The rich/poor gap is at the largest it's been in like 90 years in the US. How long until we're back to almost a Master and Serf level of inequality in wages? A lot of people like to blame globalization and trade but that accounts for only roughly 5-15% of it. Education is down. We used to be a country of experts. Now it's harder than it's been for like 80 years to rise up. We don't have enough educated people for the jobs we have YET we continually make it harder and harder to get the proper education. That's the exact opposite of what will help. The "American Dream" or the ability for anyone to gain wealth through hard work is a pipe dream. In fact the "American Dream" is significantly bad in the US. Plenty of countries have a superior American Dream where they have a higher possibility of climbing the ranks for riches. The American Dream is dead. It has been for quite some time. People are dying due to our crappy healthcare system of "pay up or shut up". Our healthcare literally costs so much people fear going into the hospitals. They fear it so much it literally costs lives. People will elect to risk it and just plain DIE. Either that or they do go and if anything significantly happen they go bankrupt. Our companies are taxed higher than most places. But at the same time they're taxed the lowest! Heck, a lot paid ZERO in taxes. You can't legitimately complain about high corporate taxes because the loopholes make them some of the lowest taxed businesses on the planet. Get rid of loopholes. Put the taxes at a global standard or slightly better. MAKE profitable businesses pay those taxes. The middle class is the most highly abused class in America. They pay the highest percentage of taxes. They also largely finance the economy yet we for some reason want to destroy them more and more. The rich currently pay in dollars the highest amount but in percentage of income much lower than the middle class. In fact taxes on a graph are like a camel's hump. The poor don't pay any or much (because they CAN'T afford it dummies). The middle class pays the hugest portion in terms of a percentage of their income. And through loopholes the rich on the graph go down to almost the poor levels. Taxes should be paid as you can pay them. The rich don't have the excuse of HAVING TO EAT like the poor. They're rich! The graph should have an ever climbing line. Taxes aren't the highest they've ever been like they say on TV and like complete morons believe. They're the lowest (for the rich). One MAJOR reason our companies cannot compete and move their work to other countries is because they have to pay a variety of healthplans. Go to a single payer and suddenly everything is easier and the businesses don't have to worry. Our healthcare is at LEAST 300% the cost of what it needs to be because of how we let the healthcare corporations do business here. We have the most expensive healthcare in the world not because of the quality or anything but because we're just THAT stupid. We let the corporations drive up the prices to however much they want. Literally if we just destroyed them right now healthcare costs would go DOWN to like Canada levels (they pay 1/3rd the price we do). The healthcare issue here is purely controlled by the interests of the corporations in ripping the American people off for their billions. We're in stupid wars. Not the smartest thing in an economic emergency. Focus on ourselves. We can't police the world. Take the banks out of politics. It's insane how much influence they have over our government. They literally basically control it and give themselves $$$ in stimulus. That's the definition of government controlled business. It's a monopoly too. They should have let them die. Bad businesses should not be propped up 99% of the time so they can be replaced by people who know what they're freakin' doing. Regulations aren't ALL bad. Yes, they're overdone. Especially in my state of California where they just LOVE their regulations. However using bad ones as proof that all regulations are dumb is in itself idiotic. For example, they took away the regulations that protected the banks from betting high risk stuff with the housing market. They lost the bet. We saw the market crash because of it. The sad thing is this is a repeat in history. Exactly the same thing happened in the early 20th century and the politicians and corporations were too greedy to pay attention to history. Targeted and smart regulations are good. Just don't overdo it. The Electoral College. That stupid system that somehow makes it so that a President can be elected without receiving the popular vote. It's a joke.
Wealth Gap is less important in the modern day. The only difference between the rich and the middle class is the middle class buys stuff. Rich people have stuff, they buy services. Agreed. We do not make it "harder and harder" to get an education. Parents stopped giving a (*)(*)(*)(*) about their children's academic future as a matter of course and teachers stopped giving a (*)(*)(*)(*) about actually teaching. WTF ever. Why does it always have to be about wealth? 5 years ago I was flipping burgers in a fast food restaurant for 7.50 an hour.. just a few years later I'm no earing 30k a year and have a real future. THAT is the American dream, not getting rich. Only spoiled lazy Americans seem to have this idea that living in America entitles you to wealth for hard work. That's because they weren't properly taught what American Dream really is. Freedom is messy. America's doctors and nurses do not want to become low paid Public Servants and American Society does not force people out of lucrative private sector careers into Public Service. That's not right at all. Primary Plank in the GOP platform, total and complete tax reform removing loopholes and deductions. This isn't an economic argument, it's a bull (*)(*)(*)(*) moral one. So right the stupid Democrat pols and tell them to join with Republicans on comprehensive tax reform that doesn't require stupid (*)(*)(*)(*) like only people making 75k a year or more paying income taxes and everyone else pays nothing. Don't give me that "poor people" can't afford crap. When I was a single male making 600 bucks under the federal poverty line I still paid 300 in taxes out of my withholding. Again this is a moral and not a true economic argument. Your morals don't mean anything to me. So what? Democrats have been pushing this "make the rich pay" meme for a long time now and STILL there isn't enough support in Congress for that sort of stuff among Blue Dog Democrats and to claim it's all a conspiracy is goofy. The only way we have the situation we have is most Americans simply don't care how much more money than them the wealthy have. Well either way, it's kind of hard to completely reform a system most Americans are happy with. No one else to do it and the world DOES need policing. TARP was considered an absolute necessity in order to save the globalized marketplace and had bipartisan support for that reason. The only people who got money from Stimulus was Government Bureaucrats, their unions, and Green Crony Corporations of the Democrats. The idea that the GOP wants to remove all regulation is really a crock. There are plenty of proposals of specific regulations the Right has put out as "job killing" but the Dems won't touch anything that might advance Conservative "optics" in a positive manner. Just the same as Republicans won't do jack to increase Democrat "optics" among the people. Well it'll take a Constitutional Amendment to get rid of it, and it'll be the last nail in the coffin of Federalism and States as sovereign entities. But then, that is your plan isn't it?
Working as intended by the corporatists and the right-wing agenda. Just read up on "Starve the Beast". The right-wing is trying, effectively, to destroy everything that made the US one of the most prosperous and advanced nations in the world for the better part of the last century. Who needs terrorists when you have the American right-wing destroying everything from the inside?
WE DON'T BELIEVE YOU! All that crap you *think* made America one of the propserous and advanced nations on Earth, DIDN'T. YOU ARE WRONG. Our Success would've happened with or without the (*)(*)(*)(*)ing New Deal! Our National Success is NOT BASED IN COLLECTIVE COLLABORATION, it is based on millions of individuals working for their own rational self interest, and the system *just works* that way. Because the stuff you claim shoulnd't be destroyed IS PRECISELY THE (*)(*)(*)(*) THAT NEEDS DESTROYED. YOU ARE WRONG.
Clinton signed the free trade agreement with China and NAFTA. The only modern president who was going to do something about the FED was JFK, and we all know what happened to him. Even if a genuine leader came out of either party, the people are so ill informed that he could be killed one day, the press announce he deserved it the 2nd day, and everyone would be dancing in the street on the 3rd.
You dismiss the American People in the exact same way that Liberals do, as ignorant sheep incapable of making a decision and requiring someone to decide for them because they are incapable of governing or even making a decision, for themselves. That's not how libertarians are supposed to think.
It is not love for the system, nor lack of belief in corruption, that keeps the American people at bay. It is no organized option to do otherwise but fallow, and fear of reprisal for going it alone, that keeps them in check. As all those in American power do, you're confusing neutered disenchantment with approval.
