We even have a new class of homeless people now, white collar homeless, people who used to work high paying white collar jobs but got fired or got sick and lost them as a result.Due to Enron, and the Dotcom scandals they created new millionaires and billionaires, but did so by swindling a lot of people out of money by investing in a company that earns no income or cooks the books so it appears to be profitable and then people bail out by selling stock before they crash and it ruins pension funds, 401Ks, IRAs, and eventually hits banks and ruins mortgages by lowering property prices and destroying jobs so people cannot make house payments anymore. Then the government bails out banks like Bear Sterns by printing up billions thus causing inflation and raising the prices of everything. Plus now that we are fighting wars over oil, and oil supply is getting less as consumption goes up fuel prices go up as well. Not helping is the global warming movement that is putting carbon taxes on anything that uses carbon, and soon the USA will pass carbon taxes causing carbon fuel to go up and auto prices to go up.

In my area the country passed a new law that forces everyone to recycle which doubled our trash bill now, and disabled, and retired people and people living on a fixed income are discriminated against because they cannot afford the increases to the trash bill, and it cuts back their medicine, food, and house money so now some bills they cannot pay or have a hard time paying. Plus since the government supports ethanol, the price of corn went up, which increased the price of meat that are fed corn, and now some farms are defaulting on loans due to the price of feed. I'm all for fighting global warming, but not at the cost of raising the price of everything and discriminating against the poor. By the time we get a carbon tax on gas, prices should be $7 a gallon, and I don't think the poor can afford that.Sad to say but I think within the next 30 years or so, if something isn't done to fix the economy and prices, we may have a second civil war on our hands.


Blackhearted Pirate Lee:

That's why we are planning to get out. I dont know about a civil war, maybe a domestic war and 30 years is way too long I think. We will have a rebellion by the end of 8 years if the same person stays in the Presidency. A total collapse may take as much as 30 to 50 years but I think its warm right now and we are going to stand up to soaring prices soon just because we cant adjust to that swift rise prices. We know what the right price for an item should be. Most of us are shocked every time we go out of the house. Many middle class and upper people can absorb the swift changes of prices but many cant.

Nice to have you onboard. Talk like this is our mainstay. Anyway we must keep thinking to avoid being lead by richies.

Tampico:

Since FDR there has been a certain mindset about the use of government to steal money and resources from productive people and transfer these resources to the non-productive people. This is what Ayn Rand responded to and she developed the notion that FDR democrats were essentially looters. She was right at the time. A lot of people who agreed with the need to battle looters joined the GOP including such greats as Goldwater and Reagan. The unions joined the looters and the academics joined the looters. It was simple back then -- just join the GOP and oppose the looters. If you listen to talk radio you would think that these conditions still exist. Looters still exist, this is true, but things began to change when George HW Bush became president and when the GOP won Congress in 1994. It was not so bad that the GOP won Congress in 1994 until Newt was destroyed. Newt kept the GOP on the straight and narrow and would have never allowed the GOP to become a looter party too. Clinton and Gore were the first to talk about "cooperation" between the private and public sectors. Clinton basically abandoned the looters after the 1994 elections, sent Hillary to Kosovo and decided that he could expand government more easily by turning the corporations into looters. Clinton was greatly affected by losing the 1994 mid-terms and he blamed Hillary's mishandling of the universal health care issue and the attacks of Rush and the rest of talk radio. He knew that he had to corrupt the GOP to save his statist agenda. Clinton is the one who started corporate welfare. It was during the Clinton administration that government "investment"in the private sector became significant. Daddy Bush started it, but Clinton saw its corrupting potential. Corporations quickly bought into the notion that their real enemies were not looters, but were competitors from the ranks of small business. Corporations started investing heavily in politics in exchange for being allowed to help write legislation.Then came George W. Bush. For the first seven years of his presidency he has allowed and even encouraged GOP legislators to become looters. Some even say that the Iraq war is a form of corporate welfare. Many industries, like the seafood industry, are now heavily regulated by laws that were written by the corporations that dominate the industries. Draft legislation by Mrs.Paul "protects" our seafood (makes it extremely difficult for small business to become big in the seafood industry). Both parties are now the enemies of the productive person. They are both dogs trying to eat our productivity. It does not matter who eats your liver as much as it matters that your liver gets eaten. The only hope would have been for Ron Paul to win and get the country back to the constitution. This is not going to happen. The Collapse will ironically be the savior of the country because now the only way to kill the leeches is to allow the host to die.

Orion Blaster:

Sadly that is how capitalism and communism work, non-productive people steal wealth from the productive people. Be it Executive management, the Communist party, political leaders, or just team members who pass on their work to co-workers. While a majority of us are productive and actually get work done, we move the economy and help create jobs while everyone else just sits around and collects money and figures out ways to get us to work harder and work longer for no extra pay while they either take credit for our work or profit from it. In communism, the non-productive people are in the communist party and get all the perks and wealth while those who aren't in the communist party do most of the work. I have to say I used to be a computer programmer, and all I ever did was make others rich. I fixed the problems that incompetent coworkers had with their programs, I wrote programs for insane speculations that managers had and everyone else said couldn't be done. The software I wrote was worth millions, held patents, and saved the companies millions of dollars in saved expenses as before they had waste and mistakes that cost them clients and extra work. Though I innovated and invented a lot of the software, by employment contract the company got all rights and I had almost nothing to show for it. But when it all comes down to it the non-productive people play politics to keep their jobs and find new ways to blame others for their own mistakes. Getting tired of me showing them up, they figured that they could do what they could to force me to quit and failing that stress me out enough to get sick. When that didn't work they did what they could to make up stuff about me to get management to fire me. But that was a mistake as once I was gone, there was nobody left to fix their mistakes and eventually their software became buggy, bloated, and crashed a lot. I read on the Microsoft newsgroups the problems they had and they begged people to help them fix them. I couldn't be there when the fireworks went off, and the crap hit the fan, but I imagine the same thing will happen to the USA when most of the productive people are out of work and only the non-productive people remain. Offworking work to India or hiring H1B Visa workers don't help either, and I highly doubt that executive managers can learn how to fix computers or write good software when there is nobody else left to fire to save their companies. I'm glad that I don't work for anybody or any company any more.

That is about the way it is now in the US workplace. Young people are getting in having learned almost nothing from college and thinking that they know everything and not learning from their mistakes and bad actions and decisions just like most managers do now. I feel sorry for the people that are actually productive and carrying the companies they work for, because they are over worked, getting health issues, and only making non-productive people rich. It isn't only the government now with non-productive people doing the looting. It is corporations as well. Remember Enron, all of the productive people suffered while the non-productive people looted it and went to live on some island while pension plans and stock turned to dust and shareholders got shafted. Not like the Pirate way where everyone gets their own fair share of the profits based on the work they do and their position as well as carry their own fair share of the work. It almost makes me want to write up a new form of business management called pirate management in which everyone is productive and carries their own weight from bottom to top.

Tampico:

I have grappled with these types of issues too, Orion; but I have come to believe that there will always be inequities in all activities. Companies are only as good as their shareholders and managers are basically leeches in many cases. I think most libertarians and anarchists just accept this part of human nature and concentrate on the issue of inequities pertaining to violence. All taxation is done with violence or implied violence. If I work for a company or patronize a company where I am screwed in one way or another then at least I know I am doing so voluntarily. Nobody has ever forced me through a drive-thru by waving me off a street with automatic weapons in hand. If I consistently get incorrect change or incorrect orders at a McDonalds then I can choose not to deal with the McDonalds. I do not have choice when it comes to taxes. If agri-business gets $50 billion next year from the government then agribusiness is basically having the government take money from me with weapons and the money is being given to them. Leeches are everywhere. We cannot hope to get rid of them. All we can hope to do is disarm them by not letting them take advantage of the police power of the state.FDR trashed our system by looting on behalf of poor people. Perhaps his intentions were good, but the real damage might just now be showing up as the corporations figure out that they can loot too. The more people study the depression, though, the more people realize that none of FDRs programs helped us get out of the depression. Only WW2 did that. If anything, the increased taxation of the era probably kept the depression going fromn 1934-1940. Without all the socialist nonsense the depression would likely have ended naturally by 1935. As annoying as socialist zombies are, they are not the biggest threat to our civilization. Fascists are. Fascists will use the police power of the state to seize taxes and then just use them to increase their own wealth. Well meaning socialists always lead to failure but the worst failures occur when they are coopted by people trying to make an unearned profit or people trying to promote a particular oligarchy. Often the socialist themselves just become corrupted and switch to being fascists. Libertarian civilizations work best, but when a civilization becomes totally infected with looters then it is a waste of time to be a libertarian. The good citizen must switch to becoming an anarchist and the civilization must be destroyed in order to kill the infection. When the GOP chose McCain it was a signal that the looters now control both parties. Ron Paul was dismissed as the crazy uncle. Reagan conservatives/Goldwater conservatives have been dismissed along with their impure but still powerful libertarian instincts. You saw this in the defeat of Duncan Hunter. Romney had some libertarian instincts but, sadly, his globalism would have eventually undermined our freedoms anyway. One thing I think we are seeing in this group is the difference between my views and those of Pirate Ronald. I greatly admire PirateRonald and, until recently, I have felt like we were always in agreement on basic political issues. Now I am coming to believe thatPirate Ronald is too optimistic about the possibility of salvaging the US. I am not asking Pirate Ronald to change because I think the difference in our views are interesting, but I naturally think that my views are correct. My view is that it is now too late for the US. Both parties and the media are now statists. So Pirate Ronald iss truggling to prevent the collapse of the system by using his influence within the GOP while I say it is now necessary to have a Collapse to kill the looter infection and begin the rebuilding process.

Orion Blaster:

Yes life isn't fair and some people got it easier than others. I'm glad that I am out of the workforce and working for myself. Less stress that way and much healthier as well. As I said most of our problems in the USA are caused by people not learning from their mistakes and making the same bad actions and behaviors over and over again. It will get to the point where the government won't be able to bail most people out anymore and not be able to save banks or companies from going under either. I think it can be fixed but only if a majority of the population decides to start taking responsibility for their own actions and behaviors and learn from their mistakes and learn to live within their means and choose spiritual things like freedom, love, hope, change, compassion, mercy, forgiveness instead of material things like money, wealth, power, songs, movies, bling, designer clothing, etc and getting so deep into debt that they cannot afford to make house or auto payments. They also need to learn that they cannot count on the government to bail them out every time and learn to become independent and learn how to survive on their own. But as psychology says you cannot change a person unless they want to change.Yeah I know vote for Ron Paul so we can get freedom back and save the country even if it means we have to be poorer and some of us have to fail and so do banks and business fail and people have to go without jobs for a while so we can finally fix what is wrong with our nation. Because we cannot save everyone in order that we save the country. But as I said most people make bad actions and bad decisions and will choose material things over spiritual ones, because over the past hundred years or so most people vote for the politicians that will put more money in their own pockets and do so to put wealth over freedom or security over freedom. There is no need to become an anarchist, because people making bad decisions and having bad behavior and not learning from their mistakes are what is causing the anarchy in our economy and government. I don't really think that we have a choice in the matter it is not a matter of if the economy and government will fail, it is more the matter of when. The USA has become the modern version of the Roman Empire and is headed for a fall because it has gotten too big, its population avoids responsibility and depends on the government too much, it waged too many wars that drained the economy, and like the Roman Empire the USA is being overrun with barbarians (the Romans considered anyone who wasn't a Roman citizen as a barbarian but the USA term is illegal alien or undocumented worker or whatever) that use up more resources and take away more jobs from the citizens and also don't pay taxes either.Like the US comedian and philosopher Ron White is known to say "You can't fix stupid." Most US citizens have been, to say the least, stupid in their lifestyle and decisions and actions and been very narcissistic only thinking of themselves as individuals, when they should be thinking about the group as a whole and what benefits the whole nation and not just themselves. Sadly when the US economy finally tanks, so will the global economy as well. Most things are tagged to the value of the US Dollar, once that goes under you will have ruined economies almost everywhere.

Pirate Ronald:

Responding specifically to:"One thing I think we are seeing in this group is the difference between my views and those of Pirate Ronald. I greatly admire Pirate Ronald and, until recently, I have felt like we were always inagreement on basic political issues. Now I am coming to believe that Pirate Ronald is too optimistic about the possibility of salvaging the US. I am not asking Pirate Ronald to change because I think the difference in our views are interesting, but I naturally think that my views are correct. My view is that it is now too late for the US. Both parties and the media are now statists. So Pirate Ronald is struggling to prevent the collapse of the system by using his influence within the GOP while I say it is now necessary to have a Collapse to kill the looter infection and begin the rebuilding process." -- Tampico Jack

The collapse will create a void where it is theoretically possible to rebuild as the knowledge and skills will still exist and be unhindered by parasitic schemes. But, there exists another problem which would tend to deny the rugged individualist type from the opportunity to rebuild.This is what I wrote in previous posts:"We need sound economic policies or an economic collapse will not only be devastating in itself, but it will create conditions where our government fails in it's role to protect our sovereignty and our Nation from foreign aggression. Just as the Russian military overnight went from superpower status to widely considered (not by me) irrelevant, so can our military might. Then we won't have a chance to recover from our mistakes because the nature of the world,contrary to the belief of many, is quite hostile and nations conquer nations just as has been for all of history until our influence has only appeared to make the world nicer and even with our superpower influence, there has still been plenty of war and invasions of nations." -- Sun Nov 21, 2004 5:48 pm Pirate Ronald

"It is ironic and funny though sad that the alien invasion and minorities who are exploiting our "tolerance" to get things instead of participating in creating prosperity will be displaced by the Chinese who have the numbers to outvote them or otherwise take over once traditional successful ways of our heritage of our United Statesof America is outvoted." -- Sat Feb 10, 2007 4:04 pm Pirate Ronald

"In civil discussion and in our polite society we give the other the benefit of the doubt that they don't have an hostile agenda, but let's not forget world history of thousands of years of hundreds of Nations. The reality is that the world is quite hostile. We all would be experiencing that personally except for our present strength as a Nation. Try to imagine what life would be like under a conquering Nation. We have been blessed to live our lives greatly isolated from the hostilities of the world. The world is hostile." -- Sat Sep 27,2003 3:51 pm Pirate Ronald