The Era of Living Dangerously

[Ken White]

Well, let me clarify. The problem is with the financial elite. The responsibility is on the politicians. You don't blame the dog over the owner, but the dog is what you worry about.

Bad simile. For most purposes the Dog cannot reason and mystify you with sleight of hand while stealing your Steak. People can and almost certainly will do that. The Dog can be controlled, chained or penned by his owner -- People tend to resist and evade that. The problem is not "with the financial elite," the problem is human greed and reasoning ability. That can only be countered with better reasoning and a better motive than greed. Thus far, most governments most places in the world have proven to be not particularly adept at the former and unable to consistently apply the latter to the extent it vanquishes their greed...

I think there's coasting going on...without first removing the obstacles that retard advancement. So it's those obstacles I see as the larger problem--larger in my perspective because they're closer.

I agree. Where we seem to differ is in how to remove those obstacles. I contend that continuing what we are doing is bad and expanding most programs would only worsen the situation. Our problem as I see it is that a long term, multi-generational program is needed but that the American desire for a quick fix has led us since the '30s unto today to eschew long term thinking. There was a program, in Minnesota IIRC, that targeted at-risk families with several measures and it was proving successful in affecting the opportunities for the kids but not their parents. The program was halted because while quite successful, the parents and not the children had been the target audience.

Social 'Science' at work...

If it doesn't work, it's because any benefit gained from these systems is immediately stripped away through other factors. We had a system which provided equity with which low-income families could bootstrap themselves--and when it failed, the penalty for that failure was foisted onto those the system was intended to help by those who made the system fail in the first place.

Not sure of which program(s) you write but I suspect that there are counterpoints to it similar to the Minnesota program I cited above.

Most of the alternatives I see have to do with cutting taxes even further, starting at the top of the economy. The wealth gap is widening, the only cure is to make rich corporations even richer!

Nor do I know what this refers to. Whose alternatives? Does this include those who want to increase taxes at the top?

...Your paradigm is, "make the lower class work." Mine is, "provide them with the opportunity to work." Given how little average wages have increased over the past 40 years, and how much capital gains have increased over the same period, I really don't see how it's possible to entertain the idea that I'm proposing "the same, but moreso"...

That's an assumption on your part and it is not correct. My paradigm is remove excessive government interference in all aspects of American life. An action that I fully realize is highly unlikely but I am convinced that we can preclude further damage. Whether that will happen or not is unknown but I believe the 2012 Congressional elections will provide some indications -- the Presidential election is largely irrelevant to that, Congress does the money stuff...

slapout9 quoted Rothschild above: ""“I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”" The US is a bit different -- here, Congress controls the Banks and thus the money supply. "We the people..." and all that. If the Bankers are not behaving as you wish, you need to speak to your Congress Critters...

Fuchs comment above is also quite germane: ""Let's not fool ourselves. Our societies are more than 50% planning economies. The government runs as a planning economy and all corporations do. "" That is absolutely correct IMO -- and while I know we will never undo that mistaken approach, we can mitigate the damage instead of exacerbating it as you seem to propose.

I do not advocate that we "make the lower class work." I just want the system changed to enable them to work and to provide reasonably rewarding work. The goal of 'meaningful' work is a chimera ('pleasant' even more so...). That's why they call it work instead of fun...

There are cuts, and likely more coming. Or, at least, I'm not optimistic about funding increasing during the Austerity Inquisition.

Of course there are cuts -- but those cuts are a reflection of a significantly tightened economy, not a concerted plan to deny education to the masses as that article could be assumed by some to impute. You are correct that it is likely to worsen because the economy almost certainly will worsen before it recovers, slowly -- but as the economy eventually climbs back from the pits, education spending is likely to continue its historic trend and inch back up to reach and then pass previous highs.

The real issue is for what those education dollars are spent. While there are some improvements taking place in K-6 (which has always been fairly good anyway), the same is not true for 7-12 -- we have really screwed that up but we sure have a lot of kids with great self esteem...

Eh. For "cutting into the tax base" read instead "the guys who would be paying more taxes exercise too much political power to allow that to happen".

That's partly true in some cases -- and more true in some than others -- but anyway you handle it, there has to be a tax base of some sort. If the system is skewed to a particular segment of the population then it is up to the Politicians to change that. To hope they will clamp down and jail those who are paying a healthy percentage of the taxes that pay said Pols salaries seems, uh, unrealistic...

Unless they are confronted with loss of their political job.

I don't think they're separable like that. How can we elect politicians who will put big business in its place, in the face of actions like the Citizens United decision?

That decision is over hyped under comprehended. It didn't really change much of anything. The FEC was formed in the wake of Watergate and has done as much harm as good; Mc Cain-Feingold, dearly loved by some is nothing but a very flawed incumbent protection act -- which gave to the media carte blanche while severely restricting the potential for dissenting views from others. What the Supreme court did with Citizens United is remove that media advantage, no more. That's why the media fulminates against it...

All that's needed to separate the evil wealthy from the nice (heh...) politicians is consistently voting for new faces in Congress. Ideally, we'd have better K-12 education and better informed electorate with some Civics and History classes under their belts. We don't but what we do have is a reasonably savvy collective knowledge and ability to force Congress to change their profligate and venal ways by sending the message that continued election is not a given. That's all it would take. Congress will not change until it is forced to. Short of a revolt, the only way -- and the best way -- to do that is to keep the doors of the Capitol, the House AND Senate Office buildings revolving...

None of that is going to dismantle or even roll back much of the Social Democratic state in which we live - but we can keep it from doing more damage by expanding previous failed efforts.