It is a sad commentary on our country and what it has become. Our politicians in both parties have no clue about what American's are going through in this DEPRESSION, which is exactly what it is. Families losing homes, banks being bailed out and not one of the CEO's being brought to justice for these shady financial dealings. Corporations stealing investors money with no retributions and no laws to prevent this from happening in the future. People have had their life savings stolen from them and nobody brought to justice (except Madoff). Banks and investment firms continue on their merry way of doing business with politicians in their pockets. Nobody should have confidence of entrusting your 401K savings in this type of system. We, as a country need to clear out the Senate and Congress and start over! Nothing less will do. Also TERM LIMITS!
"Our politicians in both parties have no clue about what American's are going through in this DEPRESSION, which is exactly what it is."
Yes, for a good portion of our population, this is definitely a depression that others cannot see. We have become a nation of have's and havenot's, not only for total wealth, but for livable wages, health care, shelter and food.
Millions of Americans have been severely hurt in this depression, and those in the bottom 50% -- the working poor and retirees -- are now struggling on a day to day basis, and the partisan games in Washington and in their state capitals, are only making them more desperate.
I'd like to know how much of this is due to immigration, both legal and illegal. Politicians of all stripes know perfectly well that the U.S. is importing poverty through open immigration and they also know that social programs for illegals (medicare, food stamps, education) are bankrupting many jurisdictions which of course makes it harder to provide any help at all for poorer Americans. They also know perfectly well that immigration is destroying job prospects for American workers in all sectors and (guess what???) that aggravates the problem of poverty!!
For your information: Legal immigrants are not as much a problem as you might want them to be. In order to be granted permanent legal residency, they have to prove sufficient income from sources inside or outside the country, depending on the number of family members that need to be supported. The income has to be certtfied and verified BEFORE the family is allowed to enter the country. If you are worried about jobs, I suggest, you take your complaint to the greedy (most likely American) business owners first. Also, statistically, legal immigrants are less likely to default on bill payments, and less likely to ask for government hand-outs. They have (statistically and historically) too much pride to be a burden to their new home country. Not to forget, most Americans have family roots somewhere outside this country. Remember how one of our highest holidays came about?
The illegal immigrant kind, however, might be a different story, not doubt about it..
morriswise, your hatred and ignorance is amazing! People eat Fast Food because they can NOT afford healthy food. We have made a HORRIBLE Mistake in this nation. We have allowed people to shift the wealth to the top 1% believing that the Money we gave them would be invested in America and all of us would benefit. Not only was it a Mistake, it has put this nation into a death spiral we have never experienced before.
Sky has absolutely no clue. It is like your 80 year old grandfather. He'll sit around and rant about stuff, but you just sit there and say "that's nice grandpa." And when he is done, you go "what in the world was he talking about?'
skyk801: "People eat Fast Food because they can NOT afford healthy food."
This is very true, and was one of the points shown in the documentary "Food Inc.," where families could eat from the $1 menu at the fast food joints, but couldn't afford the fruits and vegetables from the local grocery stores in order to "eat healthy."
As you have stated "shifting wealth" can be a problem. It also can solve the jobless problem of 24% out of work (15% welfare & 8.6% unemployed) that we have currently. If the consumer - business or a person - doesn't have money to buy things then the producers have to reduce their inventory which results in lose of jobs. So, this means that in a recession, it must be a priority to encourage the consumer to spend money. This can be done in many ways - reducing taxes, reducing prices on goods, and taxing savings. It is easy to reduce taxes quickly - just vote to lower the rate. Reducing the prices on goods is done in three ways which takes a few years to take affect - subsidies (i.e. from taxes, lotteries, etc.) or building something that can reduce production costs (i.e. highways, railroads, refineries - gasoline prices, or research - find a cheaper way to make it by giving grants to universities). Then there is the tax on savings which takes about a year to see effects, but has historically worked really well. Our low income and middle class are short on savings currently, but our upper class is not spending their money - they are hoarding it. For example, it has been stated that Apple has more revenue than the Federal Government. We need to encourage them to invest in the business sector. Former President Eisenhower understood this concept well, and he implemented a graduated tax rate all the way up to 97% on the corporations and wealthy, (amazing!), and had a hefty estate tax system in place also. He also had a 2% unemployment rate. Why? Well, it is pretty simple. If you are a Chief Financial Officer (CF0) of a company at a board meeting - are you going to want to tell the board that you gave the state/federal government most of your yearly net income due to taxes or would you want to say you reinvested into the company by buying equipment or hiring people so that the company would grow. President Eisenhower was a very smart man. The 2% unemployment was by design, not by chance. For those companies that didn't invest, well, their money went to build our fabulous highway system.
This means that 50% of US citizens are in a position with little or nothing to lose. There can be no more dangerous a situation for a republic to find itself in than this.
"They don't pay income taxes and many draw on government support - paid for us who work."
So what? You're talking about a majority of senior retirees on Social Security/Medicare that do not pay income taxes, since they are living on an average of $13K per year. Why do you hate seniors?
OTOH, the working poor have very little to lose, paying payroll taxes into a system that they probably will never see, and as they get more desperate, "there can be no more dangerous a situation for a republic to find itself in than this."
These kids, they're too smart for school. They drop out and get pregnant. They are intentionally putting themselves at a huge disadvantage and then complaining that it's too hard to get by... The best thing you can do with your life is to stay in school and then get a college education. Unemployment is only 4.2% among college grads.
These kids also realize that once they graduate they'll have absolutely nothing to look forward to. There are no jobs left aside from retail and service, everything else was sent abroad. What they'll start doing is what I'd done... leave.
Sure, we tell them to get a college degree, But where are the jobs? College is so expensive these grads will be paying off loans for the rest of their lives. Don't even think about buying a house or new car. When all these students can't pay back their loans and this bubble bursts you better run!!!!
Before a person claiming to be poor is given a welfare check they have to get on a scale, if they weigh more than 80 pounds they should be asked to return for the check after they lose some weight. Before a person claiming to be poor is given a welfare check they must prove that they are homeless and do not possess an iPod.
A little over the top, but there's some truth there. In the depression people didn't have time to sit around and whine because there was no safety net. They faced starvation. They got out and tried to find work every waking minute, and if they could't find work, they collected tin cans or rags. They grew their own food. They got leftover bones from the butcher and made soup. If they had anything like an iPod, they'd sell it for cash. Americans don't know how to be poor anymore. They just flail around helplessly. It's undignified.
morriswise-I believe that one of the reasons the U.S. is doing so poorly is because, amazingly, many of the nation's business and political leaders coddle a mindset (or lack thereof) just like yours and are actually allowed to make important decisions. marscapone99-You've got to be kidding, right? Contemporary social and logistical structure is NOTHING like it was back in the 1930s. If it were, what is left of the U.S. financial machine would have crumbled by now, as it did back then, or worse. The other side of the coin is that folks who are landlocked in a situation where they don't have access to ready transportation and communications (ie, cell phone or other device) today are in MUCH more of a pickle to get out of the rut than they would have been back in the '30s, when neighborhoods were nuclear, integral communities where you could either walk a couple of blocks to a phone/bus stop/help place or you lived on a farm. And besides, if you are mulling over the starvation strategies of half of the U.S. population as a positive solution route in the non-wartime, non-disaster 21st century, you are a mediocre, indolent part of the problem, just like the Hooverists were back in the 30s.
Reality check . . . . The world will always have people who have more than they'll ever need and it will have people who need more than they will ever have.
This is the end result of over 30 years of Reaganomics. The rich brainwashed enough Americans that unregulated free market would benefit anyone other than them. What a sad, sick scam inflicted on us.
vsmit: "Hence, we do nothing (either party) and continue to watch our manufacturing disappear."
Then how do you explain the first increase in manufacturing jobs in the U.S. since 1997, both last year and this year?
"Since January 2010, the number of manufacturing jobs has increased by 299,000, a rise of 2.6 percent over two years."
"In general, manufacturing employment has declined more or less steadily since the mid-1970s. The last time manufacturing jobs saw such a large and sustained numerical increase was in the early 1990s. So while the increase in years two and three of the Obama presidency is relatively small, it is the best in about two decades."
"One way to illustrate the long-term decline of manufacturing jobs is to look at how the numbers have moved during the past few presidencies."
Barack Obama: Increase of 157,368 manufacturing jobs per year in office George W. Bush: Decrease of 434,143 manufacturing jobs per year in office Bill Clinton: Increase of 37,143 manufacturing jobs per year in office George H.W. Bush: Decrease of 336,000 manufacturing jobs per year in office Ronald Reagan: Increase of 1,429 manufacturing jobs per year in office Jimmy Carter: Increase of 15,333 manufacturing jobs per year in office
So by this measure, manufacturing jobs have actually increased by more under Obama than under any of his recent predecessors.
Dan1620: "You will not be able to take the money from the Rich."
You're wrong dan, because if the income inequality continues without any changes, moving us towards a third world country, those that get more desperate from policies supported by people like you, will show you exactly what life means to those living in the third world.
By the way, it's very telling that you worship at the feet of the wealthy, since you capitalized "Rich" in your post!
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Yes, for a good portion of our population, this is definitely a depression that others cannot see. We have become a nation of have's and havenot's, not only for total wealth, but for livable wages, health care, shelter and food.
Millions of Americans have been severely hurt in this depression, and those in the bottom 50% -- the working poor and retirees -- are now struggling on a day to day basis, and the partisan games in Washington and in their state capitals, are only making them more desperate.
Also, statistically, legal immigrants are less likely to default on bill payments, and less likely to ask for government hand-outs. They have (statistically and historically) too much pride to be a burden to their new home country. Not to forget, most Americans have family roots somewhere outside this country. Remember how one of our highest holidays came about?
The illegal immigrant kind, however, might be a different story, not doubt about it..
No jobs, no middle class, just 75%poor and 25% rich
That's Sky in his advance stage of life.
"People eat Fast Food because they can NOT afford healthy food."
This is very true, and was one of the points shown in the documentary "Food Inc.," where families could eat from the $1 menu at the fast food joints, but couldn't afford the fruits and vegetables from the local grocery stores in order to "eat healthy."
So what? You're talking about a majority of senior retirees on Social Security/Medicare that do not pay income taxes, since they are living on an average of $13K per year. Why do you hate seniors?
OTOH, the working poor have very little to lose, paying payroll taxes into a system that they probably will never see, and as they get more desperate, "there can be no more dangerous a situation for a republic to find itself in than this."
The average poor in this country have at least one car, have cell phones, air conditioning, several TV sets, a computer, etc.
Poor?
Hooverists were back in the 30s.
That's life.
"Hence, we do nothing (either party) and continue to watch our manufacturing disappear."
Then how do you explain the first increase in manufacturing jobs in the U.S. since 1997, both last year and this year?
"Since January 2010, the number of manufacturing jobs has increased by 299,000, a rise of 2.6 percent over two years."
"In general, manufacturing employment has declined more or less steadily since the mid-1970s. The last time manufacturing jobs saw such a large and sustained numerical increase was in the early 1990s. So while the increase in years two and three of the Obama presidency is relatively small, it is the best in about two decades."
"One way to illustrate the long-term decline of manufacturing jobs is to look at how the numbers have moved during the past few presidencies."
Barack Obama: Increase of 157,368 manufacturing jobs per year in office
George W. Bush: Decrease of 434,143 manufacturing jobs per year in office
Bill Clinton: Increase of 37,143 manufacturing jobs per year in office
George H.W. Bush: Decrease of 336,000 manufacturing jobs per year in office
Ronald Reagan: Increase of 1,429 manufacturing jobs per year in office
Jimmy Carter: Increase of 15,333 manufacturing jobs per year in office
So by this measure, manufacturing jobs have actually increased by more under Obama than under any of his recent predecessors.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/dec/06/newt-gingrich/newt-gingrich-says-barack-obama-has-killed-jobs-en/
"You will not be able to take the money from the Rich."
You're wrong dan, because if the income inequality continues without any changes, moving us towards a third world country, those that get more desperate from policies supported by people like you, will show you exactly what life means to those living in the third world.
By the way, it's very telling that you worship at the feet of the wealthy, since you capitalized "Rich" in your post!