Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel
The interesting thing is to see how many middle class and lower middle class conservatives are fighting tooth and nail to kill the middle class. And the even more odd thing is that the purchasing power of these people, as well as everyone else, is already being changed by their own policies. You'd think that the obvious outcome we're currently sinking into like a ship that sailed right into a whirlpool. It turns out the sirens are just old, rich, white men...
|
They bought the rhetoric started by Reagan and furthered by every president since, including Clinton. Give the rich everything, and they'll take care of the rest of us. If that theory were actually true, we'd be just fine.
But then if Communism worked as it should have, the USSR would be fine, too.
Economic theories almost never take into account the greedy bastard effect - namely, if you give a billionaire a million dollars, he's gonna stuff it under a mattress. He's not gonna let it trickle down out of his bank account to help the masses.
The difference between communism and our own corporatism is that communism really was conceived by a guy who thought it would be good for everyone. It just had the misfortune of getting ruined by the greedy bastards. Corporatism was conceived by the greedy bastards themselves, who then said anything they could think of to convince the masses that they were enriching them, all while they took money out of our pockets.
From massive deregulation of industries in the reagan/both bushes administrations (thereby giving lie to the absurd statement that government controls business, btw) to Clinton's signing NAFTA and GATT, it's all been a targeted plan to transfer money from your pocket to the treasure vaults of the very wealthy.
But just as it has every time in the past, the plan worked too well. Now regular people can't buy stuff from the rich guys, and so the economy is stagnating for everyone. Added to that is the fact that the lower and middle classes are finally starting to figure out that the last 3 decades worth of economic policies has lead to personal and national financial disaster. They are therefore rather pissed off about it, hence this last election.
Obama has a hell of a task ahead of him. He literally needs to be FDR 2.0. He needs to singlehandedly recreate and strengthen the middle clas, and unlike FDR, he's got a max of 8 years in which to do it. It's going to be a damn hard job. I hope he's up to it.