Where is the US economy headed?

The real question rl is whether knowledge has a moral function. As the rich are only rich because of knowledge, most of them would be wonks and wankers under barbaric conditions, then if knowledge has a moral function the rich owe it to their own conscience to act morally. And the word rich applies to nations just as much as it does to classes and individuals.

All arguments calling for America's rich to share their wealth more evenly apply equally to the US as a nation.

A slice of Coleridge for you to consider. Half the fools in the world can make videos.



Coleridge rests the edifice upon Revealed Religion.

That is the opposite of the utilitarian concept of knowledge as the empirical collection of value free data. Under that the rich, as Spiro Agnew famously said, can do whatever they can get away with. And what that is seems to be very similar to what the poor would do if they become rich if those rich people who were once poor are anything to go by.

The rich owe their wealth to knowledge and their skill at exploiting it, leaving aside inherited wealth which is different entirely, and if knowledge is value free, or morally neutral, then "Hey Presto--there you go." Everything else is too.

The American people elected a President who is dedicated to sharing wealth more evenly and he can't do it. It's no good saying that 80% of Americans think Congress is failing without offering some ideas about how to prevent it doing.

But then you might arrive at some conclusions relating to the Constitution itself which undermine what is actually a religious worship of it.

So if you're not up for that you can't explore ideas about making Congress a success and allowing the President to get on with what he was elected to do.

A situation has arisen, it seems to me, where a tie is likely in most elections. We have had to invent a ridiculous coalition to get past the indecision of the last election. You have had Mr Bush winning in the courts and Mr Obama winning without legislative support.

In my less lucid moments I think a blank sheet of white paper is called for. When I become lucid again I'm at a loss as to who should be writing on it.

In the meantime I suppose we'll carry on muddling through and making it look as dignified as we can with all the tools at the disposal these days of the High-Priests of the Moving Picture, which can only be expected to get better.

You haven't looked very hard than okie.
US Census has the figures on their website. It took me less than 2 minutes to find it.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/income_expenditures_poverty_wealth/household_income.html

The fascinating thing about the poverty stats is that every state with a poverty rate above 11% for families in 2008 is a RED state.
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico,
Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia.

The way I see it spendius is the same as it has always been throughout history, "When religion tries to control the minds of the society the societies have always {collapse}.

I wonder if we need to stop believing and start understanding as much as we can.

I don't see that our society has collapsed and to suggest that religion was the cause of the collapse of other societies needs a little more justification than simply asserting it.

What has led you to believe that the human collective wisdom has no fear of pure understanding? Or, to put it the other way round, what has blinded you to the obvious fact that the human race does fear pure understanding.

And once you allow some mitigation of the exigencies of the pure understanding, like Kant, you're legs are coming apart on a shaking table with a cactus plant placed at the level of your feet and at the mid point between them.

Your abstractions, which you obviously feel enhance your cachet by association, are ridiculous without an explanation of what they are in that reality you call to your aid from time to time and when the pure understanding is brought to bear upon them.

What does the pure understanding make of the pure understanding? It needs to get its head up its arse to make a start.

Spendius you have already admitted that you were going to be ignorant to most of what I share {Videos} with you so why are you asking for proof?

Some things are so long winded that a video link can explain things easier and you do not have to waste your writings with people who are not ready to understand what you are relating to!

Liberals, Progs and democrats do not find human rights to be of any importance to a person who actively favors or strives for
progress toward better conditions, as in society or government. They only find it 'important' when they want votes and power.

Are there any republicans that behave the way you describe?

The irony of it all!

First the majority of the rich did not become rich by their own abilities they were born into that level of society like the nobility of Europe in the past.

Second if is not their wealth it is the society wealth that had been gotten control of for the most part by the buying of legislators over generations to created laws and tax rates that allow them to gather that wealth to them.

I do agree, You need to explain this to Spendius because he thinks the rich are only rich because of knowledge.
If he only knew of all the poor people out there that have much more knowledge and work harder and longer hours than some that are rich.

Maybe when he says knowledge he means who he knows or who he blows? or maybe he is referring to nepotism?

I personally had been lucky enough to had known two brothers and work for them who did reached at least a billion dollars of net-worth due to the hard work of both of them and the genie of one of them.

That however is not the common means of reaching that level of wealth and the two adult children of the one brother did nothing to earn their wealth when the brothers pass away.

Yes but you do realize that they could not have achieved it without society as you already seemed to have mentioned

Of course not however they do had a stronger moral claim by far on the wealth that was generated then the two children of the one brother or their children or their children........

I am by no means trying to put them down or your view point down but I would see that similar as saying a rapist is on a more moral ground than a rapist-murder.

Like I have said I am not trying to be mean and under our current mores what they do would be perfectly normal and by no means do I fault them for it {unless] they {do} understand the societal problems that this causes and they do nothing to try to balance it out. The least they could do is TRY and balance it out at the end of their life.

Could you imagine if the Queen of England did that?

Republicans are calling Obama's tax plan "class warfare." Aren't they the ones who keeps advocating for the rich? That's class warfare. Somebody has to pay for the two wars and Great Recession that GW Bush created that's costing our country dearly in both human and $$$$ cost.

Republicans fail to understand macro economics; when our country's deficit continues to increase, it creates a handicap for our total economy.

The GOP tax cuts for the rich haven't produced jobs, and it won't in the
future.

US corporations are holding over $2 trillion in cash; they don't need any more tax cuts. We need jobs.

Look the two men created a company that gave thousands a good solid middle class living and beside that greatly increase the health of most of mankind by inventing and producing the first devices able to give doctors both a fast and very accurate counts and size of blood cells using what is now known as the Coulter's principle name after the one brother.

Before that it took a train person and a microscope to do this task in a far slower, costlier and far less accurate manner.

Just before the last brother passed away and the company sold he let a few hundreds of millions of dollars to be divide among the employees not base on their position or salary but only on the years that they had work for the firm.

Oh the deal with the company that purchase the firm had a clause that for five years the manufacturing could not be move from where it was then being done.

The two brothers had nothing to be a shame of that I can see.

Did you not read this which is on this page--



So I don't think what you think I think. So Bill needn't explain it to me. I'm meaning that the likes of Bill Gates couldn't be rich without the society. So they have no moral case for not sharing wealth more evenly unless they can show that them not doing is a general benefit to society.

Inherited wealth might make the same claim but it didn't get its wealth from knowledge.

Has nobody ever told you that having a discussion with you is like wrestling with a greasy octopus?

It sounds like they gave allot to society and I find that respectful. I can only imagine that you gave many hours of labor to the business yourself that should not be overlooked.
Just like a garbage man provides a valuable service to our society but we do not reward him as if he is a valuable part of our community.
Breaking down a community into a smaller group seems to make it easier for me to understand morality better. This is kind of a reversal of understanding the Monty Hall problem!

I know it sounds crazy but try and picture this!
If there were only two people in your community you and your mother and you were the intellectual one and your mother was not.
You both work hard for shelter and food every day but one day you discover a way that only requires one day of work between the both of you to meet your requirements.
Would you find it to be fair for your mother to work the two days by herself because you know before you discovered a shorter way she had to work 5 + days to meet your same goals?
How far does your ethical radius extend past your family?
What we are discussing is similar to discussing a new understanding of physics, it is not going to be easily communicated in short order.

Intellect and labor should both be reworded equally for hours worked diligently in my opinion!

You know spendius I will be honest that allot of your post do not make sense to me but they may make sense to you and it may seem the same about me to you.



I agree.

I seem to understand you examples better than your explanations!

As long as you take Bill Gates as a symbol of the wealth created by knowledge and the cunning to exploit it. But Mr Gates was born with a head start as well. And he's nowhere without Faraday & Co.

Why did you fail to address the point I made about Mr Obama being elected, society's voice, to share wealth more evenly and finding himself unable to carry out to choice of the people?