The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

@snood,

Clinton triangulated to win re-election.

I think Obama is just handing the GOP rope intending that they hang themselves prior to Nov next year. The only question is whether Fox News can convince the public the GOP didn't hang themselves when they voted against jobs, but it was Obama who lynched them.

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@snood,

I will probably vote for Obama but CI is right. He spent too much time on his lets get along strategy. He needs to show some backbone. I still consider him a conservative light but could never vote for any of the conservatives running for the republicans.

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@parados,

I agree with you about Obama's likely strategy. However, I believe the issue that will concern the voting public more is achieving real growth in the economy. I believe that people have already seen that temporary boosts in public spending (on borrowed money) doesn't do much to boost either employment or the economy. and that the little that is done doesn't last. Also it doesn't take much insight to know that it takes two to create a deadlock. Obama's constant references to the refusal of Republicans to acceed to his demands is also a reminder that he too is unwilling to compromise.

The drama that is unfolding in Europe concerning the financial stability of southern tier countries and banks also brings constant reminders here that high levels of public debt are a serious problem for us too, and that letting debt get out of control takes away all other policy options. Ovbama doesn't talk much about that other than to call for higher taxes on "the rich".

I believe the Republicans should take that issue away from him by expressing a willingness to raise tax rates on folks who make more than (say) $1 million/year (i.e. the 1%). However they appear to believe that if they give in there will be no entitlement reform. In fact both are needed.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

Clinton triangulated to win re-election.

I think Obama is just handing the GOP rope intending that they hang themselves prior to Nov next year. The only question is whether Fox News can convince the public the GOP didn't hang themselves when they voted against jobs, but it was Obama who lynched them.

I agree that is a big question. It's incredible what the public can and can't be convinced of.

I heard Chris Matthews talking about how his parents were what was called "Cloth-Coat Republicans" (as opposed to Mink coat, I think). They always voted as if they were rich - in support of the interests of rich people. He was saying that after he came of age, he never understood why they voted against their own best interests.

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@snood,

Did he offer his theory for why they did what they did?

A sad enthrallment to the rich? Fantasy role playing?

Maybe they were voting for what they thought was right.

Maybe they never accepted limits to the scope of their interests.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Did he offer his theory for why they did what they did?

A sad enthrallment to the rich? Fantasy role playing?

Maybe they were voting for what they thought was right.

Maybe they never accepted limits to the scope of their interests.

I don't know why. I don't remember Matthews explicitly saying why. But the clear implication was that they (as do poor, working poor and barely middle class republicans today, in my opinion) had some idea that by voting for those who looked out for the rich, they were somehow themselves participating in the lives that the rich lead.

Its sad, in my opinion.

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@snood,

That's one of the mysteries of our politics; when people vote against their own interest for the sake of party cohesion.

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@cicerone imposter,

Yeah. Strange anyone should vote against his or her own narrow self interest, isn't it?

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@snood,

It's not that hard to understand. Many people who will never be rich still dream that they will, still think that they are looking out for their own eventual interests. The same thing could be seen in the early recruitment of the Confederate States army. A lot of people who were not slave owners, but dreamed of a day when they would be sufficiently affluent to become slave owners, enlisted for "the cause," even though it was not actually a cause in their interest.

Personally, i consider a lot of the propaganda about how people who are rich have earned it through hard work to be bullshit, and a case of people repeating the mantra of their dreams. How if they work hard, they will someday join the ranks of the rich. So they identify with the people whom they someday hope to be. However, most of the people who enjoy true wealth, who truly are rich, get their income from capital gains, which is taxed at a much lower rate than so-called earned income. Capital gains are taxed at a rate lower than the middle class pays on their earned income, and less than half of what the highest tax brackets charge for earned income. To get capital gains, you have to have capital to invest. It is only rarely that people accumulate the necessary capital for large-scale investment through working hard all their lives and saving.

People who vote to cut taxes for the richest Americans are being idiots, although they don't think so themselves. The richest people in the country don't rely on earned income, they rely on capital gains. At the 15% tax rate on capital gains, they're already on Easy Street as far as taxes go.

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@Setanta,

It might be that a lot of ordinary people think that the rich are better educated and more qualified to run things than people like themselves and are not particularly dissatisfied with their ordinary way of life.

I have canvassed on the door knocker for both our major parties and a large number of ordinary people are quite content with leaving it to the better off to run things and consider candidates from their own station in life to be counter-jumpers and not to be trusted with power. They think that the rich are less likely to be corrupt.

It isn't that easy being rich. The immanence of their up-coming demise presses far harder on their psyches than it does for the poor whose lives are so busy with getting by that such a consideration barely impinges on their consciousness. The rich have so many choices about what to do next that it surprises me that they ever get around to doing anything. If they are sunbathing on the deck of their yacht they will be wondering whether they should be in the Arctic looking at collapsing glaciers, at Royal Ascot, saving lives in Africa, indulging in orgies, being photographed and many other activities all of which they could engage in in the short time they have left on earth if they could only make up their minds. We ought to be grateful that a few of them are prepared to run for office and take up the burdens of responsibility. Why any of them do so is a complete mystery to me.

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@Setanta,

What is clear is that the rich keep getting richer at a much faster rate than the other 99%.

Quote:

The New York Times
October 25, 2011
Top Earners Doubled Share of Nation’s Income, Study Finds
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, in a new report likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over how to revive the economy, create jobs and lower the federal debt...

In its report, the budget office found that from 1979 to 2007, average inflation-adjusted after-tax income grew by 275 percent for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income. For others in the top 20 percent of the population, average real after-tax household income grew by 65 percent.

By contrast, the budget office said, for the poorest fifth of the population, average real after-tax household income rose 18 percent.

And for the three-fifths of people in the middle of the income scale, the growth in such household income was just under 40 percent.

The findings, based on a rigorous analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service and the Census Bureau, are generally consistent with studies by some private researchers and academic economists. But because they carry the imprimatur of the nonpartisan budget office, they are likely to have a major impact on the debate in Congress over the fairness of federal tax and spending policies...

The report found that higher-income households got a larger share of the pie, while other households got smaller shares.

Specifically the report made these points:

¶ The share of after-tax household income for the top 1 percent of the population more than doubled, climbing to 17 percent in 2007 from nearly 8 percent in 1979.

¶ The most affluent fifth of the population received 53 percent of after-tax household income in 2007, up from 43 percent in 1979. In other words, the after-tax income of the most affluent fifth exceeded the income of the other four-fifths of the population.

¶ People in the lowest fifth of the population received about 5 percent of after-tax household income in 2007, down from 7 percent in 1979.

¶ People in the middle three-fifths of the population saw their shares of after-tax income decline by 2 to 3 percentage points from 1979 to 2007....
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/us/politics/top-earners-doubled-share-of-nations-income-cbo-says.html

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@firefly,

Did you see the apple farmer on CBS News last night who couldn't get enough workers to pick his crop?

All useful jobs are odious by the laws of snobbery.

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@spendius,

Yeah, how dare people want to have enough money to take care of their families and save for college....Should be grateful to pick fruit for pennies bunch of peasants.

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@revelette,

boomerang's thread related to the apple-picker shortage

http://able2know.org/topic/179005-1#post-4768439

$150/day

not quite picking fruit for pennies

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@revelette,

So better they collect unemployment checks?

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@revelette,

If nobody ate bargain fruit there would be no need to have bargain fruit-pickers.

It's the people who eat the fruit who pay the pickers based upon the millions and millions of buying decisions that are made every day. There are so many and they are so taken for granted that the bargain seeker has habitually got on Ignore that it is him or her who is grinding the fruit picker's faces into the dust. As a simple matter of plain and obvious fact.

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@spendius,

That's one of the things Mr Perry knows that he doesn't like to explain to you all in case you go off sulking. It's why he's often uncertain at the microphone.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Not everyone lives near apple orchards.

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Cross-posted from the other thread on this topic:

You guys have to remember three factors:

1, lack of mobility. Many of those without a job or just graduated from college don't live in the country and have no access to such jobs.

2, high gasoline prices prevent those who DO live in the city from commuting too far to work - $150 isn't a ton to begin with, and when you add in $20-30 in gas and 2 hours commute, the situation sucks.

3, lack of family mobility - many of those who are older but unemployed can't migrate to regions with more employment, b/c they can't sell their houses.

All this adds up to an inability for the labor force (which is concentrated in the cities and big states) to find the labor shortage (in the country and in small states). It's not about people being unwilling bastards.

Though I will say, I picked fruits a bit as a kid, and it's not work I remember fondly. It was fun enough - for the first 2 hours. After that it sucked.

Cycloptichorn

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You really don't understand capitalism at all. None of those reasons from ff and Cyclo make any sense. The bargain seekers pay the pickers. If they are ashamed of themselves for imposing their working conditions on the pickers it's no excuse to get up a load of sophistries.

1 Reply

The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

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