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host · 09-07-2008, 11:55 AM

jorgelito, "I know you are....but what am I" ? I wince when I see the phrase, "elitist liberals"....it strikes me that the messenger is hopelessly influenced by the results of the investment in "the Mighty Wurlitzer".

Quote:

In Thomas Frank's

"What's the Matter with Kansas?" (published as "What's The Matter With America" in the UK) the idea of a liberal elite is suggested to be similar to the character of Emmanuel Goldstein in the George Orwell book Nineteen-Eighty Four, the hated enemy of the people who did not actually exist. Frank argues that anger directed towards this perceived enemy is what keeps the conservative coalition together.

"Not long ago, Kansas would have responded to the current situation by making the bastards pay. This would have been a political certainty, as predictable as what happens when you touch a match to a puddle of gasoline. When business screwed the farmers and the workers - when it implemented monopoly strategies invasive beyond the Populists' furthest imaginings -- when it ripped off shareholders and casually tossed thousands out of work -- you could be damned sure about what would follow.

Not these days. Out here the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: to the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today's Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land, and next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO, and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed (unions, antitrust, public ownership), and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower."

Quote:

HaloScan.com - Comments

The rich who 've made a fortune will be saved by the masses and this will ultimately lead to extreme resentment and revolution...

Doubt it. Marx knew what happens: the screwed just get more religious. That's why you need revolutionary elites to make the screwed understand where their interests lie. We don't, and probably never will, have such a group.

Quote:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...ml#post2518973

http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/o...ion.2004.3.pdf
(page 12)
....This leaves less than a third of the total for the remaining ninety percent of the population. A subset of that group, families in the bottom half of wealth distribution, held only 2.5 percent of total wealth in 2004, and this figure is significantly different from the higher estimates for 1995, 1998, and 2001; of course, those differences reflect movements elsewhere in the distribution, but the statistical power of the tests is not sufficient to identify where among the groups shown the offsetting changes ccurred. A possible explanation of the decline for the lowest wealth group might be changes in their use of debt, but a separate examination of gross assets yields a pattern similar to that seen for net worth....

(page 28)
....The lowest 50 percent of the wealth
distribution, which held only 2.5 percent of total net worth in 2004, came close to its population
share only in holdings of installment debt (46.2 percent of the total) and credit card debt (45.7 percent of total outstanding balances)......

jorgelito.... repeat after me....""[t]here is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat....."

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...900776_pf.html

By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 20, 2008; D01

...OFHEO Director James B. Lockhart III dismissed as "nonsense" speculation that one or both of the companies could require a bailout. Both companies are financially safe and sound, he said at a news conference. In a statement, he pledged to supervise them with vigilance and "act quickly to address any deficiencies that may arise."...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...GJ8&refer=news
By Rebecca Christie and Dawn Kopecki
More Photos/Details

Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after the biggest surge in mortgage defaults in at least three decades threatened to topple the companies making up almost half the U.S. home-loan market.

``It is necessary to take action,'' Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who engineered the takeover along with Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart, said in Washington today. ``Our economy and our markets will not recover until the bulk of this housing correction is behind us. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are critical to turning the corner.'' ....

....``There is no reason to expect taxpayer losses from this program, and it could produce gains,'' the department said.

Lockhart said today's action was prompted by a judgment that the companies ``cannot continue to operate safely and soundly and fulfill their critical public mission without significant action to address our concerns.''...