liberalism augments the top and bottom 10%

As always, no data at all, no specifics just a bunch of broad assertions with nothing to back them up that establish you, once more, as a stupid human being with a fondness for the party beverages. Keep wandering around with your mouth agape and your eyes looking squinty and pull the lever for some wingnut that tickled your pee-pee. Thinking people are interested in discussion, not the harried outbursts of the drool-bib crowd.

BTW, it's "voting bloc," not "voting block," shitbag.

When you can't win or even make an argument, attack the person - a lesson straight out of the champagne socialist's playbook.

I know you're just trolling -- you're an unintelligent and badly flawed person, but not entirely without perceptive abilities -- but when "the person" doesn't even make an argument to attack, only yammers in vague terms and buzzwords intended to inflame, then ridicule and insults is precisely all he as earned.

Make an actual argument, with specifics, and perhaps someone will engage you. Otherwise, you've done nothing but babble in the manner of someone saying "Today's 'conservative' is, for lack of a more genteel term, a redneck. He is undereducated, overly religious, angry, and susceptible to the most laughable economic arguments made by his own party heads. He is close to illiterate in most cases. His pro-gun policies are leading to the deaths of innocents and his insistence on resisting climate change science and the teaching of evolution is already having measurable negative effects on our citizenry. His insane opposition to ESCR implies that he actually wants the species to die out, and as often of not, his screaming about the evils of homosexuality is rooted in his own well-concealed desire to jam his meat-whistle into another man's hairy and stinking poop-hole.:

What absurd monetary policy are you referring to?

The sort which should have put some past Administration officials (In more than one Administration, sheath your weapons, please) in orange jumpsuits...oh...wait, I forgot:

legally binding contracts.

Ahhh, yes. That is why some Wall Streeters got FILTHY RICH when the economy performed an imitation of the Hindenberg.

I am certainly flawed and am definitely not the brightest bulb in the shed but that is neither here nor there.

I'm trying to get us to a realization of underlying causes and potential solution while all you seem to want to do is spew insults.

The zero interest rate environment that has been imposed on the American population for the past 13 years (less a brief stretch in 2006-07) has punished the American saver and exaggerated gains in financial markets which most benefits those with financial asset (those that already have wealth). A robust economic society would reward those that save; instead, liberal/Keysian policies incentivizes the middle class to spend, stretching them thin and thus exacerbating the next downturn - and then liberal policy again "comes to the rescue" by extending social-economic stabilizers.

Andrew Brightfart wrote:

As always, no data at all, no specifics just a bunch of broad assertions with nothing to back them up that establish you, once more, as a stupid human being with a fondness for the party beverages. Keep wandering around with your mouth agape and your eyes looking squinty and pull the lever for some wingnut that tickled your pee-pee. Thinking people are interested in discussion, not the harried outbursts of the drool-bib crowd.

BTW, it's "voting bloc," not "voting block," shitbag.

I wish I could get a look at the weak little man you are. it must be comical.

Liberalism rewards people who do not work and holders of land and capital. It penalizes all the people from maybe the 20%-99%, basically the providers of labor. This is also the standard Latin American model.

Andrew Brightfart has a way with words that is for sure. I respect the way he criticizes the argument style rather than the point of view itself.

Shows a person willing to think and see the others point of view... if it is valid.

DAMN YOU OBAMA!!

This happens in every mature capitalist economy and always has. There are no exceptions. And there is no use complaining about it.

Like all the rest, the US economy is a victim of its own success. The essentials are produced so easily that most commodities end up being things nobody needs. Entire industries exist to try to create demand for these useless and harmful items. Advertising. Market research now directly tracks all your purchases. Doctors and nutritionists lie about the benefits of various food and drugs. Credit cards badger you into borrowing money for no reason. You can find rows of "purified" water in supermarkets, free of essential minerals but loaded with bisphenol A.

A situation like this puts suppliers at ever-increasing risk. The more of their product is garbage, the less likely they are to be able to sell it, especially in a weak economy where the traditional forms of corporate con-artistry fail. As long as capitalism is retained, they will maintain a bearish attitude unless they are subsidized. And even then, they have no chance for profit unless consumer spending is also subsidized. There is one proven, surefire way to do this: give money to people who don't have any. Since they are running a deficit financially, they can be relied on to spend 100% of the extra. Whereas if you give money to middle class people with savings, as happened with the tax rebates, they just add it to their savings instead of buying anything.

Therefore it is inevitable that a big economy like America's subsidizes both the rich and the poor. Fair or not, it's what works. The Egyptian pharaohs did it, that's how the pyramids were built. Tried and true. Don't blame me, it's not my fault.

this is to good wrote:

Andrew Brightfart wrote:

As always, no data at all, no specifics just a bunch of broad assertions with nothing to back them up that establish you, once more, as a stupid human being with a fondness for the party beverages. Keep wandering around with your mouth agape and your eyes looking squinty and pull the lever for some wingnut that tickled your pee-pee. Thinking people are interested in discussion, not the harried outbursts of the drool-bib crowd.

BTW, it's "voting bloc," not "voting block," shitbag.

I wish I could get a look at the weak little man you are. it must be comical.

Here you go. Have at me.

krispy kremlin wrote:

When you can't win or even make an argument, attack the person - a lesson straight out of the champagne socialist's playbook.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Incredible.

Fact is, op, that the gap between the rich and the poor has accelerated its growth as Obama has implemented his policies.

Fact is: the income "gap" is irrelevant.

I grew up "middle class." No TV. No AC. One car. Rarely ate out at restaurants. Hand-me-down clothes. Cell phones??? It was normal.

How many "poor" ppl have no car, no AC, no cable TV, no cell phone... Our "poor" are the richest poor on earth.

Show me -- SHOW ME -- the family that is starving (actually starving) in this country (indeed, show me the SKINNY vs the OBESE poor).

The "gap" is a canard.

ivyivygradgrad wrote:

Fact is: the income "gap" is irrelevant.

I grew up "middle class." No TV. No AC. One car. Rarely ate out at restaurants. Hand-me-down clothes. Cell phones??? It was normal.

How many "poor" ppl have no car, no AC, no cable TV, no cell phone... Our "poor" are the richest poor on earth.

Show me -- SHOW ME -- the family that is starving (actually starving) in this country (indeed, show me the SKINNY vs the OBESE poor).

The "gap" is a canard.

Where is "this country"?

Cash-for-Clunkers removed a generation of working-asset vehicles from the road and saddled people with more debt. The lack of used vehicles on the market has caused entry-level vehicles to skyrocket - again, asinine liberal policy sticks it to the working and/or aspiring middle class.

Policy decisions to make higher education "affordable" and "more accessible" through government loan programs has pushed the cost of college through the roof by artificially increasing the demand through easy-lending policies. The rich, by definition, can already afford it and the poor get grants or other subsidies that they don't have to pay back - middle class, again takes the hit. Result: $1.2T of student debt and a generation of people left feeling hopeless, disillusioned and further dependent on the state.

It befuddles me that any self-described middle class citizen would ever vote for a politician with liberal leaning economic policies.

nobody's putting a gun to anyone's head to borrow money for new cars or private education

can't argue stupidity

This is absolutely true but unfortunately we are all, to some degree, influenced by marketing, incentives, shiny objects, and paths of least resistance - some more so than others. When a private company bamboozles people into buying/over-consuming their faulty, crappy and/or over-priced products (iMac, Jersey Shore, Journey concerts, etc.), I say shame on the consumer - buyer beware.I draw fault where the government enables and encourages imprudent, faulty decision-making among the populace. And when you have historically-low interest rates for extended amounts of time, federal student loans handed out to anyone with a pulse, and Obama signing into law legislation that encourage the further "in-debtening" of the population with Cash-for-Clunkers, you have to ask yourself if liberal thinking is in fact part of the solution or part of the problem.

streder wrote:

nobody's putting a gun to anyone's head to borrow money for new cars or private education