[lit-ideas] Re: Deep Poverty at Record Levels, Where's That?

  • From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:37:59 -0800

From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


I believe that all the incomes are going up in the US.
Incomes for the elite are skyrocketing. The working class (in other words, the working poor) incomes are stagnant. Middle class incomes have been falling since the mid-70s. This is due to globalization (competition from China, etc.) and the restructuring of the US economy (post-industrialization, loss of industrialization, etc.)
The American economy is changing radically. Regrettably, the benefits of the structural changes are NOT general for the US population, due to the nature of the new structure. This means US incomes will continue to drift apart.
We already live in a country where there are three entirely different economies, and these will continue to drift apart for the foreseeable future. The elites will become extremely wealthy; the middle class will shrink into a managerial class which acts as staff of the elites; and the working class will be worked to the bone and paid scraps.
I compare myself to the way I used to be and the way my parents, relatives, and friends used to be, and I KNOW we are doing better than we once did. Things are better now.
Life was much better in the 50s and 60s. Solid jobs, lifelong employment, a man's income could support his whole family, etc. All of that has disappeared due to restructuring and globalization.
Does someone want the gazillionaire to give him some of his money? Why? Instead of demanding money from the gazillionaire, why don't you work for your own money? 

Lawrence is being ironic? Certainly, because...
We who worked for our own money often have no sympathy for those who feel the gazillionaire's or the government owe them a living. 

... because Lawrence has never worked for a living.
He has no idea how to make an honest dollar. Lawrence was in the military and then Boeing. He draws a pension from both the military and Boeing.
Boeing is the world's largest military aircraft contractor. We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars for 50+ years. The total could well be in the trillions. All of that money came from... taxpayers.
The US military gets its money from taxpayers. Not corporations: they hardly pay any taxes. Nor the elite, they are undertaxed. The working class and middle class pay taxes.
Lawrence despises socialism, yet he lives as a beneficiary of the socialization of the US military. To put it clearly: the US military and its secondary economy (Boeing, etc.) are a vast welfare state.
Both the US military, Boeing, and all the other members of the military-industrial complex are playing a wonderful game: they terrorize the US population that the Reds are coming, the Blacks are coming, the Yellows are coming, the Browns are coming, and the US population eagerly hands over its taxes to the military-industrial complex. 


Why is the U.S. the most successful economy in  the world?
The US economy is generally ranked at the bottom of the industrial/post-industrial countries. The Scandinavian countries are all at the top. Quality of Life is vastly greater in several dozen countries.
Why is the US economy in trouble? Because the US military is looting tens of trillions of dollars from the US economy. The Iraq War alone will cost at least two trillion dollars.
In comparison, nearly every other industrial country spends a small fraction of their economy on the military. This allows their economies to invest in education, production, and infrastructure. Which is why their economies and Quality of Life are much greater than the USA: better schools, universal health care, and so on.
The reason we are the most successful economy is because of this freedom you seem to hate, the freedom for an entrepreneur to become a gazillionaire if he can manage it.
Lawrence knows nothing about this freedom. He has been on welfare his entire life. Would he like a taste of that freedom? He could cancel his pensions and see how he could make a living. Scary, no?
As it turns out many of these potential gazillionaires take their money making schemes and move to the U.S. 

Actually... no. But that's just more details.

yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com 
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. lit-ideas
  3. Archive
  4. 02-2007