how shocking. lazy poor people stayed poor. productive people got more rich. sounds about right to me.
how shocking. lazy poor people stayed poor. productive people got more rich. sounds about right to me.
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
Under your hero Bush, income was pretty stagnant for middle and lower income americans (and actually decreased):
-Between 2001 and 2007, the real income of the median working-age household decreased by 1.9%, a loss of $1,107, despite productivity increasing by 18.5% over that time.1 The real median income for all households rose by a meager 1.6%.2
-Wages for workers with a college degree increased by just 0.4% between 2001 and 2007.3
-Between 2001 and 2007, the average income of the lowest quintile is down 2.7%, while the middle quintile is up a mere 0.1%.4
The rich, of course, did very well:
-Between 1979 and 2006, the average income of the richest 0.1% of Americans rose a staggering 364%, or nearly 25 times more than the growth of the median household income.5
-More recently, between 2001 and 2006 the average income of the top 1% increased by 33%,6 or 165 times more than the growth of the median household income.
-The top 10% of households received 46% of the nation?s income in 2006, equal to the highest share since 1932. The top 1% received 20% of the nation?s income in 2006, the highest amount since 1928.7
http://www.epipolicycenter.org..._rising_inequality.pdf
Data was taken from the census:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf
Only because "making ends meet" was expanded to include such luxuries as McMansions, new SUVs, etc. I've got several in-laws living just fine off a single income, including one somewhere between 30-40K. They've even got cable! The new god is money, and we're all very devout.
lol blame everyone except the assholes to took loans they couldn't afford and the assholes who handed them the money.
- Mar 20, 2000
- 102,402
- 8,574
- 126
not only that but households have become more granular with the rise of divorce rates and people not getting married the first time until later in their lives. household income strongly correlates with the number of people in the household, and that makes sense.
(married and educated) women joining the workforce has depressed wages so you get a double whammy: not only can some households now attain the middle class standard of living (decent house in a safe neighborhood with good schools), but those that were already there now had to add a second wage earner to stay there.
and that can be trouble. used to be that if the sole breadwinner lost (usually) his job, the other spouse could find some work and between the two they could keep themselves from financial disaster. now, with two breadwinners, people naturally have consumed more, making bankruptcy a larger risk.
it'd be interesting if the federal loan guidelines were changed to use only one income for dual income households.
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
That's funny that you mention retirement contributions when the more desirable pension has basically been done away with by corporate America and the fact that the COST of health insurance is rising and employers are having to pay more (or cut health insurance benefits) is really funny to point out.
A quintile is 1/5th and according to the census data the top quintile earned nearly 50% of income in this country in 2007. If you go look at the tax brackets you will notice they probably pay close to 65% of our tax burden.
As well do you think the rich and two family households are not going to outpace single family uneducated homes in income appreciation? What is your plan? Somehow force a standardization plan on every worker in this country? So when the low skilled highschool drop out see's a 1% increase in wages the MBA running a company see's the same?
The fascination with the stats becomes tedious when you start looking at the bigger picture. Especially when you start adding in single vs multi income family and educatued vs uneducated. Which imo is a bigger problem than the fact the top .1% of workers are seeing unbelievable increases in compensation.
Has the rich outpaced the poor? Sure, but what else is new? Is it a terrible situation? Not sure, but why do you think it is? Because of this outpacing the rich are paying larger and larger % of the federal tax burden and will continue to do so under Obama. If they didnt outpace those lower groups who pays the bills?
Zenmervolt
Elite member
- Oct 22, 2000
- 24,514
- 44
- 91
No, it's not the opposite. The ideologue is always convinced that his position, whatever his position may be, has "solid logic, morality and other positive attributes". Any opposition to an ideologue's views is seen as somehow illogical or immoral by the ideologue. You are every bit as embedded in your position as any of the "ideologues" with whom you disagree, and that makes you one of them whether you realize it or not.
ZV
And? People are living longer; the expected value of a pension was worth less back then.
Those higher employer payments for health insurance clearly count as employee compensation. Employer social security contributions are higher too.
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
Funny, conservatives PROMISED America that their ridiculous trickle down theory would benefit EVERYONE. "A rising tide lifts all boats" anyone? Of course they're going to pay more of the taxes in this country, THEIR incomes are rising while OURS are standing still. And the wages for the rich outpacing the poor is bad especially when inflation is eating away at our wages... over time, we will become poorer and poorer.
Also, there is a high correlation with worse social ills in a society along with high income inequality
http://www.execdigital.co.uk/I...-says-study_19173.aspx
We saw a prolonged economic expansion not seen in this country. Everybody benefited in some shape or form.
That doesnt answer my question of what happens if they dont outpace us? Who pays the bills for the govt?!?!?!?!?!?!? If the top 20% earned 20% of the income and it was equally distributed who pays for it all?
I am pretty sure most income information will include inflation. But I will ask you this. What makes you think 80% of this country can outpace inflation???
What is your ultimate goal here anyways? Everybody makes the same and see's the same increase in income?
I also want to point out a glaring stat from the census report.
Married couples income = 72,785
Single Mother no father present = 33,370
There is more to the story than simply pointing to the income distribution and crying wolf. Demographics, education level, and married status are all playing a role here.
the real problem was not that these folks defaulted it is that bank a-z was holding these bad loans bundled as investments and insurance multiple times over and were not required to have the assets to cover all these if something did happen.
Of course it could have. Your claim is like saying without blackjack, the gambling addict wouldn't go broke, as if there's not poker. Without meth, the meth addict wouldn't have a drug problems as if there's not crack. The problem was Wall Street being unregulated to the pooint that people were rewarded for excessive risk; it just happpened to burst on sub-prime, but the housing bubble didn't only exist in sub-prime. And the bubble didn't exist magially, it was because of the Wall Street problems.
There's a correlation between the housing bubble, and the absurdly excessive profiteeering from loans by Wall Street that made them 40% of the economy recently.
To get that 40% - to get 30% of all profits made in recent years in the economy - the money comes from someone, and increases the cost of finance, hurting the economy.
We're starting to go in circles - you are repeating your point abut the borrowers, and I already addressed that as being 'an' issue, but not the issue in the current crisis.
Imagine your state's government and police got corrupted by the mob to leave them alone, and mob activity in loan sharking skyrocketed. You could say, accurately, that there was a problem with the people who chose to borrow from loan sharks, but you would hardly be hitting the 'real problem', or anything needed to actually get rid of the problem.
There are going to be loan sharks because it's profitable, and there are going to be loan shark borrowers, if the system allows it. And there are going to be people who ruin Wall Streeet companies with excessive gambling that enriches them personally, and there are going to be sub-prime borrowers who buy homes they shouldn't, if the system allows, for a variety of reasons. Many people make mistakes taking out loan shark loans or buying irresponsible loans, if the money is put in front of them. You can't solve it blaming them.
How are you going to get rid of those people? And if you could, you haven't gotten rid of the mob and its corruption with government - it has other markets to hurt the state with.
No subprime borrower made Wall Street firms take huge gambles on Credit Default swaps on the sub-prime mortgages, which caused the real crisis of liquidity, not the loans.
If there were no credit default swaps and such derivatives, there wouldn't have been the excesses in throwing money at borrowers, and the bubble wouldn't have been catastrophic.
As I said, the consumer debt issues would have been another issue - there are problems there, too, but that's not the topic for this thread, which is for the current crisis.
So what do you want to do? Have a government sponsored reset of the entire investment system?
Not saying that would be a bad thing, however, just slapping "government oversight" on 'the greedy people' sounds like a poor solution. These people are smart, it's their job to make money. Government will never be able to stem that tide...
Chuck
Not saying that would be a bad thing, however, just slapping "government oversight" on 'the greedy people' sounds like a poor solution. These people are smart, it's their job to make money. Government will never be able to stem that tide...
Chuck
Genx87 can hardly be more dishonest. The fact is a near-zero increase in wealth for the bottom 80% after inflation, and a hugely increasing rate at the very top.
Describing that as 'everybody benefitted' is simply a lie to distort the fact.
In fact, the concentration of wealth at the very top has a terrible effect on the economy and the well-being of most Americans, compared to a more widespread distribution.
If more Americans make more money, they pay more taxes - and get rid of the dishonest straw man that anyone is suggesting the top 20% only make 20% of the income.
Take a look at the history of wages and inflation, get informed for once for a change, and you will get your answer. The Reagan-present is unique in low real increase for workers.
And it's even worse when you include the debt they have taken on as their share of the national debt.
There's something in the middle between oligarchy and everyone having the same income.
Why are you arguing such idiocy as to imply otherwise?
What he and I are advocating is a moderate situation that has outstanding growth for the nation and balances a safety net and decent living for workers at the bottom with the additional incentives that increase productivity for those who are more productive. But it's like teaching my dog Latin, you show no interest in the actual issues.
All those factors are included in the larger issue of the concentration of wealth, which does outweigh all those factors. The question is less the 72K-33K difference above, than whether the same people are at 100K/50K, or 150K/75K - or because the top is sucking up all the growth after inflation, only 72K/33K.
We should probably all establish some idea of what we think the distribution of wealth should be for the topic to be discussed, since that is a matter of policy, despite the right seeming to say otherwise (I've never seen one right-winger say the huge increase in concentration of wealth has anything to do with tax policy, they only say 'they earned that money'.)
For the sake of discussion, we can use the wealth distribution under Eisenhower or JFK/LBJ for my position. What's the righties' goal for the proper distribution of wealth?
And no, mealy mouthed cliches about how that's not a policy issue are not an answer. If they're too ignorant to not see past that, there's no point in the discussion.
Answering your second question first, of course the government can stem that tide - the only question is whether it's serving the public interest, or the wealthy interests.
Even ask the experts here like LegendKiller or apparently Evan, who would be the first to say if the government was powerless to stem that tide - and you see them saying that regulation is a critical thing in keeping the harmful investment practices from happening. They might criticize bad regulation - but I don't see them saying that good regulation isn't essential, that it's 'unable to stem the tide'. Of course there will always be *some* problematic investing, regulation isn't perfect.
It's the government's job, on behalf of the public, to keep the investment activities within the boundaries of the public interest - allowing good profits, but not harm to society.
If you want to be an investment company, fine - but no insider trading, no short-selling in violation of the 'uptick rule' that should be restores, no evading collateral on insurance, etc.
Just make an honest profit (or loss, if you invest badly), providing services and capital that are part of a functioning system.
As for your first question, what do I want to do?
I hesitate to post an answer, because it deserves a careful one, but I want to restore a more proportional sharing of gains in the economy, to have a moderate concentration of wealth instead of an extreme concentration, which helps the economy, I want to see tax policies set that pay off the debt when we can, I want to see the government return to representing the public and not the financial industry in the law - and the ideas suggested in the OP here from Hartmann might be good steps, i.e., repeal the Reagan changes.
And to get the government representing the public, election reform is needed, to get rid of the current situation which allowed these harmful practices and bail out the rich first.
In short, I want to have more Americans get to pursue the American Dream, to have the opportunity that exists when the wealth isn't locked up in the hands of a few people.
nobodyknows
Diamond Member
- Sep 28, 2008
- 5,474
- 0
- 0
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
- 26,907
- 174
- 106
Dang, this needs Cliffs.
- Blames some wrong, unimportant people. Does a bit of 'glossing over' some of those who are to blame.
- Created strawmen for use in his argument.
-Unintentionally or otherwise blurs investment with gambling or speculation
- He proposes complicated far-reaching solutions to avoid a repeat of these problems when a few simple, easy things will do the job perfectly well (never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste!)
- Author says, without explanation or proof, that low personal income tax rates cause bank failures and speculation (and evil thing in his opinion). Large rate increase will solve our problems (bwuhahaha)
- Wants to charge a tax on stock buys etc, this magic cure will stop bad investing and pay for the bailout instead of taxpayer. Fact is, a tax on stock buys will be paid by taxpayers. His reasoning is confused or he's purposefully misleading.
- Our real problem is not how to prevent a re-occurance, but how to get out of this mess and deal with the loss of wealth and avoid economic chaos; he offers nothing to address that.
- The author is a liberal loon who is in love with taxes and think they are 'magic pixie dust' that can cure everything.
Boy, is that article a 'stew' composed of some facts sprinkled in amongst a bunch of BS (Conseratives are evil, high taxes are great, investment is 'bad', and then a whole slew of 'over-the-top' unneccesary reforms ). Let's look at what he says:
Bill Clinton and Phil Graham are guilty among other who are not named for some reason. How about Robert Rubin (from Goldman Sachs) who Treasury Secretary under Clinton? How about Alan Greenspan who was Fed Chairman at the time (and appointed by Clinton)?
Instead he mentions Wendy Graham and Grover Norguist. WTH? A lobbyist (I assume that's what she is) and an unelected 'talking head' are responsible for this?
(When he does get around to mention Rubin & Greenspan he just lumps them in with Ludwig Von Mises, Freidrich Von Hayeck etc. Yeah, I for one really feel like holding those latter 2 guys responsible for this CDS and MBS mess)
Then I'll skip down to this:
Isn't this what you guys call a classic strawman argument? WTH ever blamed Lynndie England for the Iraq war? (I don't recall seeing defense contractors voting on the Iraqi war either)
Then:
Yeah, re-regulate banks so they behave like regular banks are supposed to, I think most people like that idea today (never mind the fact that the vast majority of banks have always acted like regular banks). I note he uses the word 'speculative' in a perjoritive fashion; he needs to define it. Investing in real estate is 'speculative' and right up there with stocks and bonds as far as investments favored by the American people.
Is the SEC supposed to regulate real estate now too?
I think the answer is much simpler. I don't think CDS should have existed except as 'real' insurance; that would be an easy and effective change. Otherwise, if you're gonna allow institutions to play with them like they're 'bets', then the 'house' needs to be limited to gambling only so much as they can afford to pay-off if they lose. Another easy, simple change.
Mortgage backed securities? In principle there is nothing wrong with them, you just need a 'real' rating for them. Too much dogsh!t got AAA ratings, that was the problem (as well as unqualified buyers getting loans - but that was part of a political agenda). And a bundle of unqualified buyer type loans with ARMs should have been labled as junk bonds, if allowed to sell at all. Easy, simple changes.
Then this, quite interesting when you think about it:
So dropping income tax rates directly results in a stock market bubble? Obama and Geithner would love that to be the case, why they could just drop rates and the market will shoot through the roof.
Dropping rates caused the S&L crash? Damn, and at the time we all thought it was banks making too my speculative real estate gambles with too little capitalization. So we could've just raised tax rates and solved that problem, huh?
I marvel at how fast he moves from point A (tax rates) right to point B (S&L crash and market bubbles). Seems to me that he should have covered a lot of ground in between to connect the two points. He got from one to the other so fast it must have been a mighty 'leap'.
But if you think about for a minute, what he is saying is that low tax rates mean investment. Uh, well yeah. We all know if we get to keep our money instead of having the government take it we can afford to invest it. I think the American people like that idea too. And I think this guy doesn't like 'investment', he speaks of it as though it were something evil.
And therein lies another bit of his not too cleaver bullsh!t: he blurs investment with gambling. While it can be said all investment includes some 'gambling' insofar as there is risk, investment should never be confused (as he attempts, purposefully or otherwise) with pure, flat-out gambling.
Trips to Vegas aren't called 'investment trips' are they? The Credit Default Swaps situation is a good example of the problems that arise when someone does confuse the two.
This guy is big on the STET tax, a tax charged on the sale stocks, bonds etc, everything that is an investment (boy, he sure thinks investment is evil!). So investment is a problem according to him (I strongly feel the opposite) and in typical liberal fashion the 'cure' to that problem is - can you guess? - TAX IT! See, if you apply the (magic) tax to investments people will behave more more rationally and make better choices. It's like 'pixie dust', you sprinkle it around and make things all better.
Here's what he says about the STET elsewhere (this guy's in love with the concept):
So, in his opinion the STET will stop 'speculation' in the stock market (most people would use the term 'investing'). Without a STET there is no cost to investing in the stock market bcause you can't lose. WTH? I think an awful lot people who never paid any STET feel like they've lost something in the stock market, don't you agree?
As for market 'push and pulls' by maipulating large trades, I think that's already illegal and just needs to be beter enforced if there is a problem.
Charging people a tax on purchasing stocks etc means Wall Street will be paying for it's own bailout? "Wall Street" doesn't pay the tax, people investing do. Aren't these the same people as the taxpayers currently paying for the bailout? This makes no sense, or is intentionally highly deceptive.
A lot of investing, and a lot of value in the market is from retirement plans. Do we really need to further burden those with this expense? I don't think so. I don't think we need anything reducing demand in the stock market either. Our nation's whole retirement plan revolves around the market at this point (aside from SS).
And if people wanna speculate, they should be allowed to. It's still a free country. IMO, what we need to stop is the government giving speculators OUR money if they lose. A new tax on our investments doesn't fix that. In fact, it's the opposite - a new tax on us to bailout them out.
---------------
I have always thought that when the government reacts, it tends to over-react. I sense this happening again in a big way.
IMO, the steps necessary to prevent a repeat of our current problems are fairly simple and straight forward. It's NOT complicated and wide-spread drastic reform and doubling or tripling income tax rates as this guy suggests. Nope, just a few easy, simple things.
Our really difficult problems is how to get out of this mess. What to do with all the toxic assets and loss of wealth. How to cushion the fall and avoid massive economic chaos. None of his suggestions above address that in any way.
Fern
- Blames some wrong, unimportant people. Does a bit of 'glossing over' some of those who are to blame.
- Created strawmen for use in his argument.
-Unintentionally or otherwise blurs investment with gambling or speculation
- He proposes complicated far-reaching solutions to avoid a repeat of these problems when a few simple, easy things will do the job perfectly well (never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste!)
- Author says, without explanation or proof, that low personal income tax rates cause bank failures and speculation (and evil thing in his opinion). Large rate increase will solve our problems (bwuhahaha)
- Wants to charge a tax on stock buys etc, this magic cure will stop bad investing and pay for the bailout instead of taxpayer. Fact is, a tax on stock buys will be paid by taxpayers. His reasoning is confused or he's purposefully misleading.
- Our real problem is not how to prevent a re-occurance, but how to get out of this mess and deal with the loss of wealth and avoid economic chaos; he offers nothing to address that.
- The author is a liberal loon who is in love with taxes and think they are 'magic pixie dust' that can cure everything.
Boy, is that article a 'stew' composed of some facts sprinkled in amongst a bunch of BS (Conseratives are evil, high taxes are great, investment is 'bad', and then a whole slew of 'over-the-top' unneccesary reforms ). Let's look at what he says:
Bill Clinton and Phil Graham are guilty among other who are not named for some reason. How about Robert Rubin (from Goldman Sachs) who Treasury Secretary under Clinton? How about Alan Greenspan who was Fed Chairman at the time (and appointed by Clinton)?
Instead he mentions Wendy Graham and Grover Norguist. WTH? A lobbyist (I assume that's what she is) and an unelected 'talking head' are responsible for this?
(When he does get around to mention Rubin & Greenspan he just lumps them in with Ludwig Von Mises, Freidrich Von Hayeck etc. Yeah, I for one really feel like holding those latter 2 guys responsible for this CDS and MBS mess)
Then I'll skip down to this:
Isn't this what you guys call a classic strawman argument? WTH ever blamed Lynndie England for the Iraq war? (I don't recall seeing defense contractors voting on the Iraqi war either)
Then:
Yeah, re-regulate banks so they behave like regular banks are supposed to, I think most people like that idea today (never mind the fact that the vast majority of banks have always acted like regular banks). I note he uses the word 'speculative' in a perjoritive fashion; he needs to define it. Investing in real estate is 'speculative' and right up there with stocks and bonds as far as investments favored by the American people.
Is the SEC supposed to regulate real estate now too?
I think the answer is much simpler. I don't think CDS should have existed except as 'real' insurance; that would be an easy and effective change. Otherwise, if you're gonna allow institutions to play with them like they're 'bets', then the 'house' needs to be limited to gambling only so much as they can afford to pay-off if they lose. Another easy, simple change.
Mortgage backed securities? In principle there is nothing wrong with them, you just need a 'real' rating for them. Too much dogsh!t got AAA ratings, that was the problem (as well as unqualified buyers getting loans - but that was part of a political agenda). And a bundle of unqualified buyer type loans with ARMs should have been labled as junk bonds, if allowed to sell at all. Easy, simple changes.
Then this, quite interesting when you think about it:
So dropping income tax rates directly results in a stock market bubble? Obama and Geithner would love that to be the case, why they could just drop rates and the market will shoot through the roof.
Dropping rates caused the S&L crash? Damn, and at the time we all thought it was banks making too my speculative real estate gambles with too little capitalization. So we could've just raised tax rates and solved that problem, huh?
I marvel at how fast he moves from point A (tax rates) right to point B (S&L crash and market bubbles). Seems to me that he should have covered a lot of ground in between to connect the two points. He got from one to the other so fast it must have been a mighty 'leap'.
But if you think about for a minute, what he is saying is that low tax rates mean investment. Uh, well yeah. We all know if we get to keep our money instead of having the government take it we can afford to invest it. I think the American people like that idea too. And I think this guy doesn't like 'investment', he speaks of it as though it were something evil.
And therein lies another bit of his not too cleaver bullsh!t: he blurs investment with gambling. While it can be said all investment includes some 'gambling' insofar as there is risk, investment should never be confused (as he attempts, purposefully or otherwise) with pure, flat-out gambling.
Trips to Vegas aren't called 'investment trips' are they? The Credit Default Swaps situation is a good example of the problems that arise when someone does confuse the two.
This guy is big on the STET tax, a tax charged on the sale stocks, bonds etc, everything that is an investment (boy, he sure thinks investment is evil!). So investment is a problem according to him (I strongly feel the opposite) and in typical liberal fashion the 'cure' to that problem is - can you guess? - TAX IT! See, if you apply the (magic) tax to investments people will behave more more rationally and make better choices. It's like 'pixie dust', you sprinkle it around and make things all better.
Here's what he says about the STET elsewhere (this guy's in love with the concept):
So, in his opinion the STET will stop 'speculation' in the stock market (most people would use the term 'investing'). Without a STET there is no cost to investing in the stock market bcause you can't lose. WTH? I think an awful lot people who never paid any STET feel like they've lost something in the stock market, don't you agree?
As for market 'push and pulls' by maipulating large trades, I think that's already illegal and just needs to be beter enforced if there is a problem.
Charging people a tax on purchasing stocks etc means Wall Street will be paying for it's own bailout? "Wall Street" doesn't pay the tax, people investing do. Aren't these the same people as the taxpayers currently paying for the bailout? This makes no sense, or is intentionally highly deceptive.
A lot of investing, and a lot of value in the market is from retirement plans. Do we really need to further burden those with this expense? I don't think so. I don't think we need anything reducing demand in the stock market either. Our nation's whole retirement plan revolves around the market at this point (aside from SS).
And if people wanna speculate, they should be allowed to. It's still a free country. IMO, what we need to stop is the government giving speculators OUR money if they lose. A new tax on our investments doesn't fix that. In fact, it's the opposite - a new tax on us to bailout them out.
---------------
I have always thought that when the government reacts, it tends to over-react. I sense this happening again in a big way.
IMO, the steps necessary to prevent a repeat of our current problems are fairly simple and straight forward. It's NOT complicated and wide-spread drastic reform and doubling or tripling income tax rates as this guy suggests. Nope, just a few easy, simple things.
Our really difficult problems is how to get out of this mess. What to do with all the toxic assets and loss of wealth. How to cushion the fall and avoid massive economic chaos. None of his suggestions above address that in any way.
Fern
Steeplerot
Lifer
- Mar 29, 2004
- 13,051
- 6
- 81
Well everyone that is except the other 95% not filthy rich who actually work for their money.
Wages have decreased for the average worker, this is a fact and you all have been shown this countless times in here. And yet you keep repeating such falsehoods.
Svnla
Lifer
- Nov 10, 2003
- 17,986
- 1,388
- 126
OP, what about this article from NY Times from 10 years ago..1999..read it and weep..and enough blame on BOTH parties ....http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11...&pagewanted=1&emc=eta1
Time for a Tea Party and start some real changes.
Time for a Tea Party and start some real changes.
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
WOWOW, talk about prescient, looks like members of both parties endorsed this crap with a group of principled democrats opposing this deregulation nonsense.
RIP Wellstone. Jail all Republicans and also the Democrats that voted for this garbage... Kudos to the few Democrats who saw the danger ahead.
Thanks for the link to that article.
I've long - since well before the economic crisis - condemned Clinton for some of his economic policies siding with the corporatists. I've long expressed a view that while the Republicans have been thoroughly corrupted on many of these issues, the Democrats have two major wings, the corporatist wing who is similarly corrupt and the (unfortunately now smaller) progressive wing who is not, and I've called for people to support the progressive wing to protect us from having two corrupt parties.
So, I've long said at least part of the point you make - I agree there's way too mmuch blame that's fair for many democrats - but I don't equate them as you do.
You can have a pipe dream if you want that will only get in the way of real reform, as you pine for a new tea party - my approach of backing progressive Democrats can really help.
Look at the article you linked, for some indications agreeing with my point. Note how this bill is referred to as having its three Republican sponsors, its main pusher Rep. Gramm.
And look at the opposition - the article makes a reader cringe at its reporting of the accurate predictions of the disasters to come - *by progressives*.
And the opponents - the article implicitly criticizes them as 'gloomy' - could hardly have been more right. Those are the people I'm aligned with - consumer groups, progressives.
Note who they then quote as an opponent - not a Republican, but progressive Democrats:
Those are the views I post agreement with on finance issues - not the corporatist Democrats, like Sen. Schumer, who I disagree with here.
Now, the bill has more to it than one or two changes, and some provisions might be defensible, so we need to try to ensure we're discussing the right issues.
On party, I decided to do this experiment - while too many voted for the bill from both parties, I decided to look up and post what party the opposition is from, predicting Dem.
And to post the result either way, so my opinion would be undermined if the facts disagree.
The answer: of the eight Senators voting no, seven wer Democrats - all the progressives I support. (The one Republican is a rare 'independant' Republican, who had changed parties).
In the house: 51 Democrats and 5 Republicans voted no.
So I think it's fair to point to that progressive Democratic minority as the key opposition, not to portray it as some 'equal guilt', even while most Democrats voted badly here.
It's testament to the sway the financian industry, as the industry receiving 30% of all profit in the US in recent years, holds over both parties that's a problem.
But it's more the Republican core political ideology that champions this sort of thing, while the Democrats are at least less aligned with it, even if drug along far too much.
The main lesson IMO from the article is to note how right on the progressive critics were, speaking out as they did in a politically unpopular ('gloomy') manner, not taking the expedient route then but rather defending the country from the harm they thought we were at risk for "in 10 years' time". Is that not the sort of principled, honest leadership people SAY they want in our politicians? So, where's the support for that faction, at least the credit for them from their former critics?
By the way, you see the 10 years quote from Sen. Byron Dorgan - I usually listen to him as a guest on the radio show of Thom Hartmann, the author of the article for this thread.
Originally posted by: bamacre
Can we give kudos to any Republicans who opposed it too?
Edit: Jail Clinton for signing it, too? :Q
I say blame them and stop voting for them, and vut off their funding from the financial industry, not jail them, with the possible exceptions of real sellouts like Gramm.
Blame Clinton: yes.
And yes, we can give credit to the Republicans - all one Senator and five House members - who voted against it. In fact, consider this praise for one of them:
On the other hand, of the all too few but more than ten times as many Democrats who voted against it, look how right on Rep. Dingell was, look at the amazing bold text:
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