Youtube comments of coolmodelguy (@coolmodelguy6304).

  1. Tax avoidance by corporations and billionaires has combined with their subversion of the government to create a toxic economy for 90% of workers. The time has arrived for a Wealth Cap that is not only warranted but necessary. No one should be allowed to influence democracy beyond their single legal vote by using excessive and morbid wealth to buy the government or news media.
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  2. Anyone notice all this Trump hullaballoo about the "squad' came about when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested, and has kept going non-stop ever since his arrest?
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  3. No pitchforks out for you here Kim, I appreciate the information and clarifications. Thank you.
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  4. I'll be 59 this year and I have been dismayed to watch as everything I have been taught about the USA has fallen and turned to ash. This is not the country I grew up believing in and I fear that the "United" States of America will be fractured and broken apart after the 2020 election. The West Coast is not going to stand for a Trump dictatorship and I think the north-east coastal states will side with the west coast. With Texas and Florida in play, the fate of our nation may rise or fall over who controls our coastal ports.
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  5. Donald Trump's budget cuts the raise federal workers were going to get from 2.5% to 1 percent. In a letter to federal employees, the OMB stated that they could not get their promised raise due to a "national emergency" or "national economic distress". This means that even Donald Trump does not believe his own words about "the greatest economy ever".
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  6. Love the Freudian Slip of Donny Deutsch made when he said "socialism is more dangerous to this company", then quickly changes the word "company" to "country"? The slip up starts at 3:15 . . . check it out. Donny boy was about to let the real truth of the matter from the position of the corporate media slip out, and by default the wealthy elites position. So this is what they are so afraid of. They have known for centuries that they have more than enough wealth. They have also been trying to stave off the inevitable . . . their mountains are going to be leveled. The real question for them is this: can they hold on until the planet becomes uninhabitable, thus making themselves the winners no one will remember?
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  7. TangyLid - What you really meant to say is this: "In the US we think different. We love financial independence and low taxes. That is why the median income of today buys less than half of what the median income bought 30 years ago, because we just love the 1% sucking up our money instead of the federal government."
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  8. I'd like to share the chilling thing I heard yesterday was about the reasons behind the rush for Kavanaugh confirmation. Lots of shiny things have been dangled to distract us . . . . but there is one case the Supreme Court agreed to hear which may disrupt the dual sovereignty of State and Federal Courts and the republicans want Kavanaugh seated before this case is heard. The Gamble vs United States case is about a felon with a robbery conviction, who upon being pulled over by the police, was found to have a firearm in his possession. Terance Martez Gamble was then charged by both State and Federal prosecutors with being a felon in possession of a firearm based on the single incident. Apparently he was convicted by both prosecutors and received an extended sentence. Upon appealing his conviction, Gamble claims double jeopardy and the case has made it to the Supreme Court. (The double jeopardy I am familiar with is that once acquitted of a crime by jury of peers, that crime cannot be charged in court a second time. Being charged by both the State and Feds is perfectly legal.) Long and short of this, if the Supreme Court decides that this is double jeopardy . . . then a state could not charge a person for something the Federal Government has charged a case on. This mucks up the system and could keep someone like Paul Manafort from being charged in State Court . . . where the president's pardon power cannot reach. The republicans have long held that "states rights" are sacrosanct, regarded as too important or valuable to be interfered with. Trump and the republicans want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court in time to hear this case, and Kavanaugh will most certainly throw "states rights" and the 10th Amendment right out the window. It is not just about the presidential pardon powers, deciding double jeopardy in this case will muddy the waters so much that the Federal Government will feel free with this as precedent to interfere whenever they want to block State's affairs and decisions. This is a very dangerous case for a so-called conservative majority Supreme Court to be deciding. The so-called conservatives are really corporate shills, and corporations are slobbering all over themselves at the potential inroads they can make by usurping state law in favor of corporate law. The 10th Amendment is written so that powers not specifically granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution are reserved to the States and to the people. Corporations have been using the courts to strip away rights from the people for decades and grant rights to the corporations over people. A double jeopardy finding in Gamble vs the US would be a gift, a genuinely corrupt boon to corporations. Kiss democracy good-bye with a single Supreme Court decision. Notice how we have heard nothing about this at all from the networks, corporate media is too busy presenting us with other shinier objects.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/trump-pardon-orrin-hatch-supreme-court/571285/
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  9. Hey, this is my time! Republican losers are not interested in getting any answers from Cohen.
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  10. Hit the bullseye.
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  11. The uncertainty being created by Trump's policies, snap decisions and Twitter rages has already impacted the economy because decision makers at all levels are holding back and not making commitments. Recession is imminent, it has been building for some time and the dam bursting is not too far off.
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  12. This action by the republican House members of storming a closed committee hearing room is a blatant use of force. This demonstration shows what the republicans in this country will resort to in order to keep the wealthy in power over the rest of us. In the near future this type of action will no longer be sufficient and republicans will move to use of lethal force to get their way.
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  13. There is a simple way to solve so many of the problems capitalism creates. Make it illegal to accumulate wealth beyond a certain point, for individuals, companies and corporations. Everything has a limit. It is unnatural for wealth accumulation to be unlimited.
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  14. Learn Social Justice - Robert has made no secret that we was part of the Clinton administrations first term. When you watch his videos over time, he spends many of them explaining what went wrong in the Clinton years.
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  15.  @faanlouw6109  - Your essay is flat out wrong. You have been indoctrinated, what you have written comes straight out of the Oligarch's Propaganda Handbook. Socialism is dynamic, not static. What you refer to as socialism is capitalism's propagandist version, not the evolving socialism of the current era. Even Professor Wolff is not entirely current on the evolution of socialism. Capitalism is finished as an economic model. Infinite growth is not possible for any system, natural or artificial. Capitalism surpassed the capabilities of a production based economy at least two decades ago and has long before that time been looting entire countries, draining treasuries and impoverishing the citizenry. Your last two sentences are what the wealthy rely on to protect themselves from the masses they have oppressed, while they are busy stealing the wealth of nations. Oh, and by the way, there were always private property and markets, even in the primitive beginnings of socialism. It figures you would think such garbage, you are reliant on dogma instead of the hard work of researching through these ideas for yourself.
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  16. Blame the pursuit of infinite wealth. We allow it, even though no system can achieve infinite growth.
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  17. whyamimtpink78 - Just how many kinds of stupid are you going to publicly display? The left is factual and you just cannot handle that . . . so you project what the right is so good at onto the left. In other words . . you lie. If there were 155 Americans who "earned" over $200,000 that year and paid no federal taxes, it is because those people followed the federal tax guidelines and did what was necessary with their excess "income" in order to get to zero federal tax. Back in those days, the tax law was set up to encourage capital reinvestment in labor and productive improvement in the companies they owned. What you need to do is stop your whining about the left. It is just making you look bad . . . and so sad.
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  18. No wonder Trump is freaking out. Break out the orange coveralls!
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  19. Wealth invented racism to divert attention. In the Virginia governors race, Glenn Youngkin was CEO of the worlds largest equities firm, The Carlyle Group, an American multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation. Is it any wonder then, that racism would be his go-to platform?
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  20. Jen 417 - Bankruptcy at full speed. For a supposed intelligent and educated population in the USA, why is it I never hear the single most obvious question put to these supposed economic experts? With the GDP of the USA at $19.39 trillion growing at 2.6% annually and the 1% holding 50% more than that in wealth (over $30 trillion) demanding a rate of return of over 5% . . . . how is it possible for the 99% of Americans to get ahead when the wealthy are draining away our wealth to pay interest payments on the 1%'s holdings? Right now we have freaking blood sucking parasites attached to our economy draining off more than they put in. Everyone says the 1% are the investor class, yet all I see in the data and in real life is the 1% drinking down OUR wealth holdings and not investing a damn thing. We cannot grow when parasites are sucking down all of our nutrients.
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  21.  @sorin_ea6  - Banning political donations will not work, that move would simply be undone by the wealthy working in the background. All systems require limits, in this case and so many others the solution is to cap individual wealth. If you think that is not a smart idea, then think about any system you can imagine without upper and lower limits. Your car engine for example, could it operate properly without upper and lower limits? How about a tree? How about an airplane, or a star? The only reason we think there should be no limits to individual wealth is because the wealthy spent a lot of money to plant that idea in our heads and now we are all just like those trained pigeons.
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  22. Frederic Bastiat - That sounds suspiciously like circular reasoning. Corporations have been given every break and opportunity to become more profitable, yet they have not reinvested those profits into labor, suppliers or new product development. Instead they have used their profits to buy back their own stock, artificially inflating the stock price, which in turn has exclusively benefited those at the top . . . the boards of directors, the top management and stockholder dividends. This must be the end of the age of corporations. They are literally strangling us. In 1984, the money generated as dividends, interests and rents surpassed all wages paid in the United States. In the current year, money generated by dividends, interests and rents has surpassed all profits generated by every company and corporation in the world. The financialized model of revenue generation has surpassed all production oriented methods of producing revenue . . . . in other words money is being generated from nothing at all. The worst part is that none of this "money from nothing" is being shared with those outside of the 1% at the top. This madness is unsustainable and is causing almost insurmountable suffering in all nations economies.
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  23. No reforms or justifiable tax increases will be lasting until wealth itself is capped. The fulcrum around which all this evil rotates is Excessive Accumulated Wealth. The only purpose such excessive wealth is used for is the exertion of power, most notably to dismantle all reforms which restrain accumulated wealth. Once you have accumulated enough to maintain a luxury lifestyle for a lifetime, that is enough. It is not enough to raise taxes on the wealthy, we have been through this cycle many times already. We the People must cap wealth for everyone, it is necessary for our safety as a society.
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  24. What the guest is describing about literacy and what students are allowed to read in Cuba, is literally no different than many parts of the USA today.
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  25. The only way to keep reforms like anti-trust laws intact, to keep them from being undermined and eventually eliminated, is to put an upper limit on wealth accumulation. A hard wealth cap is the only feasible way to dismantle the whole crazy cycle that Professor Wolff explained starting at the 10:52 mark.
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  26. In the past month and a half, the Federal Reserve has pumped at least $1.2 trillion of liquidity into the banking system. This has devalued the dollar by several percent (perhaps up to 5%) just in a few months time. If there is any solution, it is to place a cap in individual wealth. To visualize the effect of unlimited wealth accumulation, just blow up an balloon and leave the stem untied. All these bailouts and liquidity injections are trying to replace the escaping air from the open ended economic balloon, so the answer is to tie it off. Cap wealth accumulation at $10 million and a vast majority of these economic problems will abate.
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  27. What I have seen so far, suggests that the George Floyd murder and the subsequent property damage during the Minneapolis protest over the following days, was a coordinated effort by white suprematism movements embedded in the Minneapolis police department and the White House. Trump needs a diversion from his abject failure of a presidency, and a way to kill more black, brown and poor people by state sponsored violence, and through more infections with the Covid-19 virus. The provocative killing of George Floyd was done on purpose, in order to provoke a response from minorities and the poor people who are suffering economic devastation because of the federal governments failure to help the population, and to divert our attention from the aggressive Wall Street and corporate looting of the federal treasury that just took place, using the CARES Act as cover. The final goal is to upset the 2020 election so that Trump can maintain his freedom, because when he loses the election, he, his family and his entire Cabinet will be going to prison.
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  28. Ever since the final business quarter of 1980, the sum total of financial assets (from which IRA's and 401k's are derived), has been greater than our GDP. This happened because Congress gutted company funded pensions in 1974. At the end of 1980, the sum total financial assets was half a trillion more than our GDP. By 1990 that gap was enlarged to $6.9 trillion. By the year 2000 the gap had widened further to $21.2 trillion. Today that gap is $93.684 trillion or 4.8 times the size of our GDP. Today the gap has widened so far that extraction from the population is simply not enough to fuel a 12% annual growth rate, so the government is now being looted. The money to grow IRA's and 401k's is stolen, not earned. What gives anyone the right to take money they have not earned?
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  29. Conservatives are only out to screw us. Worker productivity since Reagan has gone up 321%, while worker wages have risen only 1/10 of 1%. Meanwhile, the simple costs of living such as housing and energy have tripled and our Federal Treasury has been raided by private interests for trillions of dollars. We, as in you, I and the ordinary people of the USA must fight back. It is time for a Maximum Annual Income . . . . and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. That is the only way to fight what is happening, open ended profits are killing us. Personally, I think the wealthy oligarchy is taking revenge on us for the FDR New Deal . . . even though the wealthy never really suffered under the New Deal. Any reforms we get will be dismantled until we the people take away the tools used to dismantle reforms. Than means capping wealth and income, no two ways about it.
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  30.  @Big-Government-Is-The-Problem  - Nonsense, from your moniker to your comment. There is no such thing a "left wing big government policy". All policy is corporate, because things are designed so the government does nothing except issue a contract for corporations to fill. So in reality, big government is simply a shovel to pump up financial asset prices. Speaking of which, people are homeless because housing is considered a "capital asset", and assets like that are expected to rise in value, thus providing economic rents to the landlords and the banks, both of which are in the main, lets say it out loud now, CORPORATIONS. So really now, enough of that "left wing big government" crap. There are no "lefties" or "righties" in the government or on the board of directors, just the greedy who rig the rules so that wealth grows exponentially faster than the economy and most peoples wages. Oh and by the way, the wealthy spend billions on propaganda so that easily molded minds will take up monikers like "BIG GOVERNMENT IS THE ISSUE AND NOT THE SOLUTION". Those billions are cheap to spend when the rewards are so great. Without big government to keep them in check, it is the wealthy who will run the country . . . . oh, wait, they already do!
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  31. Blame the pursuit of infinite wealth. We allow it, even though no system can achieve infinite growth.
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  32. This is all out money (influence coupons). If things are ever going to change, it must begin with a hard cap placed on individual wealth so that no one individual has undue influence over political/economic decisions.
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  33. Yes, the United States printed (or key stroked into existence) $11 trillion in 2020. With a $9.8 trillion gain in financial assets and the Federal Reserve accepting corporate bonds as loan collateral, most of that money went into the stock market (massive inflation in the stock market last year). So if we just do some straight across math (not entirely accurate but close enough), only $1.2 trillion actually made it into the real economy and of that, most was paid as contracts to giant corporations (Pfizer, Moderna, 3M). The American people got squat out of all that spending, lost millions of jobs and now housing costs are going into the stratoshere.
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  34. Thank you, your comment is spot on. Housing is considered a capital asset and as such is being used to gain economic rents by landlords and banks. The end result is one corporation will own all housing stock in about twenty years. Capitalism these days seems to be all about Monopoly rules.
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  35. Ant Man - Fat lot of good it does for an employee to bring greater value to an employer, when the employer simply pockets the greater value generated. This is why the government needs to set standards, because left to their own devices the employers have been proven to not share the gains as was the case between WW2 and the 1980's.
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  36. xWIN? LOL - Everything that you wrote was a mischaracterization . . . to put it mildly. Bill Gates is as corrupt as any of the billionaires. He gets a majority of his incomes from rents on financial transactions through his software and he does not pay the taxes that he should. The philanthropy of these billionaires does not excuse the damage they do to the economy. You must look at the numbers when making that type of characterization. Bill Gates has so much surplus money in so-called investments, so-called because the amount is so large that the interest thus gained outpaces the GDP of most countries. His philanthropy pales when compared to amounts he extracts from the wealth of ordinary people. With regard to Bernie Sanders, I want you to name or point to a single circumstance where he made a claim that the government should control "everyone's" wealth. He never said such a thing, or indicated by words or actions that he wants that. What you have done is construct a straw man for the sole purpose of knocking it down.
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  37. "I just think they're stupid". Brilliant answer!
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  38. I'd also like to see what the GDP is without the "weapons/defense" and "big pharma/private insurance" industries (rackets), but also without the "financial services" and "investment services" rackets. The top 20% in the USA has over $55 trillion in financial assets which pull down at least $2.75 trillion in "interest" payments, that is more than 13% of our GDP. The books on the GDP are definitely cooked. That interest payment money is mostly extracted from the bottom 80% in the form of increased housing and health care costs. Our costs for vital living provisions are going up, up , up, yet we are getting less and less in value.
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  39. You are not wrong Thom, this list of everything you mentioned should be part of the impeachment documents.
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  40.  @valeriab9735  - A few things that seem to be lost in your considerations. Housing = Capital Asset. The price for ownership or rental will continue to rise faster than wages. Perhaps you are unaware of this fact: the economy is small compared to the mountain of wealth called "financial assets". Our economy grows three times slower than financial assets. Last year our GDP was $19.5 trillion, while financial assets that began the year at $104 trillion, grew to $114 trillion by the 3rd business quarter. That rise in value was equal to half of our economic output and rent increases were a part of that. If people are mentally stuck,as you say, it is because wages cannot keep up with prices increases and they know it. You cannot ignore the feeling of helplessness this generates. Your outlook on these matters is not only old fashioned, it is dangerously outdated and obsolete.
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  41. Try to wrap your mind around this number . . . 21 TRILLION dollars in federal debt. What concerns me is this question: What has 21 trillion dollars in debt bought for the American people? When I look around, I'm not seeing any shiny new infrastructure. When I look around, I'm not seeing people around me being better off than they were 30 years ago. Where did all this money go? Oh yeah, to pay for endless war and fat contracts to the military-industrial complex. Oh yeah, when Wall Street and investment bankers overextended and crashed the world economy, we bailed them out. Oh yeah, tax cut, extra tax cuts and . . . more tax cuts for everybody except the average working American, and those tax cuts never generated new and better paying jobs for the American people. Now imagine what 21 trillion dollars could have done over 30 years to improve our schools and infrastructure . . . but wait! Capitalism does not need any more educated young Americans to employ in factories, because we don't have factories any more. Capitalism especially does not need new roads for all those workers to use to get to their high paying manufacturing jobs, because capitalist shipped those jobs out of the country. So where did all that money go? Into the pockets of the very people who are screwing the American people. Lets not forget that once Wall Street and the investment bankers were bailed out, jobs were cut, homes were seized, pensions were drained, in other words the American people were twice screwed from both ends. I say, tax them until they bleed because we want our money back!
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  42. Thom, your sound levels are too low, at full volume I can barely hear you.
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  43. The most recent numbers released by Oxfam show that globally, 54% of all wealth is owned by 1% of the global population, and that the top 20% globally own 94.5% of all wealth. Stagnation is setting in to all economies because the bottom 80% has no purchasing power with which to drive the global economy. The elites are fully aware that this is a huge problem, yet they are rudderless, incapable of dealing with the situation and furthermore, are unwilling to alter their own behavior. It is really up to us to alter the behavior of the wealthy elites, they will not do so on their own. Personally, I want to cap individual wealth accumulation and ownership of all assets at $10 million per person. That much, no more. If they can't deal with that, tough shit.
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  44.  @moodSlime_  - Planted a seed? For a supposed intelligent and educated population in the USA, why is it I never hear the single most obvious question put to these supposed economic experts? With the GDP of the USA at $19.39 trillion growing at 2.6% annually and the 1% holding 50% more than that in wealth (over $30 trillion) demanding a rate of return of over 5% . . . . how is it possible for the 99% of Americans to get ahead when the wealthy are draining away our wealth to pay interest payments on the 1%'s holdings? Right now we have freaking blood sucking parasites attached to our economy draining off more than they put in. Everyone says the 1% are the investor class, yet all I see in the data and in real life is the 1% drinking down OUR wealth holdings and not investing a damn thing. We cannot grow when parasites are sucking down all of our nutrients.
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  45.  @iceman1833  - The real problem we face is that the 1% has accumulated so much wealth that it cannot get a rate of return without extracting wealth from the bottom 99%. People don't understand that the wealthy elites have become parasites because they have so much in idle riches, instead of being the engines of job creation (which is the mythology we are constantly being sold). We simply cannot have $30 trillion in idle wealth seeking a 9% rate of return (ROR) from a $20 trillion annual economy which only grows 2.5% annually. We can fix this by capping accumulated wealth and forgiving debt. The two actions must be implemented together. The alternative is between 22-30 years from now, 90% of GDP will go to servicing a ROR for the 1%'s wealth. We will have a bifurcated society, the ultra wealthy 1% and the decimated 99%.
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  46. John Connelly - You are being disingenuous and factually incorrect. You people piss me off when you start spouting the rhetoric that if it "were not for the millionaires, we would not have . . . ". Facts on the ground: the taxpayers took all the risk and provided all the funding for virtually every innovation, every discovery and all of the initial development for all the modern products we enjoy. The internet, taxpayer funded and developed. Computers, taxpayer funded and developed. Medicines, researched, developed and funded by taxpayers. The result were freely given to private companies, who then created the millionaires. So each one of these millionaires you credit with the advances we use today, were funded and created by us . . . yet we are not getting a dividend for doing so. You are spreading a myth and a lie, on the behest of those millionaires and billionaires. You have succumbed to their propaganda and are telling the story the way they want it told. They have made you into a willing carrier of their lies. ENOUGH! Get it through your thick head, you are being used and we all know this but you apparently do not. This is enough already, cease and desist from telling the lies of the wealthy.
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  47. hermenutic - That is horrible! My Lady is on disability and she gets $15 per month in food stamps. It is a pittance but vital for her.
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  48. Thom, it is not the oligarchs at the core of democracy's demise. Rather, it is the underlying economic structure that places no limits on individual wealth accumulation. A system without upper and lower limits will always fail over time.
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  49. Lets see . . . cut off capital aid to countries disrupted and destabilized by past United States foreign policy. Engage in siege warfare against a country (Venezuela) that never attacked us, which further destabilizes the entire region. Sure looks like a deliberate destabilization to cause a refugee crisis, just to use that crisis as a political weapon in domestic political action. That is all that Trump has going for him is a artificially created crisis. He has the old hands from the Reagan/Bush era on board to help push through what they started decades ago . . . all so that Trump can do . . . what exactly? From my point of view, republicans have never done anything for the people of the United States. They have a hundred year plus history of doing plenty against the people of the United States, plus plenty against the peoples of helpless nations. Why do they keep on getting elected?
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  50. I am concerned about something far more destructive than executive pay inequality. The 1% in the USA have amassed so much wealth (over $30 trillion) that just to satisfy a nominal rate of return (lets use 5% interest) it eats all of our annual GDP growth PLUS an additional sum equal to almost double our annual GDP growth. Here is the math. The 1% currently have over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth. Our U.S. economy is just below $20 trillion annual GDP output. In 2018 the growth in output for the USA was $360 billion. The interest on $30 trillion at 5% is $1.5 trillion. So here is source of my alarm. Output growth for 2018 was $360 billion yet the interest payments (free money) to the 1% was over $1,500 billion . . . . where does that extra $950 billion in 1% interest come from if not directly out of our pockets in increased costs for housing, medical care and education? Why should the 1% get all that free additional wealth for doing nothing . . . when ordinary good people have to choose between rent or food or medical care? The 1% have surpassed the critical mass of wealth that will enable them to cannibalize us just to satisfy their craving for more interest generated wealth (free money). These people are not "investing" . . . they are using their wealth to be predators, which will turn us unto a society of Kings and Serfs. This has me freaked out and angry, what exactly can we do about it?
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  51. Trump wants a southern wall so he can do what Israel does . . . shoot at and kill people on the other side of the border with no consequence.
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  52. Has anyone else noticed all this furor about the "Squad", flared up right after Jeffrey Epstein gets arrested? Trump is trying very hard to obscure media coverage of something which is going to hurt him badly.
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  53.  @royharper2003  - You don't move to a cheaper area because there are no jobs there, and traveling farther to work just to find a cheaper place to live is an added cost burden, not to mention time from your life you don't get back. You don't get it, housing is a capital asset. Here in California, rents have gone up 14% statewide, no one's wages are keeping up with that. When someone like you comes along, that is the real broken record, freaking oligarch propaganda talking points, we know where you get your information from and it's not fact based.
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  54. The real problem we have is this, interest payments on the 1%'s wealth exceed three times our annual GDP growth. The 1% are eating us alive.
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  55. Right . . . The House has passed a ton of legislation that is just sitting in Moscow Mitch's circular file, seems like republican senators should have their pay withheld and give the House democrats a raise.
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  56. Warren Feagins- Main reason is they are all bought out by their campaign contributors, who offer them multi-milloin dollar lobbying jobs when the are done with their office and have done the donors bidding. Bernie Sanders is not beholden to the corporate donor machine, and we need to elect Congress Persons who also refuse to take money from wealthy sources. We also need to require that our representatives do not go into the lobbying business after their terms in office are over. This is how "We the People" can and should clean house in our political system.
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  57. Just went to Mike Bloomberg's YouTube channel after having an unusual experience being redirected from a debate video posted by Bloomberg to a campaign ad video. All of the Mike Bloomberg channel comment sections are disabled. Looks like Mike can't take the heat.
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  58. No one looks at economics in the same manner as one looks at cosmology. The mass of "wealth" has always been larger and grown faster than the economy. On this day, the mass of wealth is larger than it has ever been, over five times the size of our economy. That wealth will simply roll over anything in its path, leaving destruction in its wake. Always been this way and always will be, until we decide to control that mass.
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  59. This is what wealth does. All the ills that befall mankind aside from natural disasters, are caused by the wealthy. In modern times the behavior of the wealthy may end organized human life on this planet, because of their recklessness, greed and irresponsibility. It is high time we humans learn that lesson and deal with it.
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  60. I am concerned about something far more destructive than executive pay inequality. The 1% in the USA have amassed so much wealth (over $30 trillion) that just to satisfy a nominal rate of return (lets use 5% interest) it eats all of our annual GDP growth PLUS an additional sum equal to almost double our annual GDP growth. Here is the math. The 1% currently have over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth. Our U.S. economy is just below $20 trillion annual GDP output. In 2018 the growth in output for the USA was $360 billion. The interest on $30 trillion at 5% is $1.5 trillion. So here is source of my alarm. Output growth for 2018 was $360 billion yet the interest payments (free money) to the 1% was over $1,500 billion . . . . where does that extra $950 billion in 1% interest come from if not directly out of our pockets in increased costs for housing, medical care and education? Why should the 1% get all that free additional wealth for doing nothing . . . when ordinary good people have to choose between rent or food or medical care? The 1% have surpassed the critical mass of wealth that will enable them to cannibalize us just to satisfy their craving for more interest generated wealth (free money). These people are not "investing" . . . they are using their wealth to be predators, which will turn us unto a society of Kings and Serfs. This has me freaked out and angry, what exactly can we do about it?
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  61.  @faanlouw6109  - That is the go to response of all deniers, show me one example where socialism has worked successfully. Every country on the planet uses socialism to one degree or another. Socialism, for Marx, is a society which permits the actualization of man's essence, or in the modern sense a system where the basic needs of survival are a social responsibility and the individual person can rise to the level made possible by accomplishment of both the individual and the society combined. Capitalism now relies on annualized compounding of wealth, unearned income derived from wealth itself, which is unsustainable.
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  62. Inflation is fundamentally misunderstood as a supply and demand issue, because we are still using an ancient textbook. Inflation is no longer tied to markets, it is tied to asset prices. As the market cap for any company grows, so will inflation associated with that company. If the company fails to inflate prices, it's market cap with drop. Since asset prices continue to expand, inflation is baked in to likewise allow for market cap expansion. Take gasoline for example, the market cap for oil companies has expanded by over 50% in two years, which in turn necessitated an increase in gasoline prices to further grow the market cap. We are being sold the idea that the Ukraine war caused gas prices to increase, because the war is excellent cover, but the war has little to do with the actual price of gasoline. Same pattern plays out for everything we buy, while diverting us with tales of supply train issues or some other story to cover for the need to raise prices to support the growing market capitalization (stock price) of the company.
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  63. Soooo . . . whatever happened to the vaunted "states rights" that the republicans are always yammering on about? Given this speech, then it is logical that the federal government MUST use one set of voting regulations and impose those regulations over all states, ending forever gerrymandering and voter suppression.
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  64. Useless Fox propaganda, completely bleached of any factual content . . . as usual. When are you people going to learn . . . billionaire owned media outlets only serve the interests of the owner? What a bunch of lemmings.
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  65. Thanks treefrog, you hit the bullseye. I started looking into our economy shortly after I turned 55 because some things made no sense. Now at 60, I am flat out pissed off. My deep respect for the United States was real back when I was fairly ignorant, now it has just evaporated away.
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  66.  @Tornado1994  - Honest republicans need to take back their political party or watch it die.
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  67. Republicans are not Americans. Republicans do not stand for "We the People". What republicans really stand for is "Property and Profits", therefor they do not abide by the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. Republicans are not Americans.
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  68. Bill Gates is lying when he says that the big fortunes are not a return on capital and he knows better. His fortune may have begun with a company that had phenomenal growth, but he knows full well that the bulk of his fortune was generated by economic rents (extraction from you and I) and by the rate of returns generated by his wealth bulk. The larger in bulk, or volume, that a fortune becomes, the larger the amount that is extracted from the overall economy to pay a rate of return on that fortune. The interest payments gets added to the bulk or volume of the fortune this year, which in the next year is extracting that much more form the overall economy with the owner of that fortune not having to lift a finger to "earn" any of it.
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  69. The only way we are going to get an honest dialog and get the ruling class out, is to banish the ruling class entirely. This kind of banishment means having a hard cap on wealth accumulation. No more Bezos, no more Musk, no more Bloomberg, no more billionaires or centimillionaires, period.
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  70. Hi Robert, please make a video about how the wealthy are not spending their wealth into the economy, but are instead saving their wealth and demanding a rate of return on their wealth. I am certain that the rate of return generated by a healthy productive economy is far outpaced by the rate of return being demanded by wealthy individuals and corporations, leading to the hollowing out and cannibalization of wealth held by the lower 90% on the economic ladder. Some solid information about extraction economics would be appreciated. Thank you for the very informative videos!
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  71. For the cost of this "internment" plan, all homeless could easily be housed without losing their freedom. More people are on their way to homelessness and it will include people that used to think it would never happen to them. The 1% in this country have $30 trillion in accumulated wealth they are not spending, at a mere 2% interest it would take all the GDP gains for 2018 plus an additional $40 billion to pay. Yet when I look at S&P500 index funds, they have been paying over 9% since 1994. Look at a more moderate 5% rate of return, that comes out to $1.5 trillion which eats all 2018's GDP gain plus 1/20th of the entire economy. Thom reported on the U.S. Treasury report in August 2019 which spelled out in detail that in 33 years, the top 10% will own ALL wealth in the USA. The bottom 90% are all going to end up in internment camps. Bernie 2020.
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  72.  @franwex  - This whole 401K and stock market smells like a scam on society. The U.S. GDP lost 2.3 percent, or $500.6 billion in 2020. Yet privately held financial assets gained $9.867 trillion in 2020. How is it possible for financial assets to gain so much when the real economy lost ground?
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  73. Bill Gates 2% annual wealth tax on $20 billion would be $400 million. No one of his stature would settle for less than a 5% rate of return on his invested wealth, so even after he paid the 2% his net worth (at 5% RoR) his fortune would still grow by $600 million. The problem no one is talking about is this: The 1% have over $30 trillion in idle wealth which they "invest" for a rate of return. There is also $28 trillion in retirement savings which is also invested for growth, which must be a RoR over inflation and fees. I don't know how much of an overlap there is between the retirement savings and the 1%'s accumulated wealth, so for the sake of simplicity, lets ignore the retirement savings in the following math which illustrates the problem few seem to grasp. Our U.S. economy is just shy of $20 trillion in annual GDP with a growth rate (in 2018) of 2.56% The 1% are "investing" at a RoR of over 5%, (S&P 500 index funds have paid over 9% since 1994). That is $30 trillion seeking a rate of return in a $20 trillion annual economy. The economy GDP grew by $560 billion in 2018. The RoR on $30 trillion at 5% is a trillion and a half dollars ($1.5 trillion) Can you see the problem yet? To pay the 1% their RoR, all of the GDP gains for 2018 are eliminated, plus an additional $940 billion skimmed directly out of the economy. This is done by raising the price of health care, housing and whatever else can be used by financial institutions to extract wealth from us, all the while calling that extraction "product" or "production in the economy". That extraction from us is actually counted by these criminals as part of the economic growth for the year. In reality the economy is shrinking, the numbers are being skewed to hide this from us. What we really need to do is dump this 2% on wealth tax, instead we need to put a hard cap on accumulated wealth for individuals and corporations. This much . . . no more. This whole "incentives" argument is bullshit to cover up the scam they are pulling on us. I say we cap wealth accumulation at $10 million, that is plenty to live a life of luxury and it will stop wealthy people from buying our politics and shaping government policy.
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  74. Jamarl - You spoke about how if the students need to be given the resources they need while in public school (or charter for that matter). Deal with the student now, or you will have to deal with that student later. Given how her brother is Erik Prince the Mercenary, I can see how she and her family will also diversify their investments into the private prison industry. Why not manufacture malcontents and future criminals so that they can be arrested and jailed as adults, put in private prisons and have the taxpayers pay the oligarchs who own everything? This is a really bad situation where "the very best people" are actually predatory parasites on our society. I have started to advocate for a maximum wealth limit from both earned and investment income, to prevent people like this shwarmy selfish woman called Betsy Devos from ever being able to attain power through the use of wealth. That kind of wealth is a cancer in our society, because power becomes the drug of choice for such people and we need to put a stop to that.
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  75. I'm 57 years old and a lifelong voter. My affiliation started with republican, in my 30's I went to democrat and in my 40's I registered as Independent . . . which I stayed at until the Justice Democrats came along and now I affiliate with democratic JD. When a viable progressive third party emerges, that is where I am going. This new progressive party will have a solid base if it can sprout in the toxic wasteland that is the American political landscape. Two things have to happen if we are to emerge from this nightmare. 1) Corporations must be decapitated and made illegal, so that the free enterprise written about in the Constitution can once again take their place in the economy. The Founders were anti-corporation because they had vast experience dealing with crown sanctioned monopolies like the East India Trading Corporation. 2) There needs to be a minimum income and . . . a maximum income, along with a cap on the accumulation of wealth. All of humanities problems with each other stem from the power hungry wealth hoarders. Face it, we human beings simply do not function in the best interests of all people when we accumulate more than what is needed to live a luxury lifestyle. Hunger for power takes over and we are living in the nightmare that results from 12,000 years of trickle up economics feeding the megalomaniacs. Any excess income and wealth generated by individuals and companies has to flow back into the society which enabled that wealth to be created. Experience has shown that the "free market" makes horrible decisions, far worse than what right wingers accuse the government of making. (Plus if you think government has made horrible decisions you are correct, and if you look deeper you will find in every instance private corporations were behind the scenes pulling the puppet strings. So really, the free market corporations are always responsible for government decisions.)
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  76. Kyle, you are letting your own bias interfere with your judgement. Mueller did not waffle. He laid out the evidence for Congress. He had no choice but to do so, because from the beginning of the investigation there was a well known DOJ guideline stating that the DOJ cannot indict a sitting president. Personally, I think you are trying to cover your own ass because you leaped onto the no collusion bandwagon as soon as Barr put out his summary, all because you think "RussiaGate" is a big waste of time. I have a great deal of respect for you and I am one of the older set in the baby boomer generation who supports the JD's, however you have lost a great deal of credibility with me over your handling of this Mueller/Barr situation.
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  77.  @royharper2003  - A few things that seem to be lost in your considerations. Housing = Capital Asset. The price for ownership or rental will continue to rise faster than wages. Perhaps you are unaware of this fact: the economy is small compared to the mountain of wealth called "financial assets". Our economy grows three times slower than financial assets. Last year our GDP was $19.5 trillion, while financial assets that began the year at $104 trillion, grew to $114 trillion by the 3rd business quarter. That rise in value was equal to half of our economic output and rent increases were a part of that. Your outlook on these matters is not only old fashioned, it is outdated and obsolete. I know how this feels, I was 55 when I started doing serious research on our economy and soon found out that my beliefs about the economy were all wrong. Now I'm 60 years old and furious that we have been, and are continuing to be lied to about our economy. There will be more homeless in the future, because prices are going up, up , and up. All this to pay "economic rents" to shareholders.
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  78. David - We are just going to have to face it, these cruel folk are no longer Americans. I am 56 years old and I have always believed in the American Way, yet I have never felt freedom. Now I know why and I will fight these traitors until the day I die.
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  79. C'mon Kyle, What did Russia get in return? 1) State Department in disarray and understaffed. Disrupted U.S. diplomatic affairs in countless countries. 2) Pissing off world leaders and cozying up to what-the-hell? 3) Disrupting U.S. relations with NATO. 4) Weakening the standing of the USA in global affairs. Examples abound ad nauseam. Does not have to be something direct, Russia is probably able to make the most of tRump's disruptive presidency even without the lifting of sanctions. Really liked the "money is not speech" speech toward the end, and I'm intrigued by the idea that the emoluments clause of the Constitution may be a way to overturn the "Citizens United" ruling.
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  80. We have a decades old running con that almost everyone is unaware of. In one business quarter, Q1 of 2021, financial assets gained over $4 trillion in value. If that were to hold for the remainder of the year, the gain would be $16 trillion, which would be over 2/3 of our GDP. People don't understand that all the pain they are feeling, barely able to hold on, is because our economy was set up to be drained in the late 1960's. Just ask yourself how it is that a pile of financial assets five times the size of our economy could even happen, then can gain over 10% in the same year as our economy shrinks due to Covid-19.
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  81. Greed stops when we make it stop. It is past time to put a hard limit on wealth accumulation.
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  82.  @notabene7381  - The economy is a political problem to solve. My solution is to close the system, a floor under and a roof over. The floor is UBI, health care, education, housing, transportation and food covered for all citizens. The roof is an upper level of wealth no individual can surpass.
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  83. My reaction to Thom's report is this: There seems to be an awful lot of organized money behind this "Antifa" uproar on Facebook. Smells like propaganda.
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  84. Lack of support from the federal government to the states is deliberate. When states approach default on the bonds, the federal government will ride to the rescue and offer just enough to cover state deficits so the bondholders are paid. The hook will be that the states will be required to turn over state owned assets, which in turn will be privatized. The ones doing the privatization are also the bond holders. Neat trick huh? Brought to you by corporate democrats and republicans working together to benefit their campaign donors.
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  85.  @AlwaysHalloween000  - Well now, you are a living example of how high IQ's and diploma's are absolutely meaningless. A piece of paper and a test score don't absolve you for having shit for brains, too much annihilation and obliteration will do that to ya.
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  86. Jennifer Collins - I've written this before, Bernie is a master strategist and tactician. He has used the DNC machine to project his Independent message in a manner no other socialist politician could or would in the USA. The "Unity Tour" was a master stroke, revealing the wishy-washy nature of Tom Perez and the outright hypocrisy infection the Democratic Party . . . to anyone who had their eyes and ears open.
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  87. There were no democrats in this video, your circle jerk was all republican. I guess your brain swap is not working correctly.
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  88. We in the USA cannot avoid fascism unless and until we recognize what is causing this phenomenon in the modern age. The lead up to fascism is the real story behind this "winning" economy, which never gets told. Here I will tell the story in parable. Its really simple, a 500 pound man is sitting on the head of a 200 pound man. While the 200 pound man goes to work every day, the 500 pound man does nothing but sit on the 200 pound man's head. The 200 pound man works hard and gets a 2.5% pay raise for the year. At the end of the year, the 500 pound man demands 10% of the 200 pound man's gross pay and all the raises in pay. The 200 pound man pays the demand every year without question. The cycle continues without end. In this story, the 500 pound man is the financial assets of the top 20% in the USA. The 200 pound man is the U.S. economy. The top 20% skim at least $2.5 trillion from the U.S. economy every year without lifting a finger to actually earn that money. They call it "investing" in the economy, but taking all GDP gains plus 10% of the total GDP by calling it "interest", or "rate of return", well I've got another name for it. It's a racket. This is why we have Trump and the fascist MAGA crowds at his rallies. Until we are willing to recognize this, we are doomed.
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  89. Lg springs - Do you know anything at all about the structure of the government you are criticizing? Adam Schiff is duty bound by his oath of office and the part that concerns us right now is this . . . "Loose Lips Sink Ships". What prosecutor has ever released information about the case before the case is ready to go to trial? None. The Mueller investigation is a tight ship, no leaks. Adam Schiff has seen some of the classified intel Mueller has and he is duty bound not to divulge what that intel is. That is why Adam Schiff say's there is 100% proof, he has seen it and he can say that he has seen it, but he cannot reveal what it is without breaking his oath of office. Why do you not know this? More important, did you know and you just don't care? Duty. Do American's care any more about how deep the meaning of that word is?
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  90. Wealthy people should never be allowed to own major market media companies.
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  91. I've been examining some facets of our economy very closely and what really alarms me is that financial assets of households and nonprofit organizations have passed the $90 trillion mark. These assets generate either interest or dividends, sometimes both. If you select a median interest rate of 5% just to do some simple calculations for the purpose of understanding the economic impact, the sum total of interest comes out to $4.5 trillion for 2019. Compare that to the GDP of 2019, which was $21.5 trillion, the interest for these financial assets is greater than 20% of our total economic output. We now have an economy which is geared toward providing a rate of return on "investments", rather than an economy which is geared toward making profit from productive enterprises. If the Federal Reserve continues to print money to, as Thom put it, "inflate an air mattress" under the economy, a severe crash is inevitable.
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  92. Here is the list of items where the capitalist corporations are really sticking it to us, this is the wealth extraction economy at work. The cost of childcare gone up 546% over thirty years. The cost of healthcare gone up 601% over thirty years. The cost of pharmaceuticals gone up 894% over thirty years. And finally: The federal student loan burden being carried by our youth has gone up 14,800% over thirty years.
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  93. Take a close look at the 1929 stock market collapse and it soon comes to light that the USA was responsible for the subsequent depression of the 1930's which spread world wide. This makes the USA a direct contributor to the carnage of World War Two which followed the depression a decade later. It is time that we the people institute an income cap and a total accumulated wealth cap on every individual, also restricting family gifting of money, inheritance wealth and offshore tax havens. Myself (57 years old) and my eldest daughter (29 years old) performed a thought experiment last weekend, what we arrived at is a accumulated wealth cap of 50 million dollars and an annual income cap of 1.75 million dollars per family. That is more than enough money to live a life of the utmost luxury, yet not enough for individuals to affect the political landscape or to have undue influence on national or world economy. Earn more than that by all means yes, the excess after the cap will be taxed away to flow back into the society from which the wealth originated.
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  94. If you look at the view numbers for any of "Fox News" videos, they are sky high compared to all other YouTube channels. I look directly at the owners of media outlets, Fox is owned by a billionaire. Propaganda is more interesting to believe than facts, lies more interesting than truth. These billionaire and corporate owners of major media have an agenda and it is not a good one for anyone but themselves. P.S. Corporate ownership is not faceless, it is the executives, boards of directors and mostly obliquely the shareholders who write the agendas. The purpose of these agendas in their simplest definition is to take something valuable that cannot be done above board or in the light of day.
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  95.  @clecanadalawexplained6330  - I have been studying this for several years now. You have the correct approach. Most people, including Kyle and Jesse are talking about a maximum wage. A maximum wage simply does not go far enough. At some point there must be a hard cap on wealth accumulation. I was reading Michael Hudson's paper on compounded interest and found a great example to use, one British penny from the 1700's, if put out at 5% compounded interest at the birth of Christ, would by the 1700's have grown to over 150 MILLION earth size globes of solid gold. In the USA as of 2019 there is over $90 trillion in financial assets earning an average of 5% annually. The economy is only one forth that size and grows at less than 2.6% annually (averaged over 30 years). This means that to pay the capital gains for the financial assets if cashed in at the end of the year would cost at least $4.5 trillion, or almost 21% of the yearly GDP. Just the amount needed to grow businesses has been costing consumers more than wage growth every year for at least three decades, the largest being healthcare and higher education. This system cannot last, the events surrounding our last election cycle show the strain.
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  96. To the horror of my wife, I told her that if we get a centrist democrat like Joe Bidon or Kamalla Harris on the 2020 Democratic Presidential ticket . . . . I would be voting third party. She is rightfully horrified that a split vote will bring us another four years of Trump. However, there is no lessor of two evils . . . there is only evil unless we can get a progressive on the democratic ticket for president. It is time to hold our ground. Sanders 2020.
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  97. + Deborah Walker - I'll be 59 this year and I have been dismayed to watch as everything I have been taught about the USA has fallen and turned to ash. This is not the country I grew up believing in and I fear that the "United" States of America will be fractured and broken apart after the 2020 election. The West Coast is not going to stand for a Trump dictatorship and I think the north-east coastal states will side with the west coast. With Texas and Florida in play, the fate of our nation may rise or fall over who controls our coastal ports.
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  98.  @Zach-ju5vi  - Oh yes we can blame Reagan, and we can blame the democrats as well. You cannot have wealth five times larger than the economy while wealth grows twice as fast annually than the economy, that is the situation Reagan set up in cahoots with Thatcher. The entire republican party has been along with many democrats have been planning this moment for decades.
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  99. Timothy McCaskey - Not so easy to pick on these particular kids! I say let the GOP get that idea and then get their a**hats handed to them by these kids, serve them right.
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  100. This is easy to understand. The 1% in the USA has over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth, chasing a "rate of return" in a $20 trillion annual economy. Just look at what a 5% rate of return is for $30 trillion . . . . just the interest alone is $1.5 trillion. The entire 2018 GDP gain in our economy was $560 billion, so almost a trillion dollars had to be extracted from the overall economy just to pay interest to the 1%. That is a huge bit of "socialism" for the 1% just in the past two years, $1.5 trillion in tax breaks and $1.5 trillion in interest payments . . . that is all "free money" for the 1% folks. Just consider that 5% is a low number, the S&P 500 index funds have done over 9% annually since 1994. The 1% lopped off 7.5% or more of our entire economy in order to give themselves "free money" which they did not lift a finger to earn. I've been calling my representative about this, it is completely unsustainable.
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  101.  @faanlouw6109  - "Cathy Elings-Sysel good for you. Enjoy it while you have the freedom to do so. It is a lot more difficult to enjoy socialism under a socialist system." Still carrying on with your indoctrinated nonsense I see. Seems that we have arrived at a spot where capitalism is difficult to enjoy under a capitalist system. See how easy it is to turn the meaning of a phrase by substituting a different word? Think for yourself man! You are just regurgitating what the wealthy want you to believe.
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  102. Take a close look at the 1929 stock market collapse and it soon comes to light that the USA was responsible for the subsequent depression of the 1930's which spread world wide. This makes the USA a direct contributor to the carnage of World War Two which followed the depression a decade later. It is time that we the people institute an income cap and a total accumulated wealth cap on every individual, also restricting family gifting of money, inheritance wealth and offshore tax havens. Myself (57 years old) and my eldest daughter (29 years old) performed a thought experiment last weekend, what we arrived at is a accumulated wealth cap of 50 million dollars and an annual income cap of 1.75 million dollars per family. That is more than enough money to live a life of the utmost luxury, yet not enough for individuals to affect the political landscape or to have undue influence on national or world economy. Earn more than that by all means yes, the excess after the cap will be taxed away to flow back into the society from which the wealth originated.
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  103. John Connelly - It is not our "inability to engage in thoughtful discussion" that is the driving factor here. Right out of the gate, you set the terms of any response to be "my side against your your side" with the following statement: "welfare on its face is immoral because there was theft in order to create it". You don't actually understand how the monetary system of the USA works . . . . do you?!!! Your ignorance was the very first thing you declared, then you followed up by a facetious and fictional claim about billionaires that comes right out of the oligarch propaganda playbook! Then you forgive us? You??? The town crier of fake news? That is rich.
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  104. Trickle down stagnated our wages and tripled our living costs (at a minimum). Reality is . . . all wealth is being Hoovered Up and given to the wealthy. Extraction Economics at work!
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  105. I'm 57 and Ditto here. More progressives is the only way we are going to wrest control of our government and country away from corporations. Beat back the corporate coup d'etat of the USA!!
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  106. Here is "simple, straightforward stuff". We cannot have wealth accumulation growing faster than the economy, not even on paper. That situation gives a select group of people more power than whole cities and states full of voters. In 2021, financial assets gained value greater than 66% of our entire economic output. We must contain wealth accumulation within the boundaries of real economic performance, otherwise what we have is wealth growing like cancer and taking over functions wealth is not meant to control.
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  107. Mike Balderston - Respectfully, you are a wet dream for lobbyists. They love people like you. Patents are abused, they should never be allowed renewal. Anti-monopoly laws in practice were thrown out the window decades ago, even though they are still on the books. Lobbyists play on the fears you expressed and guess who has lobbyists? . . . . Wal-Mart. Do ordinary folks have lobbyists? No. Why? Because ordinary folks are not millionaires, billionaires or corporations. We are at the stage in capitalism where lobbyists are writing the laws, that is what happened in the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" scam . . . lobbyists wrote most of that and our representatives never bothered to read any of it. The reason Wal-Mart does not hire full time is so they can escape paying benefits required for full time workers. You can bet their lobbyists made sure that loophole was installed in the full time workers regulation to allow them an escape hatch . . .
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  108. Productivity since Reagan, up 321%. Wages up 1/10 of 1% for the workers . . . meanwhile living costs have tripled or more. I find it repugnant that all productivity gains plus tripling of rents is not enough profit. When is it going to be "enough profit"? This is unsustainable. Seriously past time to cap wealth and income levels. We have a minimum wage, there should be a maximum income also. Accumulation of wealth past a certain point is wasteful and toxic. Humanity has to make a decision.
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  109. No reform like $15/Hour minimum wage will last as long as the tools used to dismantle reforms remain. Accumulated wealth is used to destroy reforms, so until there is a hard limit to wealth accumulation, there will be no lasting reforms. Social reform cannot happen without economic reform. The idea that unlimited wealth accumulation is a bug rather than a feature must take hold in our society, because without a hard wealth cap all reforms are doomed.
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  110. Tell me something, are you as equally concerned about the millions in taxpayer money wasted on Trumps every day tweets and every week golf outings?
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  111. Why can't we address the real elephant in the room? With all of our intelligence, no one seems to understand that every system has limits and yet we still seem to think that unlimited wealth accumulation is just fine! All you need is basic math skills to understand how dangerous the notion of unlimited wealth is . . . and the source of the danger is compounded interest. Take the nice round number of $30 trillion currently owned by the 1% now and apply a conservative interest rate of 5%, that $30 trillion doubles to $60 trillion in 14.4 years. In 30 years it will be $120 trillion and in 45 years the total will be $240 trillion. At 45 years out, where exactly is that $210 trillion in earned interest supposed to come from? Add to this situation that the wealthy are not investing in the real economy, they are getting their interest payments out of the financialized economy . . . which means they are taking it from us and looting the U.S. Treasury to achieve their rate of returns. The wealthy have been and continue to loot the wealth of all nations. Right now 17 international wealth funds are holding $50 trillion in "investment" capital, in 45 years that sum will be $400 trillion dollars. Where is all that money in interest payments going to come from? Look, it is simple common sense to place limits on systems. Do you have a pressure pot without a steam release valve? No, that would be stupid. Can your car engine achieve unlimited power? No, that would lead to catastrophic engine failure. There is example after example in the natural world and with virtually every human construction that there are limits beyond which disaster is the imminent result. The same is true with wealth accumulation. I don't know how people can reckon that unlimited wealth accumulation is a natural outgrowth of capitalism . . . yeah, it is if you want economic collapse as the intended outcome. Get real folks, we can never achieve even modest political goals or societal stabilization if we are unwilling to place limits on wealth accumulation. Besides, after a certain point . . . it is pointless to keep accumulating more than a person or their family could spend in 1000 lifetimes.
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  112.    - Plus, there is every possibility those drones which hit the Saudi's came from the U.S., just blame it on the Iranians.
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  113. Yes indeed. What we need to create is a sustainable economy, not an economy based on infinite annual growth.
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  114. Who needs logic when propaganda is easier to believe? I was checking on a comment notification when I noticed a Fox News video in my feed titled "Fired Space Force commander's Marxist warning is 'completely true':". I clicked through, listened to about a minute and then went to the comment section. Everywhere there were comments that were completely idiotic and out of touch with reality. The word "cult" is the only viable descriptor. When billionaires are able to own huge swaths of media, they convert people with their propaganda. Nothing I read indicated that any of these people knew who Karl Marx was or what his books were about. They were more than willing to just jump on board with Tucker Carlson and trash everything, not realizing that their "freedom" will be lost completely when the oligarchy eventually topples our government and economy.
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  115.  @DavidAdkins78  - Now I know you are a fraud, probably a troll as well. There is no such thing as "Marxism", that is a made up thing used by wealth backed propaganda to scare the uneducated masses. The remainder of your answering comment consisted of lies, there is no such thing as a "JOBS" economy either, that is also a propaganda talking point designed for the feeble minded.
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  116. The only way to stop this is to put a hard limit on wealth accumulation. The wealthy ARE the problem, lets get rid of them by making them ordinary.
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  117. Thomas - Your mother's broker is certainly not a "family friend". I've been examining some facets of our economy very closely and what really alarms me is that financial assets of households and nonprofit organizations have passed the $90 trillion mark. These assets generate either interest or dividends, sometimes both. If you select a median interest rate of 5% just to do some simple calculations for the purpose of understanding the economic impact, the sum total of interest comes out to $4.5 trillion for 2019. Compare that to the GDP of 2019, which was $21.5 trillion, the interest for these financial assets is greater than 20% of our total economic output. We now have an economy which is geared toward providing a rate of return on "investments", rather than an economy which is geared toward making profit from productive enterprises. If the Federal Reserve continues to print money to, as Thom put it, "inflate and air mattress" under the economy, a severe crash is inevitable.
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  118. Look at the way this man keeps grinning when Thom has him cornered. He knows that his policies just screw the middle class and the poor, and he is happy to do it. With the central banks including our Federal Reserve propping up the stock markets right now, he knows damn well that the stock market is a casino for the wealthy and that it is too unstable to count on for a stable income. Yeah, the blind man is going to count on a steady income from the stock market. Give me a freaking break.
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  119.  @chrismullaney8369  - Naw, just that people should give some thought to the situation now. The upheaval in our society comes from the exponential growth of wealth, which has passed the point of sustainability. Simple as that. Everything going on, from Covid-19 to the recent national protests, are being used to divert our attention from the fact that wealth has grown so large that in order to continue growing, it must consume the national treasury and the host economy to survive. Now the wealthy are willing to do everything necessary to preserve their wealth and privilege. Since they have already sacrificed the well being of most people in society, they well aware of how quickly the greater majority of people can turn on them.
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  120. Remarkable how the federal government has empty pockets for funding no-cost college tuition, or fully funding health care for our citizens, or fully funding our needed infrastructure upgrades, or fully fund a jobs guarantee program, or funding to end homelessness among U.S. citizens . . . especially for the 60,000 homeless veterans. Remarkable that for anything morally or economically uplifting for our citizens, the U.S. federal pockets are empty, yet . . . Wall Street needs bailing out, or the military needs greater funding for endless warfare, or corporations need tax breaks and the federal government will bend over backwards and run up huge federal debt to accommodate that! What have "We the People" gotten in return for 21 Trillion dollars in accumulated federal debt over 45 years? Absolutely nothing. Something has to change people! Not just a Blue-Wave folks, something else has to fundamentally change. We have a minimum wage, now it is time to put a maximum cap on individual and family accumulation of wealth. I'm not talking about taking away all of our "embarrassed millionaires" right to earn those millions . . . but come on now, be realistic! How many of us has ever seen five million in earnings over a lifetime of working? If you earn $50,000 annually . . . the most wealth you could possibly accumulate over a working life of 30 years is 1.5 million dollars and that is only if you saved every penny and paid no taxes! If the rest of you folks are like me, I have no problem capping all family wealth accumulation for a lifetime at $50 million dollars with a 95% inheritance tax to avoid dynastic wealth accumulation. That comes out roughly at $1.75 million earned after taxes annually. Virtually every single problem facing us as a human society has its roots embedded in those very few of us who are morbidly wealthy. With the exception of asteroid strikes and possibly earthquakes and volcanoes, every single problem we have stems from accumulated wealth in the hands of very few human beings. Eliminate that morbid excess that with a simple wealth and earnings cap, then most of our problems will disappear and many others will find logical solutions that were being stifled by wealthy individuals who wielded power far in excess of the ONE VOTE they are legally entitled to.
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  121. just aburner - There comes a time when . . . no matter how much we are willing to work with somebody, no matter our desire to be able to work out our differences, the other party will simply not cooperate in any way. Take me for instance, until very recently I would say to anybody that it takes both the right wing and left wing to be able to fly. Possibly stupid of me to think so, but I really wanted to figure out a way to work with Republicans. Slash, burn, break and take more for themselves is the only response from them. This trump-don't-care health denial bill is more of the same. How much more of this do we have to put up with? It is bad enough that the Republicans are stealing elections all across the country through gerrymandering and cross-check purging, then setting up their donors to get massive tax cuts, now we have to "get along" with them while they steal our health care? ENOUGH ALREADY!
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  122. Conditions are being maneuvered, the masses of people are striped of their wealth and the poor pushed into the dirt, as a result of these conditions crime goes up and a fearful population cries out for authority to handle it. Marshall Law comes shortly after that. We all know the game, as old as human history, instinctively carnivorous, cannibalistic and barbaric. The only question is, are we as a species now mature enough to change the rules of the game by bestowing human dignity instead of taking it? Our collective survival depends on the choices we make right now. Choose wisely.
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  123. Pnp6408 - Wow, that is rich! Especially coming from the Rupert Murdoch "I'll believe anything from a Billionaire" fan club! You idiots don't even know what socialism in the modern age is. It is not about "free stuff" at all. If you cared to actually research what socialism is today (unlike capitalism, socialism evolves), you would find it is all about reinforcing democracy. You see, unlike capitalism which is really the worlds largest Monopoly game, socialism is al about bringing democracy all the way into our lives by getting rid of hierarchies in the workplace and replacing it with democracy in the workplace. There is no centralized economic planning or government run everything, it is all about people running the enterprise where they spend most of their time. However, we expect that you will be as stupid as ever about this. Jesus says:Fox "News" message to their audience: It's okay to be a racist. It's okay to be fearful and afraid. It's okay to be hateful and violent. It's okay to be stupid.
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  124.  @Odinsday  - No reform like $15/Hour minimum wage will last as long as the tools used to dismantle reforms remain. Accumulated wealth is used to destroy reforms, so until there is a hard limit to wealth accumulation, there will be no lasting reforms. Social reform cannot happen without economic reform. The idea that unlimited wealth accumulation is a bug rather than a feature must take hold in our society, because without a hard wealth cap all reforms are doomed.
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  125. I'm calling this one cooked. Score: Michelle Swanson zero, six commenters with with 28 thumbs up between them. We have a loser folks!
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  126. Donny Danger - Agreed. Tax avoidance by corporations and billionaires has combined with their subversion of the government to create a toxic economy for 90% of workers. The time has arrived for a Wealth Cap that is not only warranted but necessary. No one should be allowed to influence democracy beyond their single legal vote by using excessive and morbid wealth to buy the government or news media.
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  127. This racism and other-blaming was all brought to the surface and promoted by the very wealthy and industrial capitalists over 40 years ago, who needed a convenient narrative to obscure the neo-liberal agenda to create the modern Kings and Serfs society. . . which they knew would strip most Americans of their assets and wages over the past 40 years and accelerate the stripping over the next 40 years. This racism narrative is how they are hiding their action from all of us. Here is what we really need to be concerned with: The Macro Economic Scales. Right now 17 international wealth funds have $50 Trillion in their portfolio's seeking a rate of return. Even at a paltry 5% rate of return, it will only take 14.4 years to double. That is $50 trillion in "free" money gained in 15 years. Where is that going to come from? Certainly not from the legitimate "productive" economy, no . . . it will be "extracted" from all of us and from "regime change" countries. It is time for us to back public policy that puts a hard limit on wealth accumulation, because the appetite of "rate of return" investments cannot possibly be met. When you extrapolate out to 45 years, the $50 trillion of today will becomes $400 trillion. That means $350 trillion dollars gets sucked out of the planet just to pay interest. This is beyond unsustainable, it is destruction, disaster, rape, murder and plunder rolled into one ugly ball. You ever see what happens to a rooftop when too much snow accumulates on it? Collapse. The modern narrative of racism and other-baiting is meant to obscure the nature of the coming collapse. The sheer mass of that much accumulated wealth is going to collapse everything world wide . . . and we have to stop this. Time for an income and wealth cap, it is the only way we can manage this outrage.
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  128. For the wealthy, their economy is stocks, bonds and derivatives. For the wealthy, the productive economy is simply overhead, to be cut, trimmed and shrunk, because they don't think they need a productive economy.
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  129. This was never about illegal immigration. What the entire immigration narrative is about is this: Changing the subject from the wealthy squeezing 900 billion dollars out of the bottom 50% over the past 30 years. Immigration is a distraction tactic, nothing more.
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  130.  @davesbultz1489  - Republicans have conned the Boomers and those who came before them into sacrificing our children and grandchildren, just so that the wealthy can sit on their piles of assets. AOC is a REAL American, unlike the traitor GOP. Anyone want to debate that? Bring it on.
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  131. Yes. Miller and the entire White House are guilty of crimes against humanity.
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  132. The comment section has been infected with Covid-19 deniers. Read comments at your own risk.
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  133. There was a time when Ronald Reagan was a true progressive, he actually made speeches which any progressive today would recognize. Then there came a time in his successful career when he became co-opted by right wing fanaticism because of his own greed. He wondered aloud why he should continue to working, when after six months labor (if you can call acting "labor"), most of his earnings went to the government in taxes. At the time Reagan was musing about this individual income tax rates for the top income bracket were at 91% and 92%, out of sight compared to the present day. He stated that he would be better served spending the last six months of the year on his ranch riding horses. Well, riding horses is exactly what Ronald Reagan should have done. Let another actor have the chance to play that leading man role. Furthermore, the patriotic thing to do was to keep working and pay those taxes willingly to support the USA and all the USA could accomplish with those tax revenues. Instead greed overtook Ronald Reagan, greed that overwhelmed the sense of abundance he should have carried in his heart, greed that eventually corrupted and threatens now to topple this once great country. Exactly how much money does one person need? If Ronald Reagan had enough money to have a ranch and horses by working only six months out of the year, is that not enough for one person to have? This idea that our society can only function when a small segment demands more and more at the expense of the remainder of our society . . . that idea is the symptom of a terminal illness within our society. There is no reason for the wealth concentration pervasive today other than greed. Does not the Bible say something about greed and avarice? The idea of a cap on wealth and income is a healthy one for the society of today. Every person can live well enough, even a life of luxury . . . without the need to accumulate more than could ever be spent in one human lifetime. It is time for us as humanity to grow up, before the idiots of avarice poison the necessary life giving natural systems on OUR collective planet to the point where no living creatures can survive. Once a certain level of personal annual income and accumulated wealth is achieved, any surplus generated needs to be gladly handed back to the society that enabled that income and wealth to be generated in the first place. Attitudes need to change about this topic . . . immediately.
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  134. Capitalism kills. Criminalize capitalism!
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  135. The median wage of today buys less than half of the essential consumer goods than the median wage bought 30 years ago. Yes, the median wage has gone up over the past 30 years. But that wage has not kept up with worker productivity nor has it kept up with essential costs of living like rent, energy, transportation and food. What you earn today as a median income buys less than one third of the health care median wages bought 30 years ago. Since you cannot get a 1/3 cost heath insurance plan . . . this is actually killing us. This is Extraction Economics at work here people, stop electing republicans and corporate democrats. They do not work for US.
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  136. Our president? Oh, you mean that oaf who is not representing all Americans, but instead is only serving himself? What happened to all his wonderful campaign promises? I'd like to see that health care for everyone that he promised, he had the chance when republicans controlled both houses of Congress . . . . but nooooo. Trump passed a major tax cut for the wealthy and drove up our national debt. Aside from that, Trump has done nothing whatsoever for the people who elected him.
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  137. Why have witnesses? After all, republicans fall into two categories: the ones that lie, and the ones that willingly believe those lies...
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  138.  @drakekoefoed1642  - Every system has limits. For some reason we accept an economy with no limits. Billionaires must go, so from a systems point of view we need to put a limit on individual wealth accumulation, cap the top end. How much is enough? I would be inclined to put the limit pretty high, but not high enough to allow for political interference.
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  139.  A OK  - How does one get ten subscribers on their YouTube profile with absolutely no content on their channel? You're an Idiot and obviously uneducated Troll who does not realize that grade 2 or 3 children do not have the foggiest idea what happened to Italy, Spain or Germany in the 1930's . . . . so you yourself are obviously not from any "western country". So why are you really here? Getting paid well? Rubles being deposited in your account regularly?
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  140. Thom, the problem is, we cannot do anything until "housing units" are removed from the economic category of "capital assets".
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  141. Remarkable how the federal government has empty pockets for funding no-cost college tuition, or fully funding health care for our citizens, or fully funding our needed infrastructure upgrades, or fully fund a jobs guarantee program, or funding to end homelessness among U.S. citizens . . . especially for the 60,000 homeless veterans. Remarkable that for anything morally or economically uplifting for our citizens, the U.S. federal pockets are empty, yet . . . Wall Street needs bailing out, or the military needs greater funding for endless warfare, or corporations need tax breaks and the federal government will bend over backwards and run up huge federal debt to accommodate that! What have "We the People" gotten in return for 21 Trillion dollars in accumulated federal debt over 45 years? Absolutely nothing. Something has to change people! Not just a Blue-Wave folks, something else has to fundamentally change. We have a minimum wage, now it is time to put a maximum cap on individual and family accumulation of wealth. I'm not talking about taking away all of our "embarrassed millionaires" right to earn those millions . . . but come on now, be realistic! How many of us has ever seen five million in earnings over a lifetime of working? If you earn $50,000 annually . . . the most wealth you could possibly accumulate over a working life of 30 years is 1.5 million dollars and that is only if you saved every penny and paid no taxes! If the rest of you folks are like me, I have no problem capping all family wealth accumulation for a lifetime at $50 million dollars with a 95% inheritance tax to avoid dynastic wealth accumulation. That comes out roughly at $1.75 million earned after taxes annually. Virtually every single problem facing us as a human society has its roots embedded in those very few of us who are morbidly wealthy. With the exception of asteroid strikes and possibly earthquakes and volcanoes, every single problem we have stems from accumulated wealth in the hands of very few human beings. Eliminate that morbid excess that with a simple wealth and earnings cap, then most of our problems will disappear and many others will find logical solutions that were being stifled by wealthy individuals who wielded power far in excess of the ONE VOTE they are legally entitled to.
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  142. Rational thinking is not your strong suite . . . . but thanks for the demonstration.
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  143.  @victorhopper6774  - Anecdotes don't apply. Political affiliations don't matter. This is a simple matter, our economy is set up to extract wealth, not produce wealth.
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  144.  @Clusterboy  - We have an obsolete Constitution. First Amendment: I am free to tell lies, and you are free to believe my lies.
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  145. The outside forces have been attacking ever since Reagan, no armies required.
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  146. To the horror of my wife, I told her that if we get a centrist democrat like Joe Bidon or Kamalla Harris on the 2020 Democratic Presidential ticket . . . . I would be voting third party. She is rightfully horrified that a split vote will bring us another four years of Trump. However, there is no lessor of two evils . . . there is only evil unless we can get a progressive on the democratic ticket for president. It is time to hold our ground. Sanders 2020.
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  147. The American middle class blossomed while very high tax rates were in effect. Look at the highest tax bracket during the Eisenhower Administration, 91% to 92%, an amount that seems outrageously high today. Yet this did not make the rich turn poor in 1952 to 1960, and our schools, highways and hospitals were adequately funded. Now we have 55% of the Federal Discretionary budget going to pay for a bloated Military/Industrial Complex, exactly what Eisenhower warned the U.S. people not to allow, for fear the power of such an institution would corrupt our nation. The highest tax rate for 2017 is 39.6% of income. The defense of the U.S.A. does not merit 55% of the Federal Budget and 39.6% income tax is too little to ask of our most well off citizens. Our economy has already been hollowed out by the neoliberal politicians from Reagan to the present, and by the industrialists who thought workers had gained too much power through their unions. With the global export of jobs from the U.S.A., expanding automation (what need for truck drivers once self driving trucks become reliable) and the continuing lowering of Corporate taxes (socialism for the rich), this budget sets the stage for the military to eventually be used to suppress our own disenfranchised people. What did our Men in Uniform fight for during World War Two? The crush the Tyranny enveloping our world. We are facing a tyranny of oppression now from within our own government, where most of the Congress represents their political donors over the actual U.S. voters. What would those fighting soldiers of WW2 think of the U.S.A. as we have now allowed it to become?
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  148. Paul Ryan declared "an attack against one of us is an attack against all of us" on June 14, 2017, referring to the shooting at the baseball practice. Well now Paul Ryan, you have been attacking Americans for quite some time now. So has Mitch McConnell, Mick Mulvaney and Donald tRump. Just because the republican attack is with the pen does not make it any less devastating. How many more Americans will die this year because they lack the health care that every other industrialized and advanced economic nation provides its citizens as a right? If the republican supported voter suppression, cross check and gerrymandering continues, then the 40,000 dead and maimed each year from lack of medical care will be joined by more victims of gun violence. The shooter died yesterday, but his protest sign message resonates with those under the boot. Republicans are all about violence, death and destruction, the civilized kind that gives them plausible deniability. This is what we liberals are fighting with words. I don't support using gun violence to solve these problems, but I know exactly how the shooter yesterday lost his cool. The republicans are getting away with murder every day and it seems to be getting worse instead of better every day.
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  149. Soooo . . . whatever happened to the vaunted "states rights" that the republicans are always yammering on about? Given this speech, then it is logical that the federal government MUST use one set of voting regulations and impose those regulations over all states, ending forever gerrymandering and voter suppression.
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  150.  @aimwilliamson6609  - You're welcome for the link. I was not singling you out, ever since I have become aware of the hustle and scam nature of our economic system, I've been trying to spread the word. A case in point, financial assets gained $9.8 trillion in 2020, while at the same time the economy was shrinking. The entire "risk and reward" narrative goes out the window when the wealthy get wealthier when the economy goes in the opposite direction.
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  151. xWIN? LOL - Bill Gates. It is interesting that you would focus your attention mostly on him and the comments I made about him. So let us "go there", and talk about Bill Gates. However, first I want to address your comment on GDP. You are in error regarding "GDP is dependent on people working and jobs". That was true forty years ago, it is no longer true. Today the GDP includes "economic rents", which ties in nicely with Bill Gates. Today the GDP also includes transfer of wealth. Neither economic rents or the transfer of wealth are a measure of economic growth the way people working and jobs are, yet they are included in the GDP. So the question must be asked . . . why? I'll answer that question in my conclusion. First item: economic rents. Bill Gates makes real earnings on his products and services, yet they are a very small percentage of his "earnings". When Bill Gates looks at his income for the year, perhaps in preparation for doing his taxes, part of the income is real products and services. The greater percentage of his "earnings" come from economic rents in two distinct forms. The first form is the fees he charges on every transaction between people and companies which are carried out using Microsoft proprietary software (not talking Windows here). He is currently pressuring the government of India to adopt the Microsoft online transactions platform exclusively, which will get Bill Gates alone several billion annually. This is not just selling the software, which he does. It is also an additional charge tacked onto every transaction which serves no productive purpose, it is essentially a parasite living off of a host. There are a tremedous number of "economic rents" which people all over the world pay to a myriad of persons, corporations, and entities, rents that once again . . . serve no productive purpose and extract wealth from the economy, yet they are counted in the GDP. Second item: transfer of wealth. What happens when a pharma company raises the price of Insulin by 500%? The answer of course is that the consumer pays the increased price. In this transaction no new productivity is contributed to GDP. Yet the extra profit to the pharma company is counted in the GDP. All that happened in this example was a transfer of wealth from the consumer to the pharma company, there was no actual productivity growth involved. Now you must be aware of the increased cost of housing over the past decades. This is another example of transfer of wealth. A house standing on a lot is worth lets say "X" amount in the year 1990. Over the years some small amounts have been invested in the house to maintain it, yet in 2019 that house and lot sell for "X" multiplied by four. Why? The house is still essentially the same, so what has changed so much that its value has increased? Do workers make more money, therefor the demand for housing goes up with the worker wages? No. Worker wages are flat during this period. The answer is twofold, speculation and the banks. Speculators buy houses with cash and no one lives in them, that makes the market tighter and increases prices with no production increase. Banks lend for mortgages on now more expensive houses and make "bank" on the interest charges or they bundle and sell the mortgages as securities. Both bank practices extract existing wealth out of the economy but do not increase productivity. All three of these real estate practices are counted in the GDP, even though they transferred wealth and produce nothing. In conclusion, the measurement of GDP now must include economic rents and wealth transfers, in order to convince the public that the economy is growing . . . . when it is actually shrinking. Both economic rents and transfer of wealth are extractive practices, they contribute nothing to the real economy while expanding the wealth of the 1% and shrinking the wealth the rest of us have. Your comments about Bernie are interesting and totally wrong, that is a whole other comment reply. First lets see how you try to wriggle your way out of confronting the GDP for what it now is, a propaganda tool for the republicans who for forty years have cut taxes over and over . . . . claiming that it would all be made up in expansive economic growth, THAT NEVER MATERIALIZED. If the rich want to move to another country when we raise their taxes . . . good riddance. They don't contribute in the manner you claim, they are in fact . . . . parasites.
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  152. Human beings are disposable, The Republican Party Mantra.
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  153. With the exception of natural disasters being the cause, the downfall of every human society can be traced to greed. If this species is going to survive, we need to grow up.
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  154. Kevin Kanzler - So what you are saying is that the same group that preceded U.S. and Allied troops in the WW2 fight to defeat Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, the same group that fought the fascists in Spain before Chamberlain finished appeasing Hitler in Europe are now terrorists? Are you saying that Antifa is worse than the fascist murderers the USA and the Allies went to war with? So are you saying that you support the KKK and neo-nazi's modern day resurgence in the USA? Are you saying that is what all of our soldiers died for in WW2, to bring freedom to fascism's supporters in the modern age? So you are saying that you now support a fascist regime under tRump in the USA? If that is what you are saying, then it is yourself who is revolting. Sad. Pathetic. If that is not what you are saying, please clarify.
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  155. I just took that last few minutes to check on the stock market. In December 2008 the market was approximately 9000, as of today the market is 22,400 . . . that is a ten year span. This indicates a 148% growth of the stock market in ten years with little commensurate growth in the real economy. I concur with your personal economic findings, they mirror my own. Additionally, worker productivity since Reagan has gone up 321% while worker wages have gone up less than 10% over the same period ( I am being generous, the number is close to 0.5% ). Meanwhile the cost of housing, energy, transportation have tripled in the same time period . . . health care has gone up over 500% and the cost of higher education has gone up a whopping 14,000%. This is how the wealthy are getting their returns, through extraction economics.
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  156. To the horror of my wife, I told her that if we get a centrist democrat like Joe Bidon or Kamalla Harris on the 2020 Democratic Presidential ticket . . . . I would be voting third party. She is rightfully horrified that a split vote will bring us another four years of Trump. However, there is no lessor of two evils . . . there is only evil if another centrist democrat becomes president. Unless we can get a progressive on the democratic ticket for president, all we will get is more evil. It is time to hold our ground. Sanders 2020.
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  157. I'm going to add something to your comment. Fully half of our economy now goes to paying the wealthy "unearned income". The mass or "weight" of financial assets has reached such a level that in order to pay interest and dividends on those assets, it is cannibalizing our economy. Most people are simply unaware of this. Capitalism as we understand it, no longer exists. "Investments" no longer produce any product, they are simply a means of extracting wealth from all of us. Just in case anyone is interested, I have examples to show (yet so many people yawn and tune out when math is involved).
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  158.  David Watson  - Empty YouTube profile, empty comment. Most likely a troll.
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  159.  @Mrbfgray  - I'm not here to put down your hard work. Fine. However please allow for the possibility that as you have been performing that hard work, the wealthy have been pouring billions into creating and disseminating a great deal of false information designed to appeal to hard workers. Have you ever charted out GDP growth over the decades, then compared those numbers to the growth of financial assets? If you had the time to plot these numbers out, which I doubt that most hard workers in the contracting business have that kind of time, you would see that you believe and what reality is, have two vastly different outcomes. You have been rendered deliberately ignorant by believing the garbage people like Kevin O’Leary spew out, which is entirely fact devoid.
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  160.  @Mrbfgray  - Must you always fall back on the oligarch talking points? "Fixated on "someone else having it easier" than you"? Really? You cannot even communicate without leaning on some propaganda talking point. What I feel is anger, that so many good people have been subsumed, so much so that you cannot even communicate outside of a framework that is bought and paid for by billionaire think tanks and media. Did you even comprehend the numbers I outlined in my first post? No, you did not. You skipped right over them and started assigning blame (another oligarch method of divide and conquer). You may not think so, but you are fully indoctrinated (noun: a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a Church, political party, or other group). By being indoctrinated, you hurt your neighbors, your family and society. I suppose you blame the homeless for their plight as well? Not even thinking about how every time housing (a capital asset) goes up in value, rents also go up. Housing has increased in value by 10X over the past forty years, but wages have not. That increase in value is theft from the pockets and wallets of a working class that has not even had their wages doubled in real terms over the same time span. Crime? Same cause, you cut the economic legs out from people and you will get rising crime. You, because of your "beliefs", are hurting fellow Americans, because you believe the garbage people like Kevin O’Leary spew, yet you never actually research what he says. Pathetic.
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  161. There is no system in existence, natural or artificial, that has no upper and lower limits to operate within. The con job that we have been sold is that in our economy, we can have unlimited wealth growth and no bottom limit. There is a direct correlation between the growth of millionaires/billionaires and the growth of homelessness in our country, the more people who become wealthy, the more the homeless population grows.
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  162. Well stated. Housing must be restored to the commons and never made into a capital asset again.
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  163. It is time to put a CAP on capitalism. Wages don't go up, but housing costs have increased several hundred percent since I have been working. Wages don't go up, yet healthcare increases by several hundred percent. Example after example, all of which show that capitalism stopped working for common folk decades ago. What is the point of vacuuming all wealth into the coffers of the 1% anyway? They don't spend it back into the economy, so we must put a wealth cap in place to protect the people and our planetary home. Once you make 10 million bucks, the buck stops there. No one needs multiple millions, let alone billions . . . that kind of wealth accumulation is toxic to everything and everyone.
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  164. This ONDCP Committee smells like a cover for artificially generating criminals to fill private prisons . . . in other words, a racket.
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  165. Why is it that Thom never asks Professor Wolff about the ratio of total financial assets to the economy? The sheer amount of financial assets "earning" interest a 5% or more annually, dwarfs our puny economy. From what I can see, the economy has averaged 2.56% growth annually for 30 years and was at $21.43 trillion for 2019. On the other hand, there are over $100 trillion being held in financial assets with an average rate of return of over 5% annually at the end of 2019. The "earnings" of those financial assets is approaching 25% of our GDP and is growing larger every year. At some point, the "earnings" of financial assets will be greater than the economy. So what then? Print more money and hand it straight over to the 1/10th of 1% and tell everyone else to eat mud?
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  166. The Electoral College is not the only thing that is obsolete. The entire Constitution is in need of overhaul or replacement.
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  167. The Federal Reserve gave corporations over 3 trillion dollars last year, a sum that will never be paid back, in exchange for pieces of paper. Surely the Federal Government can fork over 1/1000th of that amount to cover missed rents in California, or is Promoting the General welfare no longer a concern of the Federal Government?
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  168. Soooo . . . whatever happened to the vaunted "states rights" that the republicans are always yammering on about? Given this speech, then it is logical that the federal government MUST use one set of voting regulations and impose those regulations over all states, ending forever gerrymandering and voter suppression.
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  169.  @gibblespascack1418  - Wrong. The individuals cause of lack of wealth generation is that the money used to grow those IRS's and 401k's is extracted from from the society in the form of increased costs year over year, with the money from the extraction going to those who have not actually earned that wealth. Blaming the individual is a con job. Over half of the 2020 GDP went to grow the value of financial assets. Compounded interest is wealth extraction, not wealth creation.
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  170. Yeah. America loves Trump and family about as much as we love a face full of porcupine quills.
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  171. Steven Nur Ahmed - While you bring up valid points, the system cannot be changed from the outside. I am grateful that Professor Reich is using his experience on the inside to educate us so we as voters can make better and more informed choices. Berating Robert will change nothing, in fact if it were not for the efforts of Robert Reich I would know nothing at all about Bernie Sanders or how to best place my vote.
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  172. I don't know why Americans go completely silent when I bring up the following: Forget about the tax cuts. If the 1% were to be paid just 2% on the accumulated $30 trillion they have but are not spending, that interest payment would completely overwhelm the entire 2018 GDP gains of $560 billion. 2% interest is nowhere near the actual amount of interest (free money) the 1% are piling up at the expense of our national economy, because S&P500 index funds have been paying over 9% since 1994. We simply cannot have $30 trillion chasing a "rate of return" in a $20 trillion annual economy without depressing wages or increasing cost on housing and health care (just to name two). Where is the outrage?
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  173. @Bruno Pereira - Interesting. I just don't know what it is that you must know. We have problems that are not being solved by capitalism and markets. I've heard a great deal about about the ills of socialism, but I have yet to hear how capitalism is solving problems whose causes are rooted in the way the economy operates. What is the idea or ideas, that you think will work?
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  174. Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  175. Baron Moron - You are a bonafide idiot who believes propaganda. People need to understand, republicans don't pass these laws because they believe in them. Republicans pass these laws on behest of the billionaire oligarchs to keep people divided and distracted, while the billionaires continue to collapse our government and economy.
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  176. Excuse me but, Lazy my ass! You have good reason to be outraged, as do all of us who are not wealthy. I believe these right wing networks have been doing more than just indoctrination. Over the span of 55 years, from 1965 to 2000, our economy expanded by 336 percent. Wealth on the other hand, expanded 4599 percent and our economy can't afford that kind of dead weight. They are greedy and lazy, yet the wealthy want us to believe they do all the work and create all the jobs. When you have that much money, it gets easy to pay people to convince other people that they are lazy. Grrrrrr!!
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  177. Job or no job, here is the reality for American workers: In 1986 median wages for men were standing at 185.2% of per capita GDP. By 2015 median wages for men had fallen to 66.2% of per capita GDP, that is a 64.3% loss in earning power over 30 years. In 1986 median wages for women were standing at 82.3% of per capita GDP. By 2015 median wages for women had fallen to 42.4% of per capita GDP, that is a 51.5% loss in earning power over 30 years. The Tax Scam will definitely make things much, much worse.
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  178. @Ronald Reagan - You have the mantra: “I am an under educated conservative, down pat”.
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  179. Well lets see now . . . we had the republican reforms in education starting back with Reagan's Three "R"s - Reform, Reduction and Reprogramming. Then you have Bush with "No Child Left Behind" which made sure children in the United States were "Right Behind" all other nations in the world. Trump supporters have received exactly the"proper" type of education they were intended to get.
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  180.  @aimwilliamson6609  - Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  181. Joe Nally - For a supposed intelligent and educated population in the USA, why is it I never hear the single most obvious question put to these supposed economic experts? With the GDP of the USA at $19.39 trillion growing at 2.6% annually and the 1% holding 50% more than that in wealth (over $30 trillion) demanding a rate of return of over 5% . . . . how is it possible for the 99% of Americans to get ahead when the wealthy are draining away our wealth to pay interest payments on the 1%'s holdings? Right now we have freaking blood sucking parasites attached to our economy draining off more than they put in. Everyone says the 1% are the investor class, yet all I see in the data and in real life is the 1% drinking down OUR wealth holdings and not investing a damn thing. We cannot grow when parasites are sucking down all of our nutrients.
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  182.  @katiekane5247  - My representative is putting forth legislation to help the homeless. When I read the email, I immediately called his office. While I applaud the effort, no legislation to help the homeless or for that matter, any of us economically is going to work until we put a hard cap on wealth accumulation. This metaphor explains it simply, if your towns water main has a break and you found out the break was artificial, with all the water going into the rich man's gigantic swimming pool while no houses could get water . . . . that problem would be fixed by the towns people. We need to fix the gusher of wealth going to the very top, so that way the rest of us don't have to suffer the consequences of homelessness and low paying jobs because of no money in the pipeline.
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  183. You are correct. The stock market grew by 100% in ten years, yet none of that was actual productivity in the "real" economy.
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  184. Iran has done nothing but to respond in a proportionate manner to the aggression of the USA and Trump. This is all Trumps fault. Trump pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump put crippling sanctions on Iran for no good reason. Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's top general. zIran has done nothing to hurt the USA. There is no evidence that Iran has taken any hostile action toward the USA. Iran has a one million man army, while the USA has a few thousand troops in the area. This is their part of the world, which the USA is mucking around in. Graham is an idiot. Trump is a moron. Pompeo is a buffoon. These half wits are going to get us into a war that we cannot win, and all this is a diversion by Trump to get us to look away from his crimes in and out of office. Anything that Iran does is directly the fault of Trump and those who support him.
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  185. Get a "doutor" fast? Do we need any more proof that right wingers are brain dead? I'll speculate "OnTheEDge" does not even know what "socialism" is, or that it has been part of the USA since the Constitution was written.
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  186. The real problem we have is this, interest payments on the 1%'s wealth exceed three times our annual GDP growth. The 1% are eating us alive.
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  187. The economy is doing better only if you are already wealthy. The claim or belief that the economy is doing better is irrational.
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  188. Francesann Jackson - Manafort pleaded guilty in Federal Court to all 18 counts he was originally charged with. Part of the leverage being used on him is that if he proves to be less than fully cooperative, more federal charges can be brought along with overlapping state charges. States can charge the same crimes as the Federal Courts can, because states are separately harmed by those crimes. If states were stripped of that ability when a federal charge of criminality is filed, then states become helpless victims at the whim of federal prosecutors. At this moment, state charges are a means of charging crimes that cannot be pardoned by the president . . . the only real leverage there is against a criminal president and his allies.
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  189. Impeach Trump in the House of Representatives . . . . then let the republicans in the Senate vote not to convict. That will be priceless ammunition for every democrat who runs for office in 2020, to be used directly against the republicans running to keep their Senate seats. No brainer Nancy, whose side are you on? Looks to me like Nancy Pelosi is worried about protecting her own corrupt hide . . . . .
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  190. morlockmeat - Exactly. I've been saying this with very little response or feedback . . . Trump is setting the stage for civil unrest so he can declare martial law and disband the Congress. This is the dictator playbook going way back, for anyone who studied the history of wars the pattern is obvious because it has been done many times in the past.
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  191. Kyle, you are not reporting accurately. What we have is William Barr's OPINION about collusion and obstruction of justice. Trump in his announcement, lied about what Barr wrote because Barr stated the investigation DID NOT exonerate Trump. As far as no evidence, we don't actually know what the evidence shows. It is not Barr's place, nor the place of the Deputy AG, nor anyone in the Justice Department to pass judgement in this matter. Barr exceeded his authority, it is Congress and ONLY Congress that that has the authority to look at the evidence provided in an investigation of the President and then decide what to do. What you, Barr and Trump are saying is that a president is above the law. Read your Constitution, what has happened is Executive Branch over reach and blatant corruption.
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  192. Terri Suder - Thom hit the nail on the head two days ago with this summary: Worker productivity since Reagan has gone up 321%, while worker wages have risen only 1/10 of 1%. Meanwhile, the simple costs of living such as housing and energy have tripled and our Federal Treasury has been raided by private interests for trillions of dollars. We, as in you, I and the ordinary people of the USA must fight back. It is time for a Maximum Annual Income . . . . and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. That is the only way to fight what is happening, open ended profits are killing us. Personally, I think the wealthy oligarchy is taking revenge on us for the FDR New Deal . . . even though the wealthy never really suffered under the New Deal. Any reforms we get will be dismantled until we the people take away the tools used to dismantle reforms. Than means capping wealth and income, no two ways about it.
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  193. People need to understand, republicans don't pass these laws because they believe in them. Republicans pass these laws on behest of the billionaire oligarchs to keep people divided and distracted, while the billionaires continue to collapse our government and economy.
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  194. The Electoral College is written into the Constitution, so what we actually need to do is add a constitutional amendment. This amendment would have to be crafted in such a way to permanently curtail the use of the Electoral College, and the amendment would need protections to keep it useful in the manner we desire and not subverted in the future.
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  195. Fascism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce, that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . . it is a duck. Government and business is becoming one and the same . . . under an authoritarian type leader. Look at the person holding the office of president, then look at his cabinet. Quack, quack.
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  196. LLC - The Fed is once again bailing out the banks . . . . which for some reason are "short" on money even though they are making huge profits. Between September 23 and October 10, the Fed will be pumping $75 billion of liquidity per business day into the banking system. The market repurchase agreements, or repo program was initiated when the overnight borrowing interest rate between banks skyrocketed from 2% to almost 10% in a day. Pumping almost $1 trillion in liquidity into the banking system dilutes the value of the dollar . . . once again making things we need to live cost more. We need to put a stop to this. There is one very easy solution that everyone seems to ignore . . . put a cap on wealth accumulation. No system, natural or man made, exists without limits . . . except how wealthy certain people can get. Enough already, we need to apply common sense to the situation and place hard cap limits on wealth . . . that one action will solve so many of our problems in the economy.
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  197. Roadmap to psychopathy. What a load of BS.
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  198. Darkmire - The point you raise when you wrote this: "Clinton was at least as illegitimate as Trump as a general election candidate", really captures the irritating doubts I've had since the 2016 election. Neither party can be trusted. Unless you run a clean campaign without big donor money, you can't be trusted. I'm getting beautiful election mail right now, printed on heavy card stock with lots of glossy photos . . . all from the wrong kind of candidates. About five years ago our household went through an economic reorganization. We sat down, made a new budget plan, reallocated resources and followed through by sticking to the plan. I'm very ill at ease with the lack of such talking and planning from our representatives, with regards to "we the people". So far as I can tell, our leadership is committed to a path that does not "promote the general welfare" or "insure domestic tranquility" of the country's people, but does everything possible to facilitate the concentration of wealth and political power into fewer and fewer hands. Since it has been established that our political parties have betrayed the people, what are we to do now?
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  199.  @markintexas1296  - David Cameron is correct. The 10th Amendment does not apply to money or taxes for the federal government. States are not allowed to print their own currency, thus different rules apply to the state budgets. Only the federal government can create money under the Constitution, Article-1, Section 8. Thus the following statement by David Cameron is true: "The only entity capable of raising the massive funds needed to maintain our massive infrastructure that is vitally important to the economic needs of this country is the federal government. ". You are listening to and putting stock into propaganda, not facts.
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  200. What? Trump and Melania are going to hold hands and jump off a cliff? Wow! That would make for Happy Holidays indeed!
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  201. Our president? Oh, you mean that oaf who is not representing all Americans, but instead is only serving himself? What happened to all his wonderful campaign promises? I'd like to see that health care for everyone that he promised, he had the chance when republicans controlled both houses of Congress . . . . but nooooo. Trump passed a major tax cut for the wealthy and drove up our national debt. Aside from that, Trump has done nothing whatsoever for the people who elected him.
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  202. In the past month and a half, the Federal Reserve has pumped at least $1.2 trillion of liquidity into the banking system. This has devalued the dollar by several percent (perhaps up to 5%) just in a few months time. If there is any solution, it is to place a cap in individual wealth. To visualize the effect of unlimited wealth accumulation, just blow up an balloon and leave the stem untied. All these bailouts and liquidity injections are trying to replace the escaping air from the open ended economic balloon, so the answer is to tie it off. Cap wealth accumulation at $10 million and a vast majority of these economic problems will abate.
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  203. Accumulated wealth is harmful to the economy, which can be proven using simple math. Using the figures for 2019 shows the harm in stark contrast to the myth. Privately held financial assets (wealth) exceeded $90 trillion, with a average growth rate of 5% to 7% annually. The GDP for the USA was $21.5 trillion with a growth rate over 2018 of 4.1% for the year. The pile of wealth grew by $4.5 trillion (using 5% figure), while the GDP grew by $848.8 billion. If only 18.8% of the wealth growth was converted to capital gains. that would wipe out all the GDP growth for 2019. Accumulated wealth is cannibalizing our economy, eating us alive, and for no better reason than for the wealthy to have bragging rights. Enough is enough.
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  204. Median income today buys less than half of what median income purchased 30 years ago.
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  205.  Marco Polo1  - Thanks for the confirmation, republican voters are simply empty skull loaded up with propaganda.
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  206.  @DavidAdkins78  - You cannot really be that uniformed, can you? Or maybe you are not uniformed, and you are just gaslighting. I suppose if you were referring to 1961 instead of 2021, you may be correct, but that was long ago and this is now. What passes for smart responsible people in your mind, are actually accomplices in the largest fleecing operation ever known to mankind. You can do math, eh? Tell me, when you project the line in the linked graph out 35 years, what is it's orientation? Spoiler alert! The line will be vertical, which means that a small knot of people will own everything, and that is how capitalism gives us the most prosperous workers in the whole wide world (not). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO
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  207. whyamimrpink - See, there you go lying again. This is what the "facts and logic" of the right has given us over the past 40 years . . . stagnant wages and a minimum tripling of the basics costs just to live. Meanwhile, the theft from society in the form of interest payments, dividends and rents surpassed the sum total of all wages paid to Americans in 1982 . . .as if that was not enough, annual payments in the form of interest, dividends and rents surpassed the annual profits of all companies and corporations in the early 2000's. Capitalism has turned into a massive Ponzi scheme, and you are just a mouthpiece that supports this kind of thievery. The core of the left is driven by facts substantiated by reality and history. The foundation of the rights core beliefs is all emotionally driven . . . and you will once again ignore the facts and continue to predictably lie about everything.
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  208. SupaDr00g - Reading your comments, I perceive a person who has completely succumbed to capitalist propaganda. Your mind is stuck on a single track . . . that an alternate economic system which eliminates the billionaire class could not operate because the incentives to excel would no longer work as they do with capitalism. Your arguments fail here because you seem to be ignoring what human potential has to offer. Have you ever asked yourself what income or wealth level is enough for any human to live in the best of luxury lifestyles . . . without passing the threshold of taking away the voting power of your fellow citizens? What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day. So you see, if you use your innate abilities to think outside the box . . . solutions are possible without the dire consequences your programmed perception blinders lead you to believe. Have some faith in humanity my friend.
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  209. Mitch McConnell has shown through his actions that the "representative republic" of the USA no longer exists.
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  210. "The major issues were off the agenda". That one line says everything. The corporate democrats are implicated in wrong doing, or worse, are just as guilty of major crimes in office as Trump. This means that neither party can really hold the other accountable, which is why we get impeachment only when an democratic elite is targeted, or something like "Bengazi forever" from the republicans.
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  211.  @mickeyrosa7226  - The problem is, they don't spend most of this extra money because they already have plenty. In these huge wealth funds, they roll it over so that it destroys more of our economy each year. With regards to the offshore accounts, there are 17 international wealth funds totaling over $50 trillion chasing a rate of return in a $80 trillion annual global economy. The developing nations are are also being sucked dry, though not quite as unbalanced as the $30 trillion seeking interest from the $20 trillion U.S. economy.
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  212. Wow. What a bunch of trump trolls. Since when does a prosecutor release information on the investigation before they are ready to file charges?
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  213. And there is no actual ability to carry on with "free enterprise" (such as the founders wanted), not with all the monopoly power in play.
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  214. Maybe that is why "we" should take greed out of the system. A system has boundaries, or it is not a system. Our economic system is like a car engine leaking oil. We allow unlimited wealth growth, that is the leak in our system. Run a car engine after all the oil leaks out, well there will be problems to say the least. Our problem is we have an "economic system" that is malfunctioning, therefor the cycles of breakdowns. The one thing in common for all the era's Professor Wolff talks about is, there is no upper limit on wealth growth. Therein lies our problem and our answer.
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  215. The fracture splitting the democratic party is growing wider. It is now only a matter of time before the democratic party splits and a new party for progressives emerges. It is about damn time.
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  216. We have socialism right now, been going on for decades. It's called "Socialism for the Wealthy". You know, the comments here are rather strange. Yes, there are more homeless people here than in any other state. Why? Because the weather is survivable all year round, it has nothing to do with political ideologies. California roads are not the best to be sure, yet as my daughter departed her state due to divorce, she noted that the roads that were not interstate highways were exceedingly bad in every state until she arrived here. I'm going to point fingers here, "you people", who write all the snide comments about "Commieforna" and the democratic politicians here, yet you are blissfully unaware that you are being manipulated. This video is manipulating you. John Stossel is not an unbiased reporter. His Fox Business show "Stossel", aired viewpoints on individual freedom, free market capitalism and small government, all very common in the American media. Yet what most people seem unaware of is these are the talking points of billionaires, whose purpose is to use propaganda in pursuit of power. The homeless issue is not a product of political positions, because it happens regardless if a democrat or republican is in power. Homelessness is a product of growing wealth, when large corporations buy up whole neighborhoods, driving up costs of home ownership for everyone and driving those less able to cope onto the streets. The wealthy cleaned up in 2020, with financial assets gaining almost ten trillion dollars. I believe the entire reason Trump never responded to the Covid pandemic is because corporations wanted to fire millions and re-hire some of the fired workers at lower wages. Stop blaming the politicians and political parties, while they are not saints, they are not the ones in the drivers seat. Use your common sense people, wealth cannot get bigger while millions lose everything, not unless something fishy is going on with our "elite" wealth holders.
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  217.  @carmene626  - Here are some specifics if you would like to follow up. Current numbers are difficult to track down, but even partial numbers paint the picture. As of Q-4 2019, total financial assets of households and non-profit organizations was $95.61 trillion. That number is 4.35 times larger than our national GDP in 2019, and all those financial assets "earn" interest or dividends. I took a look at interest and dividend rates, there is a wide variance from 1.5% to over 9.6% annually, so using an assumed average of 5% interest, that comes out to $4.78 trillion in "unearned income" for these financial asset holders. This is over 20% of our entire economic output for 2019, and that is not the entire bulk of all "financial assets". Final note, I found a Wikipedia reference for 2014 that held the grand total of financial assets in the United States to be $197 trillion. Interest income for $197 trillion at 5% is $9.85 trillion and the 2014 GDP was $17.527 trillion. That "Unearned Income" was over half of the 2014 GDP. https://ycharts.com/indicators/total_financial_assets_assets_balance_sheet_of_households_and_nonprofit_organizations_unadjusted
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  218. Since we have a Minimum Wage, it stands to reason we should have a Maximum Annual Income . . . and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. Instituting both will end so many of the problems we have in our society, from public election funding to the internal reinvestment priority shift that will take place in companies and corporations. If the Annual Maximum Income were set at 1.75 million for individuals and the Accumulated Wealth Cap set at 50 million dollars per family . . . that would be more than enough to live a lifetime in the utmost of luxury. Lets face it folks, the only thing obscene wealth is used for is to exercise power over the powerless . . . so let us put an end to the morbidly wealthy and their ego centered power grabs. By all means, be successful . . . when you reach the Maximums your rewards for success are paid up and it is appropriate that the surplus go back into the society that helped you create the surplus in the first place.
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  219. Zevin X - I concur with your statement. As I began to carry out my own personal investigation of "our economy" two years ago, I was unaware of Karl Marx and much of what you commented on. When my investigation concluded, I was able to clearly see how capitalism and specifically the behavior of the USA after World War One clearly played a major role in provoking WW2 and all the carnage that followed. The death toll of capitalism is horrendous and dwarfs all the contradictory propaganda being fed to us about how deadly socialist and communist regimes have been. What I also have to acknowledge is that the early forms of socialism have been fraught with what I will define as "teething pains of social engineering". As an engineer I have designed and built many machines. Every single machine has a developmental arc and no machine comes out perfect on the first try. The cries of capitalism supporters that socialism is so deadly are never tempered with the acknowledgement that these were the first attempts in a much longer developmental arc which has yet to play out. We are still slaves in a system that has over-matured to the point of placing all of us in mortal danger. This planet is a closed system, which can no longer tolerate the whims of the purely selfish minority. We have to recognize that greed and the lust for power are the greatest enemies of humanity . . . and thus do what is necessary for us to survive. The power and greed must be put under the yoke and made slaves to the greater will of humanity, it really is that simple to understand. The difficulty is the will to do so.
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  220. Thanks for the support Edgar, revolution is what it is going to take.
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  221. Capitalism kills. Criminalize capitalism!
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  222. Job creators my a*s, these people are sucking us dry like parasites. Overall, the value of financial assets grew by $13.68 trillion in 2021, an 11.58% increase over 2020. That value increase is just over 66% of GDP for the year. When financial assets increase in value, it is not because of savvy investment planning. That increase represents a vacuum cleaner that is sucking wealth straight out of the paychecks, wallets, purses and bank accounts of the bottom 90% of households in the USA.
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  223.  @sarathompson2035  - We might not have a two party system much longer. The republicans are fracturing and the democrats are very nearly doing the same. Funny thing, our two party system, both the DNC and the RNC are private corporations that don't actually listen to anyone except wealthy donors. Therein lies our solution, we as voters must stop electing the candidates with the most money in their primary campaigns, because if we don't, then we are truly stuck. I'm not yet holding my breath about ordinary people knowing, that they need to pay attention to who gets elected, but I have hope and I actively inform people of the simple root cause of our collective problem. The point of view I have developed is recent, I'm nearly 60 years old and I just started figuring out how dreadful our political and economic system is about three years ago. So far I have distilled our problem down one source, the morbid toxicity of accumulated wealth. The simple math does not lie, demonstrated by using just one section of accumulated wealth, privately held financial assets. In 2019 there was over $90 trillion in privately held financial assets, growing at an averaged rate of 5% annually. All of that asset growth is supposed to be generated by our economy, but how can it when the economy is 1/4th the size ($21.5 trillion) and over the past thirty years has grown at an average rate of 2.56%? Because of this imbalance, nothing can ever get better in the future. Wealth will continue to grow, while the bottom 90% wilts on the vine. How we change things is first to INDIVIDUALLY understand the magnitude of our economic situation (because politics is all about the economy at it's core), and then spread the word. It really is up to you and I to change our world. If you understand what I have written here, then you have become "plus one" more person ready to change things. Spread the word about this. Wealth and debt always grow faster than the economy. This has been well know for over three thousand years. We the people, over the past forty years, have been fooled into believing the biggest economic hustle, con job and scam in human history. There are a lot of reasons why we have the system we have, with no bottom and an unlimited top side, all of them meant to keep a small group in power over everyone else. There is no rising tide that lifts all boats. I am an engineer, so I can tell you that an open ended system always fails by blowing up, breaking apart or running out of fuel. This is the system that accumulated wealth protects, so if we want to escape it we must close the system or break it. January 6th shows that our system is breaking, so if we don"t want that to happen, we must vote in people who are not part of the existing wealth parties.
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  224. I'm getting very tired of choices being between the "lessor" of two evils.
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  225. Here is the problem: Housing "units" are capital assets. An asset has a single purpose, to increase in value. Housing is not for families to call home anymore, it's to increase the wealth of the owner.
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  226. The Fed is once again bailing out the banks . . . . which for some reason are "short" on money even though they are making huge profits. Between September 23 and October 10, the Fed will be pumping $75 billion of liquidity per business day into the banking system. The market repurchase agreements, or repo program was initiated when the overnight borrowing interest rate between banks skyrocketed from 2% to almost 10% in a day. Pumping almost $1 trillion in liquidity into the banking system dilutes the value of the dollar . . . once again making things we need to live cost more. We need to put a stop to this. There is one very easy solution that everyone seems to ignore . . . put a cap on wealth accumulation. No system, natural or man made, exists without limits . . . except how wealthy certain people can get. Enough already, we need to apply common sense to the situation and place hard cap limits on wealth . . . that one action will solve so many of our problems in the economy.
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  227.  @davidlafleche1142  - Geez David, give it a rest.
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  228.  @davidlafleche1142  - Trump accuses himself. We don't need "talking heads" to know this: When a person goes to incredible lengths to hide information and has a documented record of not telling the truth over a span of years in public office, that IS information which is public, absolute and irrefutable. No one who surrounds themselves with so many criminals, while telling bald faced lies we can all fact check, is someone who is misunderstood. If you cannot acknowledge or even see the publicly available evidence, then you are the one with the problem.
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  229.  @bluenami7520  - No system has unlimited power or growth, not trees, not animals, nor any construct created artificially by man. Not even a star can be larger than a certain mass without collapsing. What we need to do is put a hard cap on accumulated wealth. This much, and not a penny more. The cap needs to apply both to individuals and to businesses.
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  230.  @BenisBoy14  - Ok, I just watched this video. First of all, Prager U is a propaganda channel set up by Dennis Prager. While his videos are very appealing to conservatives, they are highly skewed. When I refer to "progressives", I'm not talking about the way households or local governments are run. I'm talking about how the federal government is run and the way the wealthy gain more wealth. We run our household with conservative methodology. Local and state governments must operate using a conservative methodology or they will go broke. That is not the way the federal government or those with excessive wealth operate. There is a distinction and a difference. The federal government creates money and can never go broke. None of our federal tax money is used to run the federal government, all of the federal government operating expenses are covered through congressional appropriations and spending bills signed by the president. Spending bills signed into law are the check, and the U.S. Treasury can always cash the check. The federal government chooses to sell bonds, though there is no requirement for this, it is a safe haven for savings because the federal government can never go broke. Our federal tax money is used to retire older bonds, but the reason the federal debt keeps going up is because taxes have been lowered over the past four decades for the higher income and wealthy citizens, so there is not enough taxes coming in to retire bonds. Of course there are other reasons for the federal debt going up, useless wars, bailing out banks and Wall Street, subsidies to industry, etc. However the main reason we have a federal debt is that the U.S. government is the source of all currency and if that currency is withdrawn by balancing the budget, we would be in perpetual economic depression. Those with excessive wealth (I consider the wealth of Dennis Prager to be on the low end of the excessive wealth scale), use this type of propaganda to advocate for low taxes for the wealthy, by trying to equate themselves with a middle income conservative household. They are nothing like a conservative household. The exponential growth of compounded interest creates wealth by extracting it from the very conservative households this propaganda is appealing to. Look here, there is an example of the accumulation of wealth put forward by a 1700's philosopher that I like to use. The economist Michael Hudson translated his writings into U.S. currency so we could understand it. If you took one U.S. penny at 5% compounded interest, and started it in a savings account at the birth of Jesus Christ, by the year 1750 the value of that initial penny would be over 180 earth size globes of SOLID GOLD. This of course, is completely unsustainable. By issuing this kind of conservative propaganda, the wealthy elites are trying to obscure from us the way they grow their wealth, not from hard work and effort like you, or Elon Musk, but from extracting wealth from all of us, so they can get compounded interest based on their already immense accumulated wealth. The same thing happens when you get 20% of the population who have accumulated wealth 2.5 times our annual GDP, the compounded interest being paid on that accumulated wealth can only be gained by extracting wealth from the bottom 80%, but even then, there is a limit. This is why since late September of 2019, the Federal Reserve has been pumping liquidity into the banking system like mad. The world is running out of money to pay interest to the wealthy. Central banks all over the world are pumping currency into the banking system, and that currency is being borrowed by corporations and the wealthy seeking a greater rate of return in the stock markets. That is the entire reason the stock markets are booming. Being progressive in the modern era means putting a stop to the over-accumulation of wealth, because it is simply unsustainable. It is not about jealousy or envy, those words are propaganda talking points. It is about our very survival as a species, that is what being a "progressive" is all about these days.
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  231.  @gibblespascack1418  - Here is what you are ignoring in your rationalizations. Ever since the final business quarter of 1980, the sum total of financial assets (from which IRA's and 401k's are derived), has been greater than our GDP. This happened because Congress gutted company funded pensions in 1974. At the end of 1980, the sum total financial assets was half a trillion more than our GDP. By 1990 that gap was enlarged to $6.9 trillion. By the year 2000 the gap had widened further to $21.2 trillion. Today that gap is $93.684 trillion or 4.8 times the size of our GDP. Today the gap has widened so far that extraction from the population is simply not enough to fuel a 12% annual growth rate, so the government is now being looted. What you are writing here is an outright lie, the money to grow IRA's and 401k's is stolen, not earned. Furthermore, to blame the individual is simply part of the propaganda used to justify the theft. What gives you the right to take money you have not earned? This is not a matter of financial discipline, that is a load of crap and you my friend, are full of it.
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  232.  A OK  - If you care so much about the killing of the unborn, then you should care in equal measure and with equal vigor for those who are already among the living. Yet like all those who spout such false care for the unborn, you care nothing for your fellow humans. Go suck on your big toe and be gone already, you deserve no credence for your blasphemy.
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  233.  @markintexas1296  - I feel sorry for you man, you have been conned. Your idea of how money gets into the economy is entirely incorrect.
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  234. YouTube algorithms keep Thom down, the owners and investors in Google/YouTube don't want people to understand the truth, it is against their best interests.
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  235.  @romanromanowski9038  - The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass Stegall Act and which Clinton signed, was completely written by republicans. This made Clinton no different than republicans, he may as well have been one.
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  236. I agree with Cindy. There is no system in existence, natural or artificial, that has no upper and lower limits to operate within. The con job that we have been sold is that in our economy, we can have unlimited wealth growth and no bottom limit. There is a direct correlation between the growth of millionaires/billionaires and the growth of homelessness in our country, the more people who become wealthy, the more the homeless population grows.
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  237. Sooo . . . what is the point? How does this information help the American people? Are you dividing us too? What are you getting at? Who are you? What do you want?
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  238.  @dr.catherineelizabethhalse1820  - The Saudis want this war so badly . . . they staged a self inflicted "attack". Take a serious look at this, a "missile" attack without explosive warheads? Refinery structures with "puncture" wounds, which were back in operation within days? Missiles are expensive and tend to flatten structures when they explode. What was shown to the media as a missile attack was really a few well placed Saudi artillery rounds doing minimal damage . . . all staged.
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  239. "I don't think Americans want to pay that price". The standard of living for us Americans has been deteriorating for decades, with the quality of living on life support. As an American, I'm getting sick and tired of mandatory costs rising every year while getting no commensurate pay increases. What I have witnessed in the past several decades is increasing debt, not as a spending plan problem but as a necessity to keep up with health care and housing. As a child of the 60's, I was looking forward to robots doing the work so that we humans could explore inner and outer space. And what did we really get? Financialized capitalism where the top 10% spend loads of money on yachts and everyone else is loaded with unpayable debt. Dan. J. Mitchell is just another schill for wealthy interests, thanks Thom, for the contrasting points of view.
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  240. Republicans have conned the Boomers and those who came before them into sacrificing our children and grandchildren, just so that the wealthy can sit on their piles of assets. AOC is a REAL American, unlike the traitor GOP. Anyone want to debate that? Bring it on.
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  241. Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  242. What grinds at me is this: I always paid attention to the news, thought I was well informed, always voted. Now I know I was not well informed, just well indoctrinated. I always thought the United States had decency and honor . . . Starting in the 1960's industrialists and wealthy businessmen knew they were going to sell out the American Way, the indigenous national economy our founders set up. They now had access to cheap labor markets world wide and they were going to abandon American workers. However that was not enough, they wanted back the wealth and power workers had accumulated since the end of the Republican Great Depression. (In the 1950's they had the name "Republican" removed from school textbook references to the Great Depression, but that is what Roosevelt named it). They did not tell us what they were up to because they intended to do more that just remove jobs, they were going to use the economy to suck our wealth away from us . . . carefully over decades. It was all too easy. Just stagnate wages due to foreign labor pressure, then increase costs of the necessities of life. Some of those necessity costs kept pace with GDP growth (housing), while others like healthcare and medicine face triple cost increases OVER GDP growth. Meanwhile median Household Incomes have risen only because there are more than two earners per household, yet costs have outpaced the income gains by households so much so . . . that debt for all is inevitable. We have been set up . . . by our own people. The people who have done this call themselves Americans, I smell only traitors. Regardless, we have to live with the results. Americans will never get back those jobs and as long as the criminal traitor republicans still sit in our government . . . "We the People" has lost all relevant meaning. Now we vote them out for good, or we lose everything. At this rate all wealth will be in the hands if the 0.01% in twenty years.
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  243. TheUltimateBeing01 - It is far more sinister than pathetic. United States Vice President Henry Wallace warned the American people to about the danger of American Fascism and it is happening right now. Here is the quote from his speech (excerpt from an article in the New York Times, April 9, 1944.), talking about the very people today who brought us the liar in chief tRump as president: "The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust of both Britain and Russia. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."
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  244. Individualism has been sold to us . . . When I got curious and read the republican 2016 platform, I was appalled at the number of references to individualism. Reading between the lines, individualism provides justification for billionaires not to be taxed and to escape legal actions resulting from their bad behavior, while at the same time building the foundation to oppress individuals using vehicles like binding arbitration and revoking collective actions like class action lawsuits. The Constitution reads "We the People" . . . not "I the individual". The republican platform essentially reads as Anti-Constitution.
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  245. Yup, I choose to not pay for the road next to my house, nor do I choose to have a fire department, and I don't want that school my daughter goes to, plus I don't see the need for police, or water systems, or sewer systems, or a power grid, or mass transit, or the hospital, certainly not the university, city hall, the state houses, the entire federal government . . . . hmmm, what else can I chuck in the bin to lower the rich political campaign donors taxes?
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  246. +Adam Kir - Ditto here, fully agree. If there is anyone who knows how to play and survive with principles intact, it is Bernie.
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  247. Carolyn Falkowski - I was hoping someone would make your observation. Furthermore, I wonder if Pete Olsen thinks he arrived in this world without the assistance of a father's contribution . . . . and thus able to make proclamations that his x chromosome gave him divine insight into - - Hhmmm Hurmpphhh . . . sorry, had to choke on my very bad joke.
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  248. Soooo - White Defiler - Lets take an accounting here. 1). Every civilized advanced economy nation on earth offers advanced education at minimal cost or free to its citizens, thus making for a productive workforce. 2). Every civilized advanced economy nation on earth offers single payer or universal health care to its citizens, thus making for a healthy workforce. So on those two points, where does the USA stand? 1). Well now, student debt here is second only to mortgage debt. We enslave our university and college students with debt. An indentured workforce. Undeniable fact. No other advanced country does that to its citizens. 2). Here in the USA we are required to pay, out of pocket and after taxes for our healthcare. Those that cannot afford it are forced to due without. Additionally, 650,000 to 1.5 million people every year file for bankruptcy due to unpaid medical expenses. Furthermore, 40,000 people die each year due to lack of health care. No other advanced country does that to its citizens. Now lets add into the mix that median income American workers have not gotten a raise adjusted to inflation or to GDP growth in over 35 years. GDP has more than doubled during the same period, so where did all the new money go? The answer is American industrialists legally stole it from American workers, with politicians making it possible as co-conspirators. Furthermore, republicans are always shouting about the U.S. federal debt being too high so the budget must be cut. At the same time they are shouting that taxes are too high and taxes must be cut. Wish granted, the top federal tax rate was cut by 55% over the same time period in which American industrialists legally stole trillions of dollars from the American worker. All done of course legally of course, with same politicians making it possible as co-conspirators. The federal debt exists because you got your wish. These are all facts, so don't even start with this "liberal gibberish", "America does not owe you anything libtard" and "another liberal snowflake wanting more free taxpayer benefits" bullshit you republicans always spout. Everything I wrote is verifiable fact, if you care to get off your slimy green ass and look it up. By the way, ALL republicans continue to participate as co-conspirators(including Karen Handel) with the wealthy elite of the USA, with the help of the corporate sponsored democrats, to take down American democracy. These are the New Royalists Billionaires Club and wannabe members. Soon their boot will be on the heads of all Americans(including yours, my deluded friend), destroying the Constitution and creating a upper-class/under-class dystopian society. So White Defiler, who are the real fascists in the USA? Give you a hint, it is not the progressive left. Give yourself a good look in the mirror my fascist friend, with all that bile you spouted . . . you are talking about yourself. You are helping to create this nightmare.
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  249. Butterfly Knight - The progressive uprising is going to happen!
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  250. M A - Thank you for pointing that out. As a progressive, I see Schumer as a sellout to corporate interests. Schumer may as well be a republican, he needs to be voted out of office and replaced with a true progressive.
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  251. The United States chose socialism a long time ago, for the wealthy. Americans don't even realize that the top 20% skims $2.5 trillion in free money directly out of the economy every year, without lifting a finger to earn that money. That is socialism for the rich.
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  252. alaskanmes - That the modern poor live in luxury compared to 50 years ago is one of the dumbest arguments ever made. In addition, your comment regarding communism shows a distinct lack of education about the subject . . . in fact is shows you know nothing except what right wing propaganda has taught you. Get some real learning under your belt and maybe then you will be capable of having a reasoned conversation on the matter, in the meantime you are full of shit.
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  253. There was a time when Ronald Reagan was a true progressive, he actually made speeches which any progressive today would recognize. Then there came a time in his successful career when he became co-opted by right wing fanaticism because of his own greed. He wondered aloud why he should continue to working, when after six months labor (if you can call acting "labor"), most of his earnings went to the government in taxes. At the time Reagan was musing about this individual income tax rates for the top income bracket were at 91% and 92%, out of sight compared to the present day. He stated that he would be better served spending the last six months of the year on his ranch riding horses. Well, riding horses is exactly what Ronald Reagan should have done. Let another actor have the chance to play that leading man role. Furthermore, the patriotic thing to do was to keep working and pay those taxes willingly to support the USA and all the USA could accomplish with those tax revenues. Instead greed overtook Ronald Reagan, greed that overwhelmed the sense of abundance he should have carried in his heart, greed that eventually corrupted and threatens now to topple this once great country. Exactly how much money does one person need? If Ronald Reagan had enough money to have a ranch and horses by working only six months out of the year, is that not enough for one person to have? This idea that our society can only function when a small segment demands more and more at the expense of the remainder of our society . . . that idea is the symptom of a terminal illness within our society. There is no reason for the wealth concentration pervasive today other than greed. Does not the Bible say something about greed and avarice? The idea of a cap on wealth and income is a healthy one for the society of today. Every person can live well enough, even a life of luxury . . . without the need to accumulate more than could ever be spent in one human lifetime. It is time for us as humanity to grow up, before the idiots of avarice poison the necessary life giving natural systems on OUR collective planet to the point where no living creatures can survive. Once a certain level of personal annual income and accumulated wealth is achieved, any surplus generated needs to be gladly handed back to the society that enabled that income and wealth to be generated in the first place. Attitudes need to change about this topic . . . immediately.
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  254. Biden is a self described Obama democrat. So what you you going to do Joe, give more billions to the banks and force even more people out of their homes? If Biden gets the top slot, I will vote third party for the top of the ticket for the first time in my life.
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  255. xWIN? LOL - The ideal of socialism? No. Bernie does not advocate for what you describe as "the ideal of socialism". Furthermore, the investment I was talking about Bill Gates making with his surplus billions is into hedge funds (cannibalistic opportunists). . . . not his own company. When you get that big you don't invest in your own company, you absorb (eat) other companies. There is a practical limit to growth.
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  256. Tony Bonura - Adam Schiff has been presented with evidence. As minority Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he signed the rebuttal to the republican findings of "no collusion" and those papers are public. In addition, he has seen the classified information. There is more than enough information in the public sector already to convict the entire Trump family of conspiracy in a court of law, so what Mueller is holding is much more powerful. So, as a point of fact . . . evidence does exist, it has been presented, it is in the public domain, and Trump's track record shows he is following the Russian foreign policy script instead of the well established U.S. foreign policy. That is also public evidence. Do you really need more?
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  257. Not the only way. The noted Marxist David Harvey has opined that capital is too entrenched, has grown too deep of roots to remove by revolution. Therefor, capitalism itself cannot be removed by revolution. There is a way however to evolve capitalism so that the eventual path to a better society can be achieved. Put a cap on wealth accumulation for both individuals and business. Stop allowing for the limitless accumulation of wealth. No system, natural or artificial can grow forever, there are always limits. The problem with capitalism now is that it can grow until destruction. Limits are the path forward, preserve capitalism, with limits on accumulation of capital and wealth.
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  258. Whenever we hear about the economy (and it does not matter which mainstream media source), the reporting is always about stocks, the stock market and GDP. Not once have I heard about the $90 trillion plus in privately held financial assets earning over 5%, nor have I heard how that pile of wealth earns so much from a relatively puny $21.5 trillion annual economy. The numbers don't add up. However, with those numbers I now understand why there have been such massive bailouts from the federal government, because without the bailouts these "earnings" are simply not possible. The entire "IRA, 401k and pension fund investments" have been a scheme, a hustle, a con of the American people, a way for the wealthy to make accomplices of the American people as they fleece the wealth from us and our country.
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  259. The explanation and demonstration of how capitalism works was well defined by Professor Wolff. The problem that I am having with this explanation of capitalism, is about what is not contained in the professor's example. Wealthy people "invest" their wealth for a "rate of return", most notably in the stock market. The wealthy people produce nothing, yet their wealth grows. I can see this being akin to the money lender getting both principle and interest back at the end of the year, but that is not what happens with "investment" capital. So what happens when investment capital grows to many times the size of production capital? Right now, investment capital in the form of financial assets, are nearly five times the size of our entire GDP. Given that the capital of capitalism is supposed to grow through production, how is it that investment capital is larger and grows faster?
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  260. You want the truth? Can you handle the truth? Well here it is: U.S. GDP over 30 years averages 2.561% S&P 500 rate of return since 1991 is 9.81% Total rise in GDP between 1985 and 2016 is 84.58% Total rate for return for S&P 500 over 30 years is 294.3% Wages for U.S. workers have been flat for 40 years. Wealth for the top 1% over 30 years is up 16.8 trillion dollars Wealth for the bottom 50% over 30 years is down 900 billion dollars The truth is that debt always exceeds growth in every economy. Why? Because the top 1% must have a rate of return on their unused wealth and that always overpowers the growth in every economy and forces the population at large into debt. You want justice? Well you can't have justice until you are willing to force your government into instituting debt forgiveness. Every great society on earth has learned it must forgive debt or go the way of the Roman Empire. Debt forgiveness is in the Bible: Look up: Leviticus 25 jubilee commentary
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  261. I believe these right wing networks have been doing more than just indoctrination. Over the span of 55 years, from 1965 to 2000, our economy expanded by 336 percent. Wealth on the other hand, expanded 4599 percent. Think about what kind of long term planning is required for such a feat. I don't think our economy can generate that, just so far this year the gains for financial assets equals 49% of our entire economic output. There is no way half of our economy is being sucked up by the wealthy, is there?
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  262. IronskullGM - Let the rich move, if they dare . . . besides they leach out more from the economy than they pay in taxes so your argument that they pay 80% of taxes falls flat (besides being incorrect). They will face the same situation or worse in another country. What are they all going to do, all move to Ireland or Bermuda? Furthermore, your historical reference is askew. There was no war for the USA during the 1930's when FDR was implementing the New Deal, that came after.
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  263. $1000 or $4000 . . . it is still only a bonus (payoff). Why not increase wages for the workers instead? Ahhhh . . . . because that would be a long term commitment affecting profits down the line. So instead AT&T will pay about 0.001% of their annual revenue as a public relations ploy and hope the public and their employees will be grateful enough to complain no further.
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  264. Ms Rutabaga - Yes indeed, and it is about time too. We have been under attack by internal enemies since I was a child. Imagine that, I am 56 years old and until last year . . . I believed in this country (or the version of this country I was taught to believe in). Now with my eyes wide open, I see that we have been fed a steady diet of propaganda while our elected leaders and the business community (lumping all the big ones into one bag here) have sold us out. Citizens are the stakeholders in our country, but at some point in the 1960's the shareholder became the dominant force in our economy and then our politicians followed suite. The simplest explanation is that wealthy interests bought out a system of government that was based on trust and norms, then rigged the government to work exclusively for their interests. This is in direct contradiction to words from the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln, often quoted as a definition of democracy: "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth." Seems to me now that the corruption of our perceived democratic form of government started when I was a kid, and I was deliberately kept in the dark about it. The powers behind this want us kept in the dark. Imagine if the millions more who thought like me could be awakened to the tragedy in progress happening all around them. We stakeholders need to take back our government, and take back our private enterprise also. Private enterprise is what the founders wanted for the citizens, not shareholder driven and Board of Directors run publicly traded companies making all the decisions. I don't think the founding fathers would approve of behemoth multinational corporations having a democratic seat in OUR government.
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  265. I'm 58 and have already voted for Bernie in the California primary . . . . mail in ballot. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  266. Let us not forget that the banksters after being bailed out by OUR taxes. . . then proceeded to strip Americans of capital and wealth through foreclosures, closures and mergers. We have been robbed gong both directions by the same criminals.
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  267. farmer 1 1 - If Schiff is dirty, then Trump is drenched in slimey swamp mud. No one who is so innocent protests and lies as much as trum(PP)utin does.
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  268. Bob Nelson - This is the nature of the republicans, thieves and villains . . . the lot of them. They care nothing for "We the People" or the U.S. Constitution, all they are out to do is use our MMT monetary system to line their own pockets, give out corporate welfare and enact socialism for the wealthy.
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  269.  @Mrbfgray  - You wrote: Here is the brief recipe how most everyone becomes prosperous/wealthy: A) invest heavy in yourself, master valuable skills and personal integrity. B) capitalize on those skills via yrs/decades of hard work and likely striking out on your own...all the while living well below your means and saving a ton. Live poor to become rich. C) learn how to invest effectively to have modest snowball began to grow "on it's own", the bigger it gets the faster it grows. Learn the power of compounding. Me: A) Done that. Watched those valuable skills become meaningless over time as industrial capitalist moved their capital assets and labor forces out of the country. Retrained a half dozen times, have many real skills, just no longer valued here. B) Done that too. Always lived well below my means. For reasons outlined in (A), my ton of savings evaporated with each new cycle of retraining. Living poor to become rich does not work for the majority. C) The power of compounding? Really? What do you really know about compounding? "“Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." That was written in 1772 by Richard Price, a contemporary to Adam Smith. He worked out the math that showed that one penny could, in 1800 years, turn into 150 MILLION earth size globes of gold. Compounding has been well known as a scam idea, all the way back to Ancient Mesopotamia and Babylon. Those cultures had the wisdom to reset all debts periodically, to prevent the rise of oligarchy. Really now, there is not even one earth size sphere of gold in the entire solar system, 150 million of them is beyond ridiculous. I study these things. You recite propagandist doctrine created by wealthy people for the sake of power. Compounding is magic for money. Since magic is not real, compounding is reality is theft. When financial asset reach the threshold of $118 trillion and "earn" over 10% annually, it is only a matter of time before the rate of return on such assets require more than our entire economic output. You have be dismissing me outright, but it is obvious that you are financially illiterate. You have fallen for a scam economy, in which your several million were gained at the expense of your fellow citizens. Furthermore, you and I are of the same age. In the 1960's and 1970's, it was indeed possible to bull one's self up by ones bootstraps. Now, our economy causes crime and homelessness on an epic scale. Yet in your advice, you insist that what worked for you (in a different age), will work for everyone now. Get real, your ignorance of the "facts on the ground" is just plain old insulting.
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  270. @Rex Butt - Those who don't learn history will repeat the past. Hasn't captialism killed enough people yet?
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  271. Peter Nachtwey - Get over it. Your sad, sorry, old capitalism swan song is being sung. You wrote: "When my great great and grand parents move to the US there were no social programs. You had to hit the ground working." Yes, and in those days you could live off the land so you did not need social programs. You are such a hypocrite, you should embrace the literal meaning of your own words "My point is that times change and so should our standards." The old standard is in tatters now son . . . get over it. I know why you are here Peter. Attacking the economic heirs to capitalism is the only thing you have left . . . everything else is hollow.
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  272. The caller is apparently unaware that fully half of emissions from oil come from maritime use in the import/export businesses, and that 40% of U.S. emissions are generated by the U.S. Navy. Making changes on a personal level will be required, yet the larger movement will have to be in our distribution of goods and in the military.
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  273. ilr - You are incorrect as to the moderately LEFT wing influences you mentioned . . . they are all firmly right-wing and capitalist influences. Clinton is NOT left wing. Bernie Sanders is left wing. Globalism is a capitalist thing, and distinctly right wing. You are also incorrect here when you wrote: "Economic equality of outcome was quite good under Roosevelt and the massive expansion of public Infrastructure... And that was Highly Competitive C A P I T A L I S M . The real inequality didn't start back up again until we became too dependent on Oil in the 70's " You timing is correct but your reasoning is wrong. Don't worry though, most of your comment was in essence pretty good. It took me a long time to figure out the chess pieces on this board. One more thing . . . you wrote: "Capitalism CAN function very well for the 3/4's of the population that is willing to work every day." No it cannot. "Willing to work" does not matter if there are not the jobs that pay well enough to keep a person out of debt. The only ones capitalism currently works for is the top 1% . . . . who gained 82 cents out of every new dollar of wealth created last year. The top 10% got 92 cents out of each new dollar and the bottom 90% had to fight over the 8 cents that remained. Tell me please how well that is functioning for 3/4ths of the population that is willing to work.
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  274. "Housing Units" are categorized as capital assets. As long as this is the case, we will never have affordable housing again.
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  275. Bravo! Well stated Peter.
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  276. The 1% are taking $4 out of every $5 of new wealth created, Median wages have been stagnant for over three decades, Purchasing power of median wages have dropped by more than half over three decades, Everybody enjoying that giant sucking sensation?
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  277. ​ @davidlafleche1142  - You wrote: "No evidence". Next stop? Padded room for you Buddy.
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  278. There is no system in existence, natural or artificial, that has no upper and lower limits to operate within. The con job that we have been sold is that in our economy, we can have unlimited wealth growth and no bottom limit. There is a direct correlation between the growth of millionaires/billionaires and the growth of homelessness in our country, the more people who become wealthy, the more the homeless population grows.
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  279. While we are at it, nationalize all of the banks and all the energy producers.
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  280. I don't know how accurate this thought of mine may be, but it seems for every new billionaire there is ten thousand new homeless. After getting my second Covid-19 shot on Wednesday in Stockton CA, I decided to visit the Mokelumne River for some gold panning. The drive out of Stockton showed me hundreds of new homeless tents that I had not seen before. These are all people being "shed" by our economic system. As an engineer, I know every system has upper and lower limits. Our economy has no upper or lower limits, which is why it is failing.
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  281. The problem is that private for profit companies will rarely if ever fund research. Governments serve the people very well in this regard because the research can be done to gain knowledge without the pressure of producing profits. The appropriate law is to restrict profits to a multiple of the cost to produce and sell, making sure that the product serves the public good and reasonable profit.
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  282. The number of stock related ads on this show and others has become simply staggering. The tipping point is drawing closer and some people are trying to get rubes in place to buy them out of the stock market before the crash.
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  283.  @gibblespascack1418  - What you have is a thief's mentality. You have completely ignored the the facts, that aggregated wealth cannot grow faster than the economy without theft. The bulk of your reply is the rationalized propaganda of thieves, the remainder are the lies you and others tell yourself. You keep saying I have lived beyond my means, or that my choices put me where I am today, which are all lies and rationalizations. No, I live within my means. I also know when I am being stolen from. Sleep well thief.
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  284. KALiSTO - To back up your comment, I am doing a copy and paste of a comment I made for another video. It is not just the presidents pardon power we need to worry about with this asshole . . . there is more and worse in the checkout lane here. The link to the article on this is at the end. I'd like to share the chilling thing I heard yesterday was about the reasons behind the rush for Kavanaugh confirmation. Lots of shiny things have been dangled to distract us . . . . but there is one case the Supreme Court agreed to hear which may disrupt the dual sovereignty of State and Federal Courts and the republicans want Kavanaugh seated before this case is heard. The Gamble vs United States case is about a felon with a robbery conviction, who upon being pulled over by the police, was found to have a firearm in his possession. Terance Martez Gamble was then charged by both State and Federal prosecutors with being a felon in possession of a firearm based on the single incident. Apparently he was convicted by both prosecutors and received an extended sentence. Upon appealing his conviction, Gamble claims double jeopardy and the case has made it to the Supreme Court. (The double jeopardy I am familiar with is that once acquitted of a crime by jury of peers, that crime cannot be charged in court a second time. Being charged by both the State and Feds is perfectly legal.) Long and short of this, if the Supreme Court decides that this is double jeopardy . . . then a state could not charge a person for something the Federal Government has charged a case on. This mucks up the system and could keep someone like Paul Manafort from being charged in State Court . . . where the president's pardon power cannot reach. The republicans have long held that "states rights" are sacrosanct, regarded as too important or valuable to be interfered with. Trump and the republicans want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court in time to hear this case, and Kavanaugh will most certainly throw "states rights" and the 10th Amendment right out the window. It is not just about the presidential pardon powers, deciding double jeopardy in this case will muddy the waters so much that the Federal Government will feel free with this as precedent to interfere whenever they want to block State's affairs and decisions. This is a very dangerous case for a so-called conservative majority Supreme Court to be deciding. The so-called conservatives are really corporate shills, and corporations are slobbering all over themselves at the potential inroads they can make by usurping state law in favor of corporate law. The 10th Amendment is written so that powers not specifically granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution are reserved to the States and to the people. Corporations have been using the courts to strip away rights from the people for decades and grant rights to the corporations over people. A double jeopardy finding in Gamble vs the US would be a gift, a genuinely corrupt boon to corporations. Kiss democracy good-bye with a single Supreme Court decision. Notice how we have heard nothing about this at all from the networks, corporate media is too busy presenting us with other shinier objects.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/trump-pardon-orrin-hatch-supreme-court/571285/
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  285.  Alfonso G  - That was no victim talk, that was a fellow Californian giving the finger to the triggered right wing everywhere. Thumbs up from from another California Snowflake!
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  286. The Swamp is a Federally Protected Wetland.
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  287. The Fed is once again bailing out the banks . . . . which for some reason are "short" on money even though they are making huge profits. Between September 23 and October 10, the Fed will be pumping $75 billion of liquidity per business day into the banking system. The market repurchase agreements, or repo program was initiated when the overnight borrowing interest rate between banks skyrocketed from 2% to almost 10% in a day. Pumping almost $1 trillion in liquidity into the banking system dilutes the value of the dollar . . . once again making things we need to live cost more. We need to put a stop to this. There is one very easy solution that everyone seems to ignore . . . put a cap on wealth accumulation. No system, natural or man made, exists without limits . . . except how wealthy certain people can get. Enough already, we need to apply common sense to the situation and place hard cap limits on wealth . . . that one action will solve so many of our problems in the economy.
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  288.  @TJHTouring  - Not well enough. Ireland is the land of corporate tax dodgers and Canada is owned by oil and logging corps. In both countries the wealthy own the government, so restrictions on political donations is not the answer.
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  289. Of course Yang does not push back. None of the current crop of wanna-be or actual politicians do, because they still believe in unlimited, boundless capitalism. In the most recent Robert Reich video, he talks about five ways to help workers in the age of automation, a special topic for Yang. The comment I wrote to Mr. Reich also applies to Yang and all the other politicians who think they have solutions (that will NEVER work). Here is what I wrote to Mr. Reich: To Mr. Robert Reich, I've watched dozens if not hundreds of your videos and I started my economic learning curve with your videos. However, there is a constant in your videos which constitutes a void in your method and messaging. This void is so large that none of your policy ideas will work until the void is filled. Anyone who has worked with manifold distribution systems knows that if there is a leak or opening in the system, the system will not work for long and whatever the manifold is distributing will leak out. You can add more of, or replace the material the manifold is distributing, but until that opening is sealed or capped, the system will not work properly. In the USA, Japan and Europe, the central banks are once again printing money like mad. The central banks are doing this because of liquidity shortages in the banking system. Well now, it is obvious there is a hole in the money distribution manifold, allowing all the money to flow to a point source, the top 20%, the top 1% and mostly the top 0.1% of the economic distribution manifold. Unless and until there is a hard cap on wealth accumulation, meaning, until the open pipe in the money distribution manifold is sealed, not a single idea you put forth in this video will work. Every reform, no matter how large or small, is rendered inert by the leakage in the money distribution manifold. This idea that we can have some people with UNLIMITED wealth, has got to go. Otherwise no matter what we try, the problems you outlined here will never be solved.
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  290. I clicked on the video titled "Bloomberg makes His Case on the Debate Stage Why He is Best Fit to Defeat Trump", right after I watched this TYT video. It was at the top of the featured videos on the right hand column. Immediately, the video was redirected to a video titled "Mike Bloomberg: The Leadership to be President". Not the video I clicked on, a completely different video. I tried again, same results. Both were on the "Michael Bloomberg" channel. Approximately 6500 views, no Likes, no Dislikes, and the comments are disabled. That tells you everything you need to know about Bloomberg. Bait and switch.
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  291. We are going to find out first hand what it looks like when a judge is threatened by the president of the USA. Light sentence from this judge means someone got to her. If she gives Stone the maximum, Trump is going to pop and he will attempt to retaliate even as he is giving Stone a pardon.
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  292. Danny N. - Many hundreds of thousands of people are dying annually here in the USA because they lack basic health care, or they are being overdosed with legal opioid prescriptions, or they are choking on fumes from legalized pollution, or they are committing suicide with legalized guns. Where is your outrage over those deaths?
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  293. Rob Pape - Yes, and our news media has dropped the ball for decades, they keep saying the economy is "good", unemployment is "low" and the stock market is "booming". All it took for me was one afternoon of research to find out something that should be headline news. "Median income today buys less than half of what median income purchased 30 years ago." Why? Found that out also, but that took a little longer than one afternoon.
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  294. There you go! Its about time someone started singing my tune. I'm for a hard wealth cap set at $10 million in accumulated wealth. No one needs more than that and it would solve a great many problems in one simple move.
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  295. wix9496 - You again? Ignant Troll.
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  296. Not numb here, I'm angry every day. The real problem is the ambivalent people I talk, and those who are outright ignorant. Some of those who are ignorant are will loudly talk over everything I have to say or they bury their heads in the ground and hope it all goes away. It has become apparent to me that it is not collusion we are dealing with, it is a conspiracy to overthrow our Constitution.
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  297. Hi Dan. As a new subscriber, I appreciate your wholesome approach. While you are talking about the vacancies, businesses unable to hire, container ships arriving full and departing empty, the crime and homelessness, I am rather astonished that you have yet to touch on the root causes for all of these topics. We have a system that grows wealth faster than the economy grows. Simple as that. Over the past two years with regards to financial assets alone, the gains have been equal to a full year of economic output. We have a system that grows wealth exponentially, has "invested" wealth five times larger than the economy, which in turn is growing five times faster than the economy. This is really simple. We cannot survive a system where the wealthy are getting 10% annual rate of return on a huge pile of "invested" wealth, while the economy can barely make 2% growth annually. This is something I would like to hear from you about.
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  298. No, this is not on us at all. I've looked closely at the numbers. The pool of "wealth", in my lifetime (60 years) has always been larger and grown at a faster rate than our economy. This condition has always been carefully arranged, going back fifty years or one hundred and fifty years. We cannot change this save under one condition, that we become laser focused on how much wealth any one person should control before such holdings become a threat to the rest of us. As it stands right now and for all of history that I can access, we have simply accepted the right to hold as much wealth as a person could gather, but now the mass of wealth available has tipped the scales so far past safety for society that we must change the permissions we give to individual persons to hold wealth. Do do anything but be laser focused on these permissions, it to commit ourselves as a species to extinction.
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  299. Trump is setting the stage for civil unrest so he can declare martial law and disband the Congress. This is the dictator playbook going way back, for anyone who studied the history of wars the pattern is obvious because it has been done many times in the past.
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  300. whyamimrpink78 - If wages had kept up with productivity over the past 30 years instead of stagnating . . . minimum wages would be $22 to $32 per hour depending on the region. What is worse, those stagnated wages buy less than half the value of 30 years ago. Our wealth and wages are being extracted.
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  301.  @InternetMameluq  - Didn't you mean "since they have been embargoed since the fifties"? My observation is that if the USA would just butt out, they might be just fine. Same thing for Venezuela.
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  302. @JAM - What you have failed to do in your comparison between these people is some basic math, which will show that your "Wealth Tax will not work" statement is completely bogus. The 1% are "investing" at a RoR of over 5%, (S&P 500 index funds have paid over 9% since 1994). That is $30 trillion seeking a rate of return in a $20 trillion annual economy. The economy GDP grew by $560 billion in 2018. The RoR on $30 trillion at 5% is a trillion and a half dollars ($1.5 trillion) Can you see the problem yet? To pay the 1% their RoR, all of the GDP gains for 2018 are eliminated, plus an additional $940 billion skimmed directly out of the economy. This is done by raising the price of health care, housing and whatever else can be used by financial institutions to extract wealth from us, all the while calling that extraction "product" or "production in the economy". That extraction from us is actually counted by these criminals as part of the economic growth for the year. In reality the economy is shrinking, the numbers are being skewed to hide this from us. What we really need to do is dump this 2% on wealth tax, instead we need to put a hard cap on accumulated wealth for individuals and corporations. This much . . . no more. This whole "incentives" argument is bullshit to cover up the scam they are pulling on us. I say we cap wealth accumulation at $10 million, that is plenty to live a life of luxury and it will stop wealthy people from buying our politics and shaping government policy. This is why Warren should get a "sit down" with Bill Gates, he is a lying sack of shit and she knows the math. This is also why Bill Gates will never agree to a sit down with Warren.
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  303.  @jesuschristpose896  - Good ideas. I'm for a hard cap on accumulated personal wealth. The 1% covers about 320 million people and if you average out their accumulated wealth it comes out to almost $10 million per person. I'm for capping personal wealth at $10 million, after that its 100% taxed.
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  304. No reform like $15/Hour minimum wage will last as long as the tools used to dismantle reforms remain. Accumulated wealth is used to destroy reforms, so until there is a hard limit to wealth accumulation, there will be no lasting reforms. Social reform cannot happen without economic reform. The idea that unlimited wealth accumulation is a bug rather than a feature must take hold in our society, because without a hard wealth cap all reforms are doomed.
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  305. So lets see here . . . you pay for your own education with debt you are responsible for. You go to work for a corporation with no allegiance except to shareholders, they will pay you the minimum required to keep you productive. Your pay will be divided between taxes to the government and debt for your education, you get to live on whatever remains. Sounds like you get the raw end of that deal. So the corporation owes you and society nothing, they are on top of the food chain. The government owes you nothing, they won't fix the roads, won't fund the schools and certainly won't provide any social safety net for you and your family. The government will however burden you with laws, regulations and taxes you cannot fight thus thinning your wallet even further. Add to the mix that median wages have not risen much in three decades, yet new home prices have risen by 230% over the same time period. Look at child care, rents, energy, transportation and yes . . higher education costs over the same time period and the cost increases are massive. The increases are well beyond inflation, so you are being squeezed to remove your earning power via nonproductive wealth extraction tools like heath insurance companies. Yet you are expected to bear that burden with good graces and not complain . . . . as we all enjoy that freedom and liberty we hear so much about. This is extraction economics at full tilt boogie. The industrialists abandoned the USA starting back in the 1960's and telling the American people up front what their intentions were was never part of the plan. Workers had gained too much wealth and power, something the industrialists wanted back. The republicans recognized and used the changing economics with great efficiency to ram their ideology into American politics . . . we the people have been riding the rabid beast down ever since. Where is the investment in a better society with this insane economic scheme? The investment is as void as a desert as far as I can see, it is the abandonment of the American Way for a dystopian nightmare. Are you seriously saying that the G.I.Bill was a waste of the taxpayers money and that we should never do something like that again?
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  306.  @Zach-ju5vi  - You have it backward. With the current economic recipe, we might as well all stay home because even when working, our wealth is being drained. Can you do basic math? In 2019 privately held financial assets totaled over $90 trillion with 5% to 7% annual growth. Just taking the low number of 5%, the wealth increase was in excess of $4.5 trillion. If just 19% of those wealth gains were cashed in as capital gains, that would erase all the economic gains for the year. Supporting capitalism is supporting fascism and that always ends in war, which apparently you are in favor of.
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  307. The real problem we face is that the 1% has accumulated so much wealth that it cannot get a rate of return without extracting wealth from the bottom 99%. People don't understand that the wealthy elites have become parasites because they have so much in idle riches, instead of being the engines of job creation (which is the mythology we are constantly being sold). We simply cannot have $30 trillion in idle wealth seeking a 9% rate of return (ROR) from a $20 trillion annual economy which only grows 2.5% annually. We can fix this by capping accumulated wealth and forgiving debt. The two actions must be implemented together. The alternative is between 22-30 years from now, 90% of GDP will go to servicing a ROR for the 1%'s wealth. We will have a bifurcated society, the ultra wealthy 1% and the decimated 99%.
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  308.  @BladeRunnerUNATCO  - Did you read my post? If not, then you are the one who lives in fairy land.
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  309. Until we have a major change, like an economic meltdown, no such thing will happen here. Housing is considered a capital asset, Wall Street will fight tooth and nail to keep any changes from being made that will disadvantage investors.
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  310.  @mediamattersismycockholste562  - Cool-aid addict.
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  311. Jon Ossoff is no Berniecrat.
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  312. And destruction.
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  313. Devonzell Pernell - Sadly I may have to agree with you. My daughter works for a major corporation dealing with the medical industry. That corporation holds mandatory political rallies where they push their employees to call political representatives about supporting republican backed HSA's (health savings accounts). She is appalled by this corporate behavior and so am I. The whole system has rotted, yet its health can be restored by weeding out those representatives who hold corporations in higher esteem than "We the People" who voted them into office. Vote out the corrupted politicians and vote in those who are only beholden to "We the People".
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  314. Joshua Hudgins - Yea, I'll vote republican when global warming freezes the oceans. Makes about the same amount of sense too.
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  315. Carson Fijal - You nailed it, they are so predictable now.
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  316. Joshua Hudgins - repugnant troll.
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  317. +Manual R. - Thank you for that illuminating information. We should adopt automatic registration also, that it seems could solve many of the voter suppression issues we have. Greetings in return from the USA! :-)
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  318. +Manuel R. - Thank you again. Your insight is spot on with regards to our internal political turmoil. I live in California, where a citizen committee draws the district lines and keeps the politicians out of the decision making process. This is not the case in many states, so the republicans have been actively manipulating the vote . . . since they cannot really win if the don't cheat. You are also correct about the neoliberalism. Unfortunately the cable news is all corporate, they do not tell the public anything important. This I can unfortunately attest to fist hand, until about one year ago cable news was the only place I received information. The unfiltered internet has taught me how ignorant I really was, and now I look around me and see so many foolishly ignorant people who have no clue what is happening. They are all just like I was. I was touched when you wrote that your battle has just begun. Glad to have the camaraderie. Humanity truly is trying to mature, become something better. You are correct also that this is a battle, or indeed a war, to claim our future and extended survival as a not-extinct sentient species.
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  319. cgcmaster - Seconded - Vote Justice Democrats.
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  320. +Jessica - Paul Ryan has no empathy or conscience, this is not just about ideologies. He spends every congressional recess raising funds from wealthy and corporate interests. Paul Ryan never holds a town hall meeting and when invited to one, he never goes. Mark Pocan has gone in his stead even though Mark is a democrat, at least he tries to answer Paul Ryan's constituency questions. Paul Ryan is violent toward the population as a whole, promoting the very worst in social policy. Don't think for an instant that is any different than stabbing a person or pushing them in front of a moving bus.
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  321. Ha! Yet you can feel us closing in on you, Handel only won by cheating, lying and conniving. The democrats are closing the voting gap even in the red zones and in spite of republican cheating. There will come a time when your stupid, heartless, illiterate, pansy-assed excuses for human beings will be in a liberal headlock, and then we of the actually intelligent human types are going to make sure you don't get any more chances to cheat your way into office. So laugh it up pansy man and enjoy your victory . . . . because just like Hitler after the Battle of Britain, its gonna be long downhill slide for your kind from here on out.
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  322. Innocent people, especially a president of the USA, should welcome investigations that will clear their names. Only guilty people rant against investigations and call them "witch hunts" . Sure are turning up an awful lot of guilty witches!
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  323. @Ronald Reagan - The OP is an actual victim, not someone reciting a mantra. That was your "factually incorrect" lie. I would call it a factually incorrect error, but we both know better.
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  324. The real reason oligarchs like Betsy Devos are ok with defunding education is that capitalism in the USA no longer needs a literate population. We are now expendable.
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  325. Don't forget about a wealth cap for individuals and businesses, otherwise even these reforms will be eroded and eliminated.
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  326. @Alex McAuliff - If the oligarch's put themselves, their AI's and their automation inside a walled compound and excluded everyone else, they could have 100% automation and exclude those outside the walls. However, if the oligarch's needed raw material from outside the walls, the only way they could procure those materials is to go outside the walls and get the materials. This is a demonstration of how oligarch's need the rest of us in order to be oligarch's. Outside the walls, they would be vulnerable to attack, even if they had armed escorts they could still be attacked. This would be a horrible future. The only way that ordinary folk can have a decent future at this point, is if we made sure that oligarch's cannot exist. Our future depends on making law that forbids the accumulation of wealth beyond a set limit, in other words, a wealth cap.
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  327.  @dhruvmane3621  - The federal government does not need your tax money, after all Congress appropriates and the Treasury will always cash the check because the U.S. government issues its own currency out of thin air.
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  328.  CNBC  - Since you are a financial educator, please explain something to me. The U.S. GDP lost 2.3 percent, or $500.6 billion in 2020. Yet privately held financial assets gained $9.867 trillion in 2020. How is it possible for financial assets to gain so much when the real economy lost ground?
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  329. SupaDr00g - Sorry, I don't converse will under educated idiots . . . dimwit my ass.
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  330. @Jeremy Backup - Trump is run down because he is out of Adderall.
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  331.  @bluewater454  - "Over a thousand millionaires are created in the United States every day. How do you suppose that happens?" Legal theft of wealth other people created, that is how. Nobody actually earns that kind of money by doing actual labor, they get it by taking it from others.
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  332. "Housing Units" are categorized as capital assets. As long as this is the case, we will never have affordable housing again.
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  333.  @rustynailsish  - For you, ignorance is bliss.
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  334.  @zx7siovia213  - Well said. What is little understood, is that the multiple crises of capitalism grow from the idea that infinite growth is possible. Realistically, no system of natural or artificial origin is capable of infinite growth. That said, the path forward is to use the structure of capitalism that is in place currently, to evolve into something better, made possible by introducing one major modification to capitalism, a universal individual limit to wealth accumulation. I would propose setting the wealth cap at three million dollars, thus allowing for the rewarding of endeavor but not allowing the buildup inherent in systems using compounded annual growth.
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  335. The End Begins - Finally, a truth teller. What we have is a "wealthy oligarch problem" . . . the wealthy have run amok and are draining everything into their own coffers after buying out our legal system and government. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  336. The free market is a scam and it will cause our extinction. I have been searching all through history and it seems that wealth and corruption has lead to the downfall of most societies. As a country with the worlds reserve currency, we are way out over our skis. This year alone, for every dollar in economic growth, financial assets (including stocks) have gained $14 in value. This is what Pelosi is protecting. At a whopping $9.9 trillion, gains in financial assets currently stand at 49% of our entire economic output. The choice now is quite stark. What we really must have is a hard cap on wealth accumulation, or we get extinction.
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  337.  @TheDiamond2009  - You wrote: "I have a degree in economics from Emmanuel College, Cambridge." So far, none of your comments have demonstrated any level of knowledge about the economy. So I will ask you a question about the economy, then judge how much you know about the subject. Question: What is the one element of our current form of capitalism, that will cause the most harm to the economy? Hint: The answer consists of two words.
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  338. My girlfriend and I were essentially forced into early retirement because the only thing certain about job hunting these days is deeper debt. As of the beginning of 2018, her medical insurance coverage went up by 66% and my insurance stopped covering a $400 per month prescription drug I need in order to survive. Between the two of us, there is no apparent gain from the "Tax Scam" passed by the republicans last year but we have been hammered by the financial side effects of repealing the individual mandate. Meanwhile my own research has shown that median wages today purchase less than half of the housing, transportation, energy and food than the median wages of 30 years ago purchased. Bottom line. we have to get business interests out of our government completely. What is being done by our leadership is reckless, irresponsible and completely selfish . . . we have to vote out anyone who takes business money for their campaigns.
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  339. The reason the Trump administration is doing this in the first place is because he HATES women having any power.
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  340. The key detail here is that Bernie does not incite his followers to be vicious. Trump does that, he does need to be held responsible for inciting vicious and even riotous behavior in his followers. Bernie has not done that, even a single time, to my knowledge. A sanders supporter blaming a Warren supporter for this or that, is simply the nature of politics. Someone employed by Sanders to aid his campaign needs to be held to a higher standard, but requiring, or even asking that Sanders supporters never lay blame at another candidate's feet is simply a bridge too far.
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  341. I'm 58 and I just freed myself from the mainstream hypnosis machine a couple of years ago. Too many of our peers are simply blind to what is happening, and what has happened to us. Now I'm the renegade and I'm even having a tough time with one of my own children, who is adamant that I vote for whoever the democratic candidate is . . . . well I just cannot stomach Joe Biden. I'm gong to write in Bernie Sanders. The establishment is not going to shove another corporate shill down my throat.
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  342.  @grantjohnston7148  - Agreed. We also need to apply critical thinking skills to our economy. Exponential growth is not possible. Worker productivity and efficiency can only be improved so far without expanding the real economy (not the financial economy) beyond planetary resource capability. The sheer mass that wealth has attained is five times the size of our economy and grows at a rate three times greater than GDP. This system is insane. We also need to think up something productive for sociopaths to do, because we cannot let them run government or corporate business ever again.
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  343. I've been listening to Dr. Wolff for about six months, he makes a great deal of sense out of the economic mess we are in right now. I never realized that the capitalist workplace economy today had so much in common with the feudalism and slavery economies. The worker co-op economy he teaches would indeed democratize the workplace, where most of us spend our adult lives. The idea that a co-op would vote to shut down factories and move production outside the USA like the top-down corporations have done is laughable, the workers would never go for that and would come up with solutions that would not end their jobs. Medicare for all is just like a giant worker co-op, the republicans and the corporate democrats will fight this to the bitter end because the corporations will not stand for anything that dismantles their profit scams.
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  344.  @corlyssd  - You are correct, because the ownership class includes those with state pensions, 401k's and other types of retirement accounts. The problem is, the people of the USA have been scammed into believing in "investments". Right now households and non-profit organizations hold almost $100 trillion in financial assets. That sum dwarfs the economy. How do financial assets pay 5% on $100 trillion while the economy at $22 trillion cannot get above 4% annually? The answer is that "investments" were never about growing the productive economy and earning an honest profit, it was always about looting the U.S. Treasury and the taxpayers. The idea of investments was sold to the American people so that the wealthy would have accomplices (retirement account holders) while they looted the country.
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  345. Norman - As a 57 year old Boomer I say it is up to us as well to save our bacon. We need a roadmap and the Millennials have found it by discovering Bernie (when my adult daughter told me in the summer of 2016 about Bernie, my response was "Bernie who?"), yet the roadmap destination still needs definition. What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day. That is what we need to do. We can have democratic socialism, but it will only endure if we remove the tools and weapons the oligarchs use to dismantle it. That by definition mandates that their wealth be reduced to a level where they cannot ever threaten to overthrow what we are creating. Just ask yourself how much wealth is enough to live in the lap of luxury for a lifetime, and there you will find the the place a wealth cap needs to reside in the new system.
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  346. This is easy to understand. The 1% in the USA has over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth, chasing a "rate of return" in a $20 trillion annual economy. Just look at what a 5% rate of return is for $30 trillion . . . . just the interest alone is $1.5 trillion. The entire 2018 GDP gain in our economy was $560 billion, so almost a trillion dollars had to be extracted from the overall economy just to pay interest to the 1%. That is a huge bit of "socialism" for the 1% just in the past two years, $1.5 trillion in tax breaks and $1.5 trillion in interest payments . . . that is all "free money" for the 1% folks. Just consider that 5% is a low number, the S&P 500 index funds have done over 9% annually since 1994. The 1% lopped off 7.5% or more of our entire economy in order to give themselves "free money" which they did not lift a finger to earn. I've been calling my representative about this, it is completely unsustainable.
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  347. I look at things this way. The economy is a system that provides sustenance for us to live on. The way that our economy is run is to demand that it grow by 3 to 4 percent per year. Systems don't work like that, I cannot expect my car engine to deliver 4% more power every year without substantial investment in upgrading plus the needed downtime for the upgrades. Plus at some point there will be an end to what can be done to extract more power, the engine will reach a physical limit. To expect that kind of result out of any system is absurd, yet that is what we expect from our economy and "We the People" have not been sharing in that economic growth for about forty years. So who is sucking up all the gains and raising our rents at the same time for all those decades? Whoever they are, they are seriously mucking up the system we depend on to survive. When we recognize that every system has limits, including our economy, then we can solve the problems that give us the Donald Trump's and Mitch McConnell's. If I were gong to give this system a fast makeover, the first thing I want is no more unlimited wealth accumulation for people and corporations. Put a ceiling on personal wealth, simply don't allow people to become wealthy enough to wield power beyond their their one vote. Same goes for corporations, iHeartMedia (formerly Clearwater Communications) does not need to own 855 radio stations which spread only one brand of political message. Every system needs limits to achieve optimal performance, which means that people can still get wealthy . . . just not too wealthy because that is unhealthy for the rest of us.
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  348. The big reason democrat centrists are against "Medicare for All", is because the elimination of insurance companies would also eliminate a significant chunk of free money the top 20% are getting as a result of their "investments" in these companies. That loss, in their minds, will have to be made up. The housing market is too tight to squeeze extra profits out of, the productive economy is already overloaded with Rate of Return demands, so these folks are really fearing a huge loss in the free money they get every year by extracting from all of us.
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  349. nuvisionprinting - That is so sad, sounds like your countrymen are being brainwashed. Seems they are unaware that in a decade or less, the private insurance will break open their wallets and purses . . . leaving nothing behind for them to live on. That is what has happened here, health care costs have increased 500%-600% over the past three decades while wages have stagnated. That is what your communist hating countrymen are in for also . . . if they cannot get a grip.
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  350. advocatus diaboli - What makes you think the wealthy deserve the money someone else worked to make? Where there is exploitation, there is money earned going to the undeserved. There must be a limit, such as you cannot have more than you can possibly ever spend. Taking currency out of circulation through hoarding serves no one and hurts everyone.
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  351. SecretSecret Secret - The secret is, it was never their money. Very few millionaires and no billionaires actually earn any of what they have . . . they steal it from society. Stop calling it "their money", it does not belong to them except by exploitation and by inference . . . theft.
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  352.  @jamiemcgill67  - Do you listen to yourself? These are the "United States" of America. You know, united we stand, divided we fall? Just ask yourself, why is there such a concerted effort being made to divide us? Must be a reason, things like this don't happen in a vacuum.
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  353. The Low Cap on Disability Income? Not a word on the subject during this segment Thom. What happened?
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  354. Some baby boomers are in the same headlock as the young folk, locked out of the jobs market and the asset ladder because we arrived a wee bit late. This means there are boomers who are just as fucked and for those few who have figured out what is going on, we are as fucking angry as the generations that came after us. Bernie Sanders 2020!
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  355. Wow. The trum(PP)utin boot lickers are out in droves tonight. Must be getting desperate. Sooner or later, those who have taken an oath to protect the Constitution will have to act, meanwhile the catterwalling is a guilty trum(PP)utin crying like a little baby.
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  356. manwiththemachinegun - As you moniker implies, you have taken an oversimplified and shallow view of what Noam has said. Indeed it seems that you did not listen to all that he said, since you are calling it "scare mongering and hopeless". The Black Death did not inflict mass casualties among all the species of plants and animals on the earth, pollution and global warming has. The response so far by humanity has been to accelerate the catastrophes, not to mitigate them. It seems evident that fear is not enough to motivate people to collaborate across the planet, the exact opposite is happening. If you think that organized human life is not at risk, you simply have not been paying attention.
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  357. Bye-bye humanity if the republican scam of personal responsibility and individualism replaces government.
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  358.  @stuckinthemud4352  - Have you not been paying attention? In what way are we worse? Did you even listen to this video?
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  359. The real problem we have is this, interest payments on the 1%'s wealth exceed three times our annual GDP growth. The 1% are eating us alive.
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  360. I have a problem with 200 billion federal dollars going into U.S. infrastructure, because the 1.5 trillion dollar plan relies on 80% "private" and state matching funds. I don't want "private" investment in our "public" roads, bridges and airports. Next thing we know, it will cost us "tolls" to drive on "public" roads. This plan stinks worse than rotten fish in a "swamp".
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  361. samsa deniz - You are another person who has no idea WHAT they are talking about.
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  362. David Laurie - Again? Buddy, you are the triggered ass-hat in these comments . . . plus, you are dumber than a rock. Have fun getting triggered all over again!
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  363. Blame the pursuit of infinite wealth. We allow it, even though no system can achieve infinite growth.
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  364. Jesse Torres - We have to get beyond looking at Jeff Sessions and address the evil in the republican party itself. There was a time when people remembered the havoc the republicans rained down on the people of this country and the world, which is why there was a forty year span when the democrats held the House of Representatives. Those people who remembered are no longer around to remind us, so the republicans have been able to reassert themselves and give global destruction another go around. I myself was completely unaware of this history until I decided to make a major project researching our economy . . . my focus was strictly on the present day. Yet every decade I looked into compelled me to look at the earlier decade until I found myself at the end of World War One. We have forgotten that the republicans are out to destroy the Constitution of the USA, because the elders who remember what they did are no longer with us. Jeff Sessions is an evil little man, but his entire party will wear their ideological blinders while marching all of us blindly into global catastrophe. Yet as I just recently heard from Steve Bannon, the republicans are going for the head shot while the democrats are engaged in a pillow fight. We have to learn how to fight, no more of this bi-partisan reaching across the isle bull . . . because this is a battle for our very existence.
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  365.  @lawrencehamm1478  - You wrote: "I am a independent conservative and a Christian". Doctor! The x-rays are in and we have a severe blockage of blood flow to the brain!
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  366.  @cynthiajohnson9412  - This is was has astonished me. There was a Marine Corps major general named Smedley Darlington Butler who retired in 1931. He wrote a book called "War is a Racket", short and interesting. He was quoted as saying the following: "I spent 33 years...being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.... "I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.... "In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested....I had...a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions....I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three cities. The Marines operated on three continents..." Turns out our military is used not for national defense, but to defend the interests of wealthy capitalists at home and abroad.
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  367. What piqued my interest is two videos: 1) All the missile parts laid out for a news conference, apparent "malfunctioning" cruise missiles that crashed in the desert. These caught my eye because I have built, flown and crashed fiberglass composite r/c aircraft and these missiles looked more like they were torn apart and smashed by hand tools rather than crashed. In addition, one of the missiles had "cobwebs" inside the open spaces between the fin and the sheet metal braces (shown in the longer video not this short clip). . . not something that would have survived flight at several hundred MPH. 2) The towers in the oil refineries were not hit by missiles. All missiles pack warheads that explode, blowing all non-armored metal structures they hit into shards. These towers were hit by short range artillery rounds, not missiles. This means the Saudis did this to themselves and all this is a set up. Even the parts shown in this video where whole panels with holes, square holes, panels that should have been greatly disfigured due to catastrophic explosive force . . . even the smallest missiles with a 50 pound warhead would do greater damage than that which was shown. This whole thing stinks of collusion between the Saudis and Trump to cause a war with Iran . . . .my fellow citizens of the USA, beware.
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  368. Bernie Sanders 2020. Go centrist and we the people will be crushed. Go republican and we the people will be crushed. The only way the people of the United States can save ourselves is to vote for rational change over the status quo. Bernie Sanders 2020.
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  369. Soooo . . . whatever happened to the vaunted "states rights" that the republicans are always yammering on about? Given this speech, then it is logical that the federal government MUST use one set of voting regulations and impose those regulations over all states, ending forever gerrymandering and voter suppression.
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  370. Chad Clemen - Is that all you are capable of? No reasoned argument, just call those you disagree with snowflakes and spit out a bunch of emogies? Pitifully inadequate, no wonder democrats have swept most of the special elections.
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  371. Yes. If we are going strictly by the Constitution, the office of Justice on any court is only "during good behavior". Kavenaugh has already lied to the Senate and a real investigation by the FBI would reveal this and more "bad behavior" which can be used to impeach him. Additionally, there is no provision for lifetime appointment of judges and justices to any court in our Constitution.
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  372. @Halfdan Ingolfsson - Pay no attention to those who would mock you. Though I don't consider my interest in the disintegration to be "morbid", I also have been keenly studying what is happening here. I also had a difficult time following Professor Powell, because he is following historical threads which have limited meaning to most, in order to find his solutions. I come at this problem of racism from the question of; how did racism arise? Going back much farther than the establishment of the United States, the core cause of racism seems to always arise from the exploitation of one group for the sole benefit of another groups wealth and/or status. I posted a stand alone comment on this video, which I have copied and pasted below for your consideration. "Racism has its roots and continuing strength in wealth accumulation. The Africans where brought here to build wealth for white plantation owners. The Asians were brought here to build wealth for white railroad owners. The Mexicans were brought here to build wealth for white agricultural land owners. In each case, the people brought here had one purpose, to build wealth for white people, and then these people were deemed disposable. Racism is all about white people disposing of the people they exploited to build wealth. Therefor racism will continue until the wealth these innocent colored ancestors built is restored to their descendants. As a white man, I want to see justice for these people, which can only happen when we tear down the citadel of white wealth accumulation and have a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation."
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  373.  @AnnE-qd5kw  - I've worked a long time, researched and studied our economic history with the aim of understanding how people can labor so hard only to move backwards. I finally have the answer and it is so simple as to be unbelievable. With the exception of what Mother Nature can do to us, virtually every problem society has can be traced either directly or indirectly to the accumulation of wealth. I have two grown daughters and there is no future for them or any of our children if we don't change our ways. Greed is deadly.
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  374. Thanks for bringing that up. I watched the U.N. video on voting in Venezuela, it is consistent and much more secure than voting in the USA.
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  375. Pete - Oh Pete . . . you are so cynical, and probably not correct in your assessment. Yet you were on to a valid point . . . leaders of any kind will not serve us well. Humans have evolved to the point where we can lead ourselves better than any previous leader is capable of. We have the collective common sense to make the correct decisions. The time will come, hopefully soon . . . when we take the power of decision away from the few, to then imbue and infuse that power into all of mankind. We have grown too many to allow for much delay. and have gained sufficient intelligence to make this decision . . . after all it will be a crime against our species and all species of this world to allow the few to reduce our planet to ash for profit.
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  376. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  377.  @sarathompson2035  - I am so very pleased to "meet" you too! We kindred spirits are few in number so far, but it is a growing number. My journey began by listening to Robert Reich. I may not agree with him a great deal, however his teaching have been invaluable. The roster of teachers I am finding online is growing, Michael Hudson, Steve Keen, Mark Blyth, Richard Wolff, Rana Foroohar, Stephanie Kelton, David Harvey and even though these two are not economists, Carl Sagan and Neal Degrasse Tyson taught me the physics of mass and growth. When David Harvey said that the "mass" of the economy and humanity itself were not taken into account by mainstream economists, my whole world was shaken. I have made it my mission to try and distill the complexities of our economics and politics into simpler forms. This must be done if we are to convince our fellow citizens to help change things.
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  378. The economy is now being managed to support the growth of asset prices. The only stimulation of the economy that is allowable these days is the type that increases the price of financial assets. Every time an asset gains value, the price we pay goes up. The economy is no longer about supply and demand, that is just a dusty story being used to keep us confused. Under these conditions, the government will never issue a UBI. We must change the nature of our political actors if we are ever to overcome this situation.
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  379. Reaganomics and trickle down economics . . . the lie that just won't die.
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  380. Here is a thought, let us have no federal taxes at all and institute a hard wealth cap for individuals and businesses. All capital gains, all earnings gains above the cap are taxed at 100%. A wealth cap would stabilize the economy and eliminate virtually all speculation fueled economic bubbles. A wealth cap would also eliminate virtually all private money in politics.
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  381.  @t814  - No. We are all stuck on the hamster wheel just trying to make enough to get by. When you cannot take time off working without risking becoming homeless, there is no protest. This, I'm sure, is by design.
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  382.  @Stillnapie  - For most of us including myself, the cost of simply trying to live when work is inconsistent and costs keep going up means we will be adhering to the 0% rule.
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  383. Iran has done nothing but to respond in a proportionate manner to the aggression of the USA and Trump. This is all Trumps fault. Trump pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump put crippling sanctions on Iran for no good reason. Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's top general. zIran has done nothing to hurt the USA. There is no evidence that Iran has taken any hostile action toward the USA. Iran has a one million man army, while the USA has a few thousand troops in the area. This is their part of the world, which the USA is mucking around in. Graham is an idiot. Trump is a moron. Pompeo is a buffoon. These half wits are going to get us into a war that we cannot win, and all this is a diversion by Trump to get us to look away from his crimes in and out of office. Anything that Iran does is directly the fault of Trump and those who support him.
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  384. Yup, Trump did an about face, says he knew it was serious all along. Incompetence at work folks.
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  385.  @davidlafleche1142  - "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" "Thou shalt not commit adultery" "Thou shall not covet" Thou shalt not steal" Looks like your hero has decided to ignore the Bible, I'd worry more about how your Lord Jesus will be judging Trump, seems how Trump so causally breaks holy commandments. By the way, all four of those broken commandments are a matter of public record. As I wrote previously, just give it a rest.
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  386. The freest of speech - Here is a beautiful way to demonstrate that you are in over your head on this one. You = Zero thumbs up. Your first three comment responders = 46 thumbs up. The American people have spoken and you can go fuck your yourself.
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  387. We have a minimum wage, now it is time to put a maximum cap on individual and family accumulation of wealth. I'm not talking about taking away all of our "embarrassed millionaires" right to earn those millions . . . but come on now, be realistic! How many of us has ever seen five million in earnings over a lifetime of working? If you earn $50,000 annually . . . the most wealth you could possibly accumulate over a working life of 30 years is 1.5 million dollars and that is only if you saved every penny and paid no taxes! If the rest of you folks are like me, I have no problem capping all family wealth accumulation for a lifetime at $50 million dollars with a 95% inheritance tax to avoid dynastic wealth accumulation. That comes out roughly at $1.75 million earned after taxes annually. Virtually every single problem facing us as a human society has its roots embedded in those very few of us who are morbidly wealthy. With the exception of asteroid strikes and possibly earthquakes and volcanoes, every single problem we have stems from accumulated wealth in the hands of very few human beings. Eliminate that morbid excess that with a simple wealth and earnings cap, then most of our problems will disappear and many others will find logical solutions that were being stifled by wealthy individuals who wielded power far in excess of the ONE VOTE they are legally entitled to.
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  388. And tRump delivered chaos onto the world. Even if Putin did not get sanctions lifted, he is still smiling.
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  389. robinsss - Logical? It is logical to vote for the person who corrupted the DNC? A pox on both their houses. Don't vote for candidates who raise campaign money from sources of corruption. Unfortunately I voted for Hillary, being a little slow to learn what was happening. That was my fault, but it will not happen again. If the DNC puts up another centrist instead of a true progressive, I will as a democrat . . . vote for a third party candidate. Momentum will build for a progressive government, and our votes will not be wasted.
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  390. tom Dobyns - Lots of new money was injected into the economy post-2008 . . . the reason there is no inflation attached to that is because the money was captured and kept out of circulation by the same financial institutions that caused the crisis. They are essentially swimming in oceans of money right now. Furthermore, inflation was kept at bay by cutting jobs, seizing houses in foreclosure, draining pension funds and doing everything possible to deprive the general population of the ability to spend. No spending equals little to no demand thus holding down inflation. Add to the matter that new job creation in the main cut wages in half. As long as the corporations and morbidly wealthy hold onto money and do not spend the vast reserves they are holding, inflation is held at bay. Then there is all the new money injected into our economy by the banks using debt vehicles . . . the interest rate on the average credit card is so high, consumers lack the ability to spend enough to cause inflation.
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  391. Skeet Fletcher - MMT is correct, our politicians know this . . . which is why they have doubled the debt every decade for 20 years. The politicians use MMT to fill the pockets of their donor class to bursting. Meanwhile they tell the voting population that there is not enough money for social programs or infrastructure, the biggest and longest running con job in U.S. history.
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  392.  @bluenami7520  The Fed has been pumping money into the banking system since late September 2019. All of the new money is propping up the stock market, keeping it from crashing or resetting overpriced asset values.
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  393. Хлоя Марш - Again - Yeah . . . .right. The only reason to include private money into infrastructure is to privatize the commons. You are calling people retards, yet you obviously cannot read history because. . . all . . . of . . . the . . . shit . . . you . . . wrote . . . has . . . been . . . proven . . . not . . . to . . . function. And you folk call us idiots . . .
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  394. The Wright Brothers first flight used a weight driven catapult. Baby steps before running.
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  395.  @OurLadyLaLa  - I set out to learn also, so I will attempt to elaborate (in a simplified form) and hope it helps. The key words are in the original post, "a lack of understanding of the financial system." That lack of understanding is not an accident. To use the word "system" in reference to the economy or finance is actually inaccurate, because every system has limits (for example, upper and lower limits), but the accumulation of wealth has no upper limits and we allow people to go broke, become homeless, and drop out of the bottom economically. The entire point of our economy has been oriented toward the accumulation of wealth, as I will demonstrate using the Federal Reserve's own data. Shortly after World War Two (1947), the grand total of financial assets was 2.88 times the size of the economy. Over the following 75 years, financial assets grew faster than the economy by an average of 0.5% annually. Now, financial assets are five times the size of our economy. The words "financial assets" are just another way of saying wealth. If wealth grows faster than the work that is supposed to create wealth, then there is a problem. That is our crisis in a nutshell, except that no one wants to face that reality. I stated earlier that our lack of understanding is not an accident. Anything to do with money has been purposefully over complicated and obfuscated over time, so the question is who has the most to gain by making it so? It costs a lot of money to throw out so much misinformation and smoke screen over time, so my assessment is that the wealthy are responsible for our present orchestrated confusion.
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  396. Mine cut to the ad about the pharma companies being bullies and price gouging us.
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  397. Greg ###### - What is the matter with your cognitive processes? Once again, no democrats in this video.
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  398.  @gibblespascack1418  - Your final line is the biggest bullshit lie of all. Of course we are forced to buy. Everything is a forced purchase these days except for what small things we get for our own pleasure. All that you have done is confirm your indoctrination and that you follow dogma. If anyone feels they can choose not to purchase food, shelter, transportation, health care . . . . then they will die or are already dead. No one can live off the land any longer, so don't try to sell me that BS line of choice.
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  399.  @paulcolburn3855  - Oh come on man, what are you trying to do, spit in my face? You are totally ignoring facts on the ground. People play by the rules and still lose their homes. Banks run scams on people all the time. Also, how does the majority, I'm talking the bottom 60% here, get to own a home when wages have not risen past inflation for at least 40 years, and home prices rise by double digits every year? Home purchase prices have been outracing incomes for decades. You wrote: "You need to own your own home and/or make your mortgage payments on time. Then, you will never be put out of your home. It doesn't matter how fast wealth grows or doesn't grow if you play by the rules." Flat out false. I don't know what world you live in, but that is not reality for the majority. You must be one on those overpaid tech workers who gentrify neighborhoods and force out the lower income folks. No grounding in financial reality at all.
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  400. woodchuck 00 - What you are suggesting with your comment is nonsense. Corporate profits and hoarded capital are at an all time high and the biggest corporations refuse to invest their money in the USA because they know consumer spending is suppressed. Low corporate and income taxes are the single biggest factor in increasing consumer prices in the USA because it takes capital flow out of the economy and pools capital in a useless hoarding form.
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  401. woodchuck 00 - Have you looked into the corporate tax deductions which accompany Sweden's 22% corporate tax rate? Not only is the USA corporate tax code much more convoluted and complicated due to the myriad of corporate "tax acts" passed by Congress over the past decade, the depreciation rates are astonishingly higher than Sweden by a long shot. This means that USA corporations pay a small percentage of the 21% corporate tax rate, while Sweden's corporations pay a vastly higher percentage of that country's 22% corporate tax rate. Sweden is limited to 5% depreciation for buildings annually while in the USA there is a "bonus depreciation" for real property of 50% in the first year. The USA tax code for corporations is written in such a way to encourage corporations to buy out competitors and become mega-corps. This in turn causes corporate monopolies, which drive up consumer cost while simultaneously lowering the number of choices for consumers. This is extraction economics, taking more and producing less. Sweden discourages that type of destructive corporate behavior with a much tighter corporate tax structure. I can't speak for Bernie, but my take on your reference to him is this: He says we can learn from Sweden, I say that learning from examples elsewhere in the world is a good idea. My other take is this: USA corporations being allowed to endlessly expand and consume other corporations . . . this is not good for the citizens of our country and is actively hurting us citizens economically.
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  402. Hey Peter, still sniping at Professor Wolff? How the automation business going? Putting record numbers of people out of work in 2018?
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  403.  @saltriverpirate3172  - I'm going to add something to your comment. Fully half of our economy now goes to paying the wealthy "unearned income". The mass or "weight" of financial assets has reached such a level that in order to pay interest and dividends on those assets, it is cannibalizing our economy. Most people are simply unaware of this. Capitalism as we understand it, no longer exists. "Investments" no longer produce any product, they are simply a means of extracting wealth from all of us. Just in case anyone is interested, I have examples to show (yet so many people yawn and tune out when math is involved).
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  404. #Yes
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  405. Talon9390 - How about no more rich people? Earned income and wealth needs to be capped because individuals have proved over time that concentrated wealth is irresponsible resource management.
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  406. Kevin Sarpei - The essence of my reply to your original post was this: Have you considered that Bernie is a master strategist and political tactician? He used the apparatus of the DNC to promote his message a thousand times more effectively than he could previously. Also consider that the "Unity Tour" was a strategic victory for progressives, pulled off by Bernie. He exposed Tom Perez for being a wishy-washy stand-for-nothing character, and then really shone the sunlight on the corporate corruption eating away at the Democratic Party. That was not to convince corporate democrats of anything . . . . they are essentially a lost cause. Bernie Sanders has been experimenting with the DNC like a scientist in a laboratory, then showing US the incontrovertible results. Progressives are the only audience he is talking to, or needs to talk to.
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  407. The universe is vast and there is no god or gods residing within the universe. God is just a fairy tale to comfort children.
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  408.  @charlesp7504  - The overwhelming number of Americans? Don't you mean an overwhelming number of Fox viewers? Get your facts straight Charles. Most Americans do not believe anything the liars and paid sycophants on Fox new spew out. Don't forget, Rupert Murdoch is an immigrant and Fox News is what he contributed to the disintegration of American society.
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  409. I did an Excell spreadsheet to see if our economy could actually pay for all the rentier capitalists. Imagine my surprise when after entering 70 years worth of GDP and financial asset data, when it showed me that wealth has been growing faster than the economy for all that time. We have no freedom, the economy cannot keep up with wealth extraction. Since 1947, the economy has averaged 5% growth annually. Financial assets have averaged 6% annually, and started 1947 at over twice the size of the economy. Last year the growth of financial assets was greater than 66% of our GDP. A few more years of this and we will all be debt slaves with no means of getting out of it.
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  410. Things are far worse than what Solana Rice is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). She is correct about the institutional racism, but this situation goes far beyond that because we are all being affected. This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
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  411. Working people who make the median income are budgeting with an income that buys less than half of what the median wage paid for 30 years ago. Kinda hard to get America working again, when most of those who are working cannot afford themselves to buy medical insurance coverage . . . or very much of anything else for that matter. By the way, the cost of health care per person has gone up 601% over the past 30 years . . . while the median household income has only gone up by 236% in 30 years. In case you are wondering, the cost of living has gone up by over 300% in 30 years, so household income is backsliding U.S. citizens into oblivion even though households have had to add earners to make that 236% gain (because one or two incomes cannot cut it).
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  412. Two years ago stocks gained enough value to equal 49% of our GDP. Last year stocks gained enough value to equal 66% of our GDP. Once stock gains reach 100% of our GDP, no one will be getting out of debt and the top 1% will own us all. Prepare for slavery people.
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  413. jack johnson - You really do not understand the problem at all, you are regurgitating propaganda. I started to suspect this before, thank you for confirming.
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  414. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  415. Think about this . . . Bush Sr's father was involved with both the Saudis and was a conspirator in the Butler rebellion plot to violently overthrow FDR's government. I don't like this permeation of our government by this elite society wielding government and private power over generations. Never thought my lifetime would be the one where we have to make a profound change in how we govern ourselves . . . yet we must. Accumulated wealth beyond the upkeep requirements of a luxury lifestyle is the fulcrum around which all of the evil spins. Topping off the accumulated wealth citizens can possess, so that no one can wield power using wealth alone, seem to be a change long overdue.
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  416. What? What kind of a moronic statement is that? First, your sentence is incomplete and second, it makes no sense at all.
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  417.  @notabene7381  - Yes, I am. I have been following Richard Wolff for about three years now. The roster of teachers I am finding online is growing, Michael Hudson, Steve Keen, Mark Blyth, Richard Wolff, Rana Foroohar, Stephanie Kelton, David Harvey and even though these two are not economists, Carl Sagan and Neal Degrasse Tyson taught me the physics of mass and growth. When David Harvey said that the "mass" of the economy and humanity itself were not taken into account by mainstream economists, my whole world was shaken.
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  418. Could wealth actually cause a mental illness where empathy and judgement are impaired . . . or destroyed?
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  419. Here is what a Biden win is going to do. First, it is going to put Americans to sleep. Everything is fine, we got rid of Trump. Cool, we can stop paying attention now. Four years is going to tick by while the country goes back into Obama daydreams. Meanwhile, nothing gets done on climate change, four years gone from the clock. Moving on, the little know time bomb of financial assets will continue on its merry way. Just paying interest and dividends on financial assets takes up a quarter of our economy, which is the hidden reason why Trump won in the first place. All that interest and dividend money has to be well hidden in the economy, so housing will go up, health care will climb faster and interest rates on credit cars will exceed 35%. All of this sets the stage for a new, smarter version of Trump to run on the republican side for 2024, saying truthfully that the democrats simply cannot do anything right. Ok, you are so into getting rid of Trump, you just screwed the entire human species. Happy now?
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  420. I am concerned about something far more destructive than executive pay inequality. The 1% in the USA have amassed so much wealth (over $30 trillion) that just to satisfy a nominal rate of return (lets use 5% interest) it eats all of our annual GDP growth PLUS an additional sum equal to almost double our annual GDP growth. Here is the math. The 1% currently have over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth. Our U.S. economy is just below $20 trillion annual GDP output. In 2018 the growth in output for the USA was $360 billion. The interest on $30 trillion at 5% is $1.5 trillion. So here is source of my alarm. Output growth for 2018 was $360 billion yet the interest payments (free money) to the 1% was over $1,500 billion . . . . where does that extra $950 billion in 1% interest come from if not directly out of our pockets in increased costs for housing, medical care and education? Why should the 1% get all that free additional wealth for doing nothing . . . when ordinary good people have to choose between rent or food or medical care? The 1% have surpassed the critical mass of wealth that will enable them to cannibalize us just to satisfy their craving for more interest generated wealth (free money). These people are not "investing" . . . they are using their wealth to be predators, which will turn us unto a society of Kings and Serfs. This has me freaked out and angry, what exactly can we do about it?
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  421. This situation is due to housing, or "housing units" being categorized as "capital assets", to be bought, sold or traded at will. Unless we have a revolution in this country, we will never again see "affordable housing".
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  422. alan2102 - Agreed. The more I learn, the more I am afraid your assessment is correct.
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  423. Julia Lewis - I voted for Hillary in the 2016 primary and the general election, because I was naively optimistic that when we had our first woman president, we could finally move on to the important work needed to insure that we actually have a future. I wanted this because I was concerned about my two daughters and the world they are inheriting. This primary vote horrified my eldest daughter. She was for Bernie, but I didn't even know who Bernie was at the time. She told me about how horrible Hillary was, and I told her she was being idealistic. I was 55 years old at that time and thought I knew more that she did. After the election, I started a research project into the economy and two years later, my eyes are wide open. My daughter was correct and I was wrong. The Democratic Party is broken. We cannot fix it by voting for establishment candidates like Hillary, she is the same as a republican. If we must endure republicans due to vote splitting, then that is what we must do in order to reshape the democrats and push them to the left. Otherwise we will never, and I mean never, have a progressive president and Congress. We have doomed our species and every other life on this planet over the past forty years. The only thing that we as a people can do is vote, if we vote for corporate centrist democrats . . . . then we might as well have just voted republican. You will not help anyone by voting for a centrist, you will only make things worse. So clench up and vote third party if the democrats put up a centrist for president. It might land us with Trump again, but a message must be sent to the democrats that the days of corporations and Wall Street running the Democratic Party are over. Bernie 2020.
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  424. Yes, he can still run for a second term . . . impeachment proceedings cannot put a stop to that. Only conviction in the Senate and removal from office can bar Trump from running in the 2020 election. Looks like it is up to us people to vote in 2020 and remove him ourselves. In addition, Nancy Pelosi's donors love Trump so she is certainly never going to act on our behalf and allow even the political theater of an impeachment inquiry.
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  425.  @Zach-ju5vi  - So how much does being a propaganda troll for the oligarchy pay? When you evoke jealousy by citizens over rich people "making more money", it is a dead giveaway that you work for directly for the wealthy.
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  426.  @Zach-ju5vi  - Yes, we understand the concept of capitalism, it is the same concept as the game Monopoly. Money and power get concentrated under capitalism, which is no different than feudalism,slavery or the Roman Empire. Can't help but notice that when confronted with math or facts, you cannot help but to run away.
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  427. euroclyde - Exactly! The 2016 election was the turning point for me, from now on I will be examining the funding of candidates I can vote for. Those whose campaigns run on any corporate, big business, banking or billionaire wealth . . . . are in the rear view mirror. I will seek out candidates who serve the people and fund-raise from the people.
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  428. Being well off is not a bad thing, but how much wealth do people actually need? Once one person surpasses earnings or wealth that puts them and their family beyond the need to work for a living, that is quite enough. It has been shown time and time again that people who pursue wealth beyond their actual needs and beyond a luxury lifestyle, those people are in pursuit of power. This has proven to be extremely bad for society and humanity at large. It is time for us as a society to put stringent limits on how much in earnings and wealth a single person or family can accumulate, because our history has shown wealth beyond that point has detrimental effects on society as a whole. Same thing for large businesses and corporations. It is against the best interests of society to let a company or corporation grow so large, that it starts to devour (as in buy up) other companies. Such behavior needs to be strictly limited or eliminated, for the common good of society. People who have talent and/or good ideas should be rewarded handsomely for their contributions to society. Those same people need to be trained that beyond their handsome rewards, their contribution to society also needs to include the excess wealth generated going back into society . . . to help fund other very smart people in bringing their contributions to society. This should be a civic duty, rather than being looked at as it is now . . . as theft of what a person has "rightfully earned". Besides, when you have so much money that it sits in investment accounts earning interest . . . can that money really be considered as something they have really and truly earned? The rate on return for billionaire investors is more than the GDP growth of entire countries. How is this helpful when those investment accounts help to periodically crash the economy?
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  429.  Michael Shenefield  - You are drinking Trump's poisoned cool-aid. Better get help fast!
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  430. No, we elect people based on the limited selection of politicians the wealthy find acceptable. Since 1947 wealth has grown 1% faster than our economy, a situation contrived by "bought and paid for" politicians. Now wealth gains are eating our economy for lunch, in 2020 wealth gained a sum equal to 49% of our economy and last year the gains were more than 66% of our GDP. We get a president and congressional candidates that are selected for us to protect the status quo, we don't actually get to choose who would be best at running the country for our benefit.
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  431. +Rick Esping - The haters of Bernie are boiling over mad, because of exact what you wrote. Bernie is pulling in democrats, republicans and independents, something no one else has been able, or even willing to do. One year ago I did not know who Bernie Sanders is, when I first heard him speak I felt an instant resonance with his message. We need more like him.
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  432. We have the 2nd Amendment only because states wanted to keep private militia's to patrol for escaped slaves, and to do monthly mandatory inspections of all slave compounds and quarters. Never was the intention to have people be able to shoot at the government.
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  433. Sorry Kyle, not with you on the idea Russia has gained nothing. State Department not staffed favors Russia. Trump insulting NATO allies and not committing to back NATO allies if attacked, once again this favors Russia. Just because there are not specific Trump policies enacted favoring Russia does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that Russia is not really enjoying benefits as a direct result of the Trump presidency. That said, the Russia thing is a shiny object to keep us distracted while the Corporate Takeover of the United States continues in the background.
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  434. Gonna weigh in here, this discussion is making good points all around. Look here, the 2016 election brought us into progressive hell . . . . but it also exposed the neoliberal lie for more people to see. More Ro Khanna's are going to run for office. Progressives funded by the people are still few and far between, , but we know what we need now whereas before 2016 the progressive message could not carry the punch it does now. I was one of those who voted for Hillary and was brainwashed by the corporate media. I am not a progressive veteran, I may have been progressive at the core but until I got shook up by this election I really did not have a clue about what the USA is really facing. Now I do, because I dug in and researched, listened to Secular Talk, Humanist Report, Thom Hartman, Robert Reich, Dr. Richard Wolff and even discovered Noam Chomsky. If this is all new to me, then imagine how many others are out there who are still shell shocked and ready to learn about the Progressive Front! If Hillary would have won, complacency would have also won the day. Trump is a nightmare, but thanks to him and his corrupt cabinet, 50-somethings are waking up just like you younger folks. You are the first responders and we elder folk respect that, because I want things to change and so do many, many others of my generation. We need your hutspa and us old farts now know for a fact . . . . that you young-uns do know what in the hell you are doing. Carry On and Tally Ho!
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  435. MrIzzyDizzy - The short answer is yes, In the Permian–Triassic extinction (P-T) it seems that all the above applies. There were several huge volcanoes in the Asia-Siberian area that came on the heels of the initial event, causing massive pyroclastic flows, massive coal-ignitions and peat burning which melted the permafrost across the continent. Methane-hydrates decoupled in the melt, releasing enough methane to constitute 10% of the atmosphere. After the volcanic particulates settled and filtered from the atmosphere, the methane remained and caused a greenhouse effect which lasted tens of thousands of years. The smallest of carbon shelled creatures took over ten million years to reestablish themselves on the planet. In our modern age, methane-hydrates are formed under pressure, and in extreme cold. The products of decomposition of biological matter are locked into hydrates (solids). The land of permafrost and the cold depths of oceans lock away methane, keeping it out of the atmosphere. Now, the northern arctic is defrosting, ice in the polar ocean is melting. This opens these shallow seas to commercial vessel traffic, which will churn up the warmer waters which in turn will accelerate the release of methane from its hydrate bonds. The permafrost on land is melting also, releasing methane from decomposing peat hydrates. Of the methane-hydrates currently stored in the earth, it will take only a small percentage release (5% to 10%) to cause a global extinction event which will kill off all the larger animal life forms. Methane is already outgassing from the oceans all along the California coast, the rate has accelerated over the past 20 years which in turn has caused the events to be more carefully studied by marine scientists. We live on a planet that has a living system of checks and balances, which is being unbalanced by CO2 emissions. It is not the Koch Brothers personal unlimited petroleum byproduct disposal bin.
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  436. Judth Chrismon - Thats right, Mr.tRump works for "We the People". What we really need Judth is a new Amendment to the Constitution . . . . taking into account everything we have learned through POTUS-45, the lies, the corruption abuse, the nepotism abuse, the appointments of cabinet members abuse, special advisors to the president abuse, national security clearance abuse, emoluments clause abuse, and just plain old abuse of power. Let us not forget that the Supreme Court Justice selection was rigged by the republican senate to deny Obama's lawful appointment . . . . we have to make sure these things cannot happen again.
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  437. The angry teamster - "Amir Webb that's what is referred to as Conservative ideology." Conservative ideology is the host body for the neoliberal virus, it uses the host as camouflage and to generate voter sustenance. I really doubt that true conservative ideology exists in American politics today.
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  438. Of all the comments here, cgcmaster, BigRalphSmith, and Ray Kirkham are the only ones making sense. The rest of you falling prey to "divide and conquer".
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  439. OrionPax09- I'm with you 100% on your comment here. The situation with the greed and corruption has gone so far as to bring out the slime into the light of day where we can all see it. Change cannot come fast enough, yet 2018 will arrive with the GOP and Corporate Dems will pay for this betrayal by being replaced. Hazzycakes- Lift your spirits, the Justice Democrats can do more than you are willing to accept right now. Here is part of a comment I wrote yesterday that applies to your thinking: "This situation voters are in reminds me of WW2 history, fighting on all fronts and every theater commander calling out for more resources. Like then, our conflict is on multiple fronts because we are being attacked on multiple fronts. As a converted Independent voter my efforts are concentrated on spreading the word about Justice Democrats, because taking over the Democratic Party from within is the best use of my limited resources. I am counting on the efforts of everyone in this fight, on every front, to keep the pressure on. If it comes to pass that the Corporate Democrats have permanently corrupted the party, the growing core of Justice Democrats will break out of the dying host and form a strong coalition party with like minded progressives. That coalition party will be strong enough at that point in time to take down both Republican and Democratic parties and end the current cycle of corrupted representation in our political systems."
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  440. +#TrumpTheFascist Bigot - I'm very much in agreement with your last comments . . . . except for one critical item: No killing or advocating for the killing of politician and their families. That rhetoric goes too far and is not productive. If tRump and his authoritarian cohorts dare to go so far as to destroy our U.S Constitution and seize control of the United States or any part thereof by force or through authoritarian anti-constitutional action. . . . all bets are off. If the U.S. military has been infiltrated up to the highest commands by right wing christian zealots, they might support tRump in a coup d'etat. I'm betting most of the military will support and defend the U.S. people. Certainly Betsy Devos, her brother Eric Prince and their Blackwater militia family need a careful and wary eye kept on them. They are already complicit in seditious actions against the "We the People".
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  441. HeyGuy4321 - Racist bigot much? Lets not forget that we never held Saudi Arabia responsible for the 9-11 attacks, instead we the USA and allies went into Afghanistan and plus into Iraq twice, thus unleashing all this terrorism on the world by killing thousands of innocent civilians. Most of these current refugees are real normal people escaping from the terrors of war they did not want. Now if you deny this, you are just another ignorant racist bigot who loves to hate(melanin worshipping cult), but I think your comments prove you are one already.
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  442. Darlene Royce - Yes, be strong and continue to carry out the second longest con job on the American people in history. Whats the matter Darlene, did you fail math all the way through public school? Did you also fail all your hearing tests? Also, who is the "We" included in your 100%? First let us address your math skills. If we are being generous with the numbers and there are 15 million illegals in the USA, that accounts for less than 5% of the population here. There is no way that less than 5% of the population has taken all the jobs from citizens, caused the stagnation of wages, or is responsible for living costs tripling in the USA over the decades since Reagan was president. Next let us address your cognitive skills. Since we have established that illegals are not responsible for any of the economic problems facing citizens today, wherein then lies the problem? Face it Darlene, you have been conned. Yes, continue to tell criminal donny to hold strong . . . that will all but guarantee that the liar in chief is booted out of office in 2020.
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  443. Sha Dow - Yes, from now on I will not vote for establishment, instead I will vote for the real citizen as you mentioned. Good comment.
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  444. Trump knew before he was sworn in, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the Russians took active measures against our elections to support him. He is a conspirator, he is an enemy of our Constitution and proves it every day.
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  445. Chase Musqkwanto - Ok, back from lunch. I would like to impart two main items, one simple and the second requiring some elaboration. First: It was because of the Justice Democrats and their campaign platform that I switched my voter registration from Independent to Democrat. JD's are very appealing and they are in the main on the correct track. However, reform is not enough. Reforms are always undermined and then removed by the oligarchs and their minions. That leads to my second item. I live in California and my eldest daughter (29) lives in Missouri with her husband. Over this past weekend I called her and we discussed my wealth cap proposal. She asked me to define a "life of luxury" so we could have a basis for discussion. Since "luxury" is defined differently by different folk, I provided this baseline for our discussion: "If a family lives can afford to live in a 29 room mansion and they are building an new mansion with 92 rooms, that is too much wealth." She told me that "mansions" in her area ran from 1.6 to 3 million dollars, so we started our "thought experiment" using the upper limit of 3 million dollars for housing and another 3 million for property taxes over a lifetime. I would ask her for the upper limit on what she considered "luxury" for transportation, food, clothing, entertainment, furniture, healthcare, travel and other lifestyle luxury amenities. Together we came to a total of 50 million dollars in accumulated wealth which would allow her and her family to live in the utmost of luxury and security. So if we break that down into an annual income over a 30 year working life, no one should really require more than 1.75 million dollars per year of total income after taxes. You see, there are only a small proportion of millionaires and billionaires who use their wealth to benefit mankind. Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson, perhaps the Gates (though I don't actually see what they are doing, My Lady reminds me of their Foundation work) . . . and the guy who made his fortune making and selling those 5-Minute Energy drinks (Billions for Change). On the diabolical power hungry side of the ledger we have the Trump's, the Mercers, the Koch Brothers, Julian Sinclair Smith of Sinclair Broadcasting, Rupert Murdoch and family, the Bush family, the Dupont's, the Johnson family, plus countless others I cannot name without looking them up. Throw into the mix the lobbying cartels for every known corporation using their money to buy OUR government representatives. Put a wealth cap on all of them and big companies and corporations will have to break apart, ending monopolies. Co-operatives between many stakeholders will become the new norm instead of the exception. Large building projects will require the cooperation of many builders instead of a few Mega-Corps. Large companies owned by individuals will be forced into reinvesting into their employees and company infrastructure. Many of the things the Justice Democrats stand for will happen by default with one simple and sweeping change. I could go on, but if you are as intelligent as I believe, you will see the possibilities in this once you give it some thought. So many of societies ill's will get attention and even cures with the revenues generated by a wealth cap tax . . . and no one will suffer the deprivation of their chance to earn millions. With vastly increased tax revenue, funding the vast potential of technical and artistic talent among our population can be unleashed. With a Universal Basic Income people are no longer bound to the useless hamster wheel of human wastage the current capitalism economy creates. ALSO: There will no longer be an oligarchy with the means and tools to undermine these societal reforms. Just think about it.
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  446. SupaDr00g - Once again you are demonstrating your monumental ignorance of what socialism is. Please, crack open and read a book about the subject before you make any other idiotic statements. Just a hint of what you will learn: Companies are not state owned under socialism, companies are owned by the workers who participate in them, i.e. co-opts. The gibberish you are spouting is a right wing myth planted in the public space by oligarchs such as the Koch Brothers, knowing that slack jawed idiots like yourself will pick up those myths and spread them like the gospel.
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  447.  @davidlazarus67  - Agreed. They will object of course, saying that their right to representation is being denied, however we have seen the kind of "representing" that the millionaires do. They would say that "We the People" also means millionaires, but what I think is that if you are a millionaire then you are already well enough represented, the millionaires needs and desires cannot be put above the majority of people.
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  448.  @aimwilliamson6609  - Thank you. Very few reply with positivity and supportiveness, yours is deeply appreciated. We need an economic model that works for our era.
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  449. deacon jones - Bernie and I both are restricted to using the same economic system to make our money. The difference between Bernie and other Senators is that Bernie does not buy shares of stock and then write riders on bills or budget legislation to manipulate the value of those stocks. Bernie just made a ton of money selling his book, good for him. It does not change my opinion that he should be heavily taxed on his earnings. To answer your question, I trust Bernie and I don't trust Mitch McConnell or any republican Senators.
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  450. deacon jones - In your reply to Jose Benitez, you wrote: "i hope we can do that with[sic] out socialism". I am assuming your reply was in answer to his comment on tax law. What I am curious about is this, what do you call (or name) the massive subsidies, loop holes and the wage theft that businesses use so that their employees must use food stamps and medicare to survive? Look at Foxconn, Lowe's Hardware, Home Depot, Walmart, Amazon and who knows how many other corporations, who require local, state and federal tax subsidies just to set up shop in any general locality . . . in exchange for jobs. Is that not corporate socialism? Should they not be required to have a business plan that does not require taxpayer subsidy? Would it not be better if those corporations simply went out of business if they cannot be profitable on their own without corporate welfare? The federal deficit and debt is packed with corporate welfare. We are already paying for massive amounts of socialism, to oil companies and military contracts, etc. The idea that socialism for people is off limits, yet socialism for corporations is not . . . that is backwards thinking. If you take a close look at our economy, the real economy of goods and services to the population is now far outweighed by the FIRE Sector (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate), which is heavily subsidized (socialism for the wealthy). The Fed has pumped many trillions of dollars into the financial system to keep it from collapse, very little of which has gone to the population at large. The majority of that currency circulates in the rarified realm of wealth funds, hedge funds and derivatives . . . the world of the 1/10th of 1%'ers. The arena that Jose Benitez's link to Propublica does not cover is the toxic asset holdings of the Federal Reserve, which was not paid back or reimbursed to the taxpayer. So what if the banks paid back the direct financial assistance, that was only possible because of near zero interest rates for bank to bank transfers and does not take into account the relief for toxic securities that the banks were paid to get rid of by the Fed. Long and short of the situation is this. People pay into Social Security for their entire working lives, that is why it is called an Entitlement Program. Entitlements are not the driver of federal debt, corporate welfare and subsidies are. How and when are the American people ever going to get paid back for this so-called "investment" in corporations? The answer is never. The answer therefor lies in a different arena. The greed of the 1% is what drives the entire financial machinery, so lets put a governor on the machinery in the form of a wealth cap. If you were to draw out the cause and effect of a wealth cap, prices for real estate, rents, goods and services would go down and the economy would gain an equilibrium which would benefit all of society. Then there would be no need for "socialism" of any kind, personal or corporate.
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  451. deacon jones - Saul Alinsky is NOT one of the fathers of modern socialism, he is a fossil. If you want to talk theft, grand theft at that, then let us examine more closely the corporate capture of virtually the entire capitalist market and the corporate capture of our government. We no longer have any rights as consumers against the wholesale grand theft being perpetrated by corporations today. I will give you three examples from my personal life, although there are far more than three that apply to me alone. Example Number 1). Health care. I have health insurance. I also have a pre-existing condition. We do not have a car, so all travel is by bus. I cannot see a pulmonologist in the town where I live, I must use a pulmonologist in the health insurance network. This necessitates a four hour one way bus trip to visit a pulmonologist in the network. Not only does this put a great strain on me physically, but it is nearly impossible to get an appointment scheduled that will allow me to use the bus for transportation. The deductibles make it nearly impossible for me to use the health insurance. I cannot sue them, because the contract calls for binding arbitration and I cannot be represented by a lawyer and I must abide by the arbitration board's ruling. This is legalized theft on a grand scale. Example Number 2). Internet Service. There is only one internet service provider in our area, making our population a captured market. Our internet provider has grown so large, it has forced other providers out of business. We pay an extra ordinarily high fee to get internet access. It is in our contract that if we have any issues, we must use binding arbitration to settle them. This is corporate capture of the market and grand theft on a massive scale. Example Number 3). Magic Mesh. I bought two Magic Mesh screens, which work quite well and I am satisfied with the product. However, upon opening the product the first thing I see is a notice disclaiming responsibility and requiring that if I use the product, I am agreeing to binding arbitration to resolve any disputes. In each example, I must give up my rights as a citizen to seek legal action through the courts to resolve any disputes. Use of the judicial system is my right as an American citizen, yet my rights have been legislated away by my own government. That is grand theft on a massive scale, and worse than anything modern socialism can or will do. The republicans at this very moment are packing the federal judiciary with pro-corporate/anti-citizen judges. In case you are unaware, there is a word which describes the merging of government and corporate business interests . . . fascism. We fought a World War against fascism and imperialism, now the USA has become both fascist and imperialist. How is that not grand theft from every citizen of the USA? If you are going to talk anti-socialism, then you must face the system of fascism taking over the USA and be honest about it. What you are doing is defending American fascism and imperialism. The best example right now of both is the situation in Venezuela. Contrary to the public doctrine, Venezuela is not a socialist country. The fascist right in this country is claiming Venezuela is socialist, so justify a military invasion and coup de'etat for the sole purpose of plundering Venezuela's abundant natural resources on behalf of multi-national corporations. Corporation involvement with government planning is fascism, and the siege warfare through sanctions is American imperialism . . . and all of it is theft on a grand national scale. How do you justify that?
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  452. Yes, Section 3 under Article 2 is one big run on sentence, which does say that the president can adjourn both houses of Congress "to such a Time as he thinks proper". Of course if Trump were to do this, he could get away with it until he runs out of money. If Trump were to follow that course of action, even republicans would not be very cooperative with Trump once the Congress was called back into session.
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  453. David Timmer - That is the problem with abusive power mad people, things will always get worse. The only thing to do is push them out and step on their heads, then keep them our of your house. There will always be more trouble, they key is to put distance between them and you. We WILL shove tRump out the door of OUR house, then let the FBI and Attorney's Generals attack dogs have their way with him.
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  454.  @jacobgrover8977  - I would like to give TheDiamond2009 a little bit more time to consider his reply. So far he has been guessing and I think he can do better.
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  455.  @TheDiamond2009  - Does a specialization in "tax" mean that you fill out tax returns for other people, or as a tax consultant, or that you study the nature of taxes? Your "angles" attempt to answer my question seems like a hedge or a dodge. My question is straight forward and has nothing to do with "point of view".
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  456.  @AnarchyEnsues  - Free weed? I knew they actively promoted illegal immigration as part of their union busting campaign, taking out newspaper ads in Mexico decades ago to invite workers north. The billionaire class has been playing dirty games like this ever since Nixon took our currency off the gold standard. But free weed? Never heard of that one. FYI, 1) The short slang name is "Pot", not weed . . . you must get with the times. 2) Dull your senses? Where are you getting your information from . . . "Reefer Madness"? Old propaganda? . . . That is what some old farts want you to believe. Today's pot is a very effective cerebral enhancement drug and all natural, no chemicals like opioids. The old sleepy time, dull your senses weed was probably hemp bud, not the high quality cannabis available in modern times.
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  457. We have already chosen. We gave up our futures decades ago during the Reagan years, when most people started to believe that through compounding wealth through "investments", they did not have to worry about producing anything. If we are ever going to do anything for the people, we have to start limiting what people as individuals can accumulate. Cap wealth so no one can be wealthy beyond a set point. The danger of concentrated wealth is the "interest" it accumulates. That "interest" is greater every year and without limits, that "interest" will scoop out the entire economy. NOW PLAYING: 90 trillion in Financial Assets at 5% Interest VS $22 trillion United States 2019 GDP at 3% growth rate . . . . . can you figure out who the winner is?
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  458. I started teaching myself about the economy when I was 55 years old. This was a project I wanted start 10 years earlier, but when you are self employed, who has time for that? Being self employed, I kept records. There was a very thin margin between between charging too much and losing a client, and making enough to survive. One of the resources I used were shop units in industrial parks and I got to know many small business owners, no one ever felt like they were awash in success. Many folded and closed shop over the years, overcome by rising costs that could not be passed on to their customers. We were all strained, no matter what the year. What I eventually learned shook me to the core, because it was not part of what I had grown up believing The United States of America was all about. Freedom and Democracy. Every idea that we have about spreading democracy through the world is false. We have an economy that is rigged to grow wealth faster than the productive economy can produce, it really is that simple. People can feel the wealth extraction taking place, but have no words to adequately describe what is happening. Now after researching the economy for many years, I can see the problem plain as day. Last year, wealth grew by an enormous amount, over $13 trillion. That sum is 66% of our GDP. The year before the wealth growth was 49% of our GDP. Very soon, wealth growth will swallow our entire GDP. If we want to defend ourselves and working folk everywhere, then we cannot go on having unlimited personal wealth. When wealth growth sucks up the entire economy, everyone will be in perpetual and unrelenting debt. All freedoms will be lost. The only solution is an across the board personal wealth cap, for people and corporations alike. Might seem drastic, but we only have a few years before we lose all say in our economy and become economic slaves in a very literal way.
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  459. Yes, and I am grateful for the info packed video. Helps to clarify things because I know we are not getting the truth in this matter from corporate media or Trump.
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  460. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  461. Trump restricting asylum access? Why, did he get stuck in the asylum door? I know, I know . . . wrong asylum. But with that title, I could not resist.
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  462.  @AB-ol5uz  - The entire "illegal aliens" story is a false narrative that serves two main purposes. The first purpose is just to scare people, fear is a great political tool. The second purpose is one of diversion, put your attention on those "illegals" and then you won't notice the real job stealers are wealthy people who make all the economic decisions. Don't let yourself get used like that. The wealthy do far more damage to our economy than a few very poor immigrants.
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  463. I'd also like to see what the GDP is without the "weapons/defense" and "big pharma/private insurance" industries (rackets), but also without the "financial services" and "investment services" rackets. The top 20% in the USA has over $55 trillion in financial assets which pull down at least $2.75 trillion in "interest" payments, that is more than 13% of our GDP. The books on the GDP are definitely cooked. That interest payment money is mostly extracted from the bottom 80% in the form of increased housing and health care costs. Our costs for vital living provisions are going up, up , up, yet we are getting less and less in value.
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  464. unfairadvantagefilms - Agreed. I found Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" to be much more educational than all the history classes I attended in high school.
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  465. Subjecting family members to unwarranted search and seizure is just another way to grow the private prison population. When the cops and probation officers come looking, your family is going to get locked up on "unrelated charges". Remember, conservatives in government is just another name for liars, cheats, grifters and thieves . . . it is past time to delegitimize all republican politicians.
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  466. My youngest has a minimum wage job where she increased her with-holdings last January, due to the 2% increase in her federal taxes. It is hardly fair that she has to work harder to pay more while the wealthy get a windfall they did not work to earn.
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  467. Wealth accumulation above a certain level must be made illegal, that is something we must all fight for or we remain slaves to capital owners forever.
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  468. IronskullGM - If you are going to offer John Doe proof that the wealthy pay more in taxes than everyone else, two things would be helpful. 1) Choose a source article that is not behind a "pay barrier". I'm not paying to read your source material. 2) Choose a source that is not a "opinion piece" from a propaganda outlet owned by the right wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch. What you have done is offer up lies as proof that the wealthy pay a majority of taxes. I could tear your argument apart and I may just do so . . . . after I mow the lawn.
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  469.  @BassBouncers  - Regular people are already paying more in taxes. Every time the insurance companies raise your health care premiums, co-pays and deductibles, that is a tax. Every time bankers lend on overpriced real estate causing the prices to keep climbing, that causes rent increases which are a housing tax. There are more examples just like those two, and where do you think the Rate of Returns (free money) for the top 20% are coming from? That money is extracted from regular people just like you and I, all of which is another tax on us. Regular people are being duped by centrist democrats. Costs keep going up for us (reverse wealth tax) so that the top 20% can continue getting free money just because they have so much money already. Enough of that.
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  470. I only clicked on this video to read some of the comments. What I see here is massive projection. Virtually everything the left is accused of here, is exactly what the right does every day, out in the open. Nice to see that the right is so flexible, you have twisted yourselves into pretzels in order to agree with this blatant propaganda. This is all about wealth folks, and the means used by those who have it, to continue growing it exponentially. They use you folks as their protectors, their guardians. Yet nothing grows forever. Either wealth will have legal limits one day or humanity will go extinct. Those with the wealth use it to take power over our politics, and therein is the rub. Going extinct is intolerable, so those with wealth will smear anyone who finds unlimited wealth growth intolerable, and you folks buy directly into the smears. This video is not about tolerance or intolerance, it is a recruitment tool to get good little soldiers to protect the "right" of the wealthy to keep growing their wealth by extracting it from everyone else. Period.
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  471. I watched the beginning of this video several times. The student who was tazed was not shown to be attacking anyone. Is there some other video of this event showing what happened prior to the start of this video? In any case, the police are big and strong adults. They can handle situations like this without resorting to pepper spray and especially without using tazers. The young man who was tazed never got up. The officer who did the pepper spray and tazing also did a lot of aggressive shoving, looks like he has anger management issues.
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  472. Jesse Torres - What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day.
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  473. Both parties are helping to cannibalize our economy to create a permanent wealth class.
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  474. romulus463 = Farm Troll, don't feed, likes to bite hands.
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  475. One thing everyone needs to be aware of . . . reforms are always undone. Even if Bernie wins, and I hope he does, no reform that he can get placed whether by executive order or by signing legislation . . . will ever stand the test of time. There is only one reform that can protect all other progressive reforms over the long haul, and it is never talked about. Look back on history and ask yourself this one question: What single force stands behind the undermining of all progressive political reforms from the gilded age forward? Can any of you figure out what that force is?
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  476. Innocent people, especially a president of the USA, should welcome investigations that will clear their names. Only guilty people rant against investigations and call them "witch hunts" . Sure are turning up an awful lot of guilty witches!
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  477. Times are tough for corporations? Somebody is lying to you.
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  478. John Michael Robinson - After reading thirteen comments with eleven negative idiots and only two positive statements, it was a relief to read yours. I'm in complete agreement with you. As a 57 year old with two grown daughters, I am so happy that AOC has just burst forth with forceful clarity on the most important matters of the day (sounds like my kids). My generation is clueless and these young leaders are on the correct track. I have been advocating for space based solar for two decades and a Green New Deal is exactly what we need. The neanderthals will have to step aside or be stepped on, their oil is not the answer.
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  479.  @tobymitchell5133  - I'd like to know how you can justify the wealthy getting "free money" without working to earn it, to the point where it is crippling our economy and the bottom 80% on the income ladder. Here is one thing we all need to take a closer look at, and it includes what is happening with our health care costs. The top 20% have over $50 trillion in financial assets in interest bearing accounts. The economy is only $20 trillion strong and it cannot stand the weight of $50 trillion sitting on its head, demanding 5% rate of returns. The national GDP only grew by 2.56% in 2018 ($560 billion), while 5% interest on $50 trillion equals $2.5 trillion. After eating all the 2018 GDP gains, the balance due on 5% interest is $1.94 trillion, or 10% of our national economy. What this means is that 80% of our people will never get out of debt or get ahead, because we are stuck paying trillions in "free money" to those who already have more than enough. This is why we cannot have Biden, or Booker, or Bootyjug, or another republican as president, all of these so-called "centrists" are simply protecting the assets of the top 20% while screwing the rest of us. Our economy is being cannibalized in order to feed the fat cats who occupy the top 20% of the economic ladder.
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  480. The free market economy is taking over and eliminating our democracy. The free market takes away the voice of the citizens wherever it controls a part of the commons. No part of the commons should be run or administered by a for profit company, this includes power utilities, roads, water, medicine and pharmaceutical, military, police, schools, public transportation, prisons, and the list goes on and on. We have enough proof that the free market economy does a horrible job managing public sector resources, plus the supporters of free market economics are in reality practicing wealth extraction economics. I think 40 plus years of Reaganomics and neoliberalism has proven that the free market economy cannot be trusted in a great many sectors, especially in the public sector as relating to the commons. Additionally, if the free market economy supporters think their system works so great, then why do they want so much money for corporate welfare? Seems to me they can do just as well without tax breaks or subsidies from local, state, or the federal government.
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  481. We in the USA cannot avoid fascism unless and until we recognize what is causing this phenomenon in the modern age. The lead up to fascism is the real story behind this "winning" economy, which never gets told. Here I will tell the story in parable. Its really simple, a 500 pound man is sitting on the head of a 200 pound man. While the 200 pound man goes to work every day, the 500 pound man does nothing but sit on the 200 pound man's head. The 200 pound man works hard and gets a 2.5% pay raise for the year. At the end of the year, the 500 pound man demands 10% of the 200 pound man's gross pay and all the raises in pay. The 200 pound man pays the demand every year without question. The cycle continues without end. In this story, the 500 pound man is the financial assets of the top 20% in the USA. The 200 pound man is the U.S. economy. The top 20% skim at least $2.5 trillion from the U.S. economy every year without lifting a finger to actually earn that money. They call it "investing" in the economy, but taking all GDP gains plus 10% of the total GDP by calling it "interest", or "rate of return", well I've got another name for it. It's a racket. This is why we have Trump and the fascist MAGA crowds at his rallies. Until we are willing to recognize this, we are doomed.
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  482.  @MukoroJr  - We have a huge problem in this country, all housing, or "housing units", are considered to be "capital assets". For as long as that is the case, we will never again have affordable housing. The elites have figured out yet another way to squeeze everything from us.
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  483.  @MukoroJr  - Sad reality, yes. However this is something that we are going to have to change, forcefully if necessary. Just in this year alone, the elites have driven up the price of assets so much, the value increase is nearly half of our GDP. We are either going to fall as a country, turning into a techno-feudalist oligarchy under authoritarian rule, or the current regime of "shareholder value trumps all" has got to go.
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  484.  @Luca-bv5ic  - Ok, I just watched this video. First of all, Prager U is a propaganda channel set up by Dennis Prager. While his videos are very appealing to conservatives, they are highly skewed. When I refer to "progressives", I'm not talking about the way households or local governments are run. I'm talking about how the federal government is run and the way the wealthy gain more wealth. We run our household with conservative methodology. Local and state governments must operate using a conservative methodology or they will go broke. That is not the way the federal government or those with excessive wealth operate. There is a distinction and a difference. The federal government creates money and can never go broke. None of our federal tax money is used to run the federal government, all of the federal government operating expenses are covered through congressional appropriations and spending bills signed by the president. Spending bills signed into law are the check, and the U.S. Treasury can always cash the check. The federal government chooses to sell bonds, though there is no requirement for this, it is a safe haven for savings because the federal government can never go broke. Our federal tax money is used to retire older bonds, but the reason the federal debt keeps going up is because taxes have been lowered over the past four decades for the higher income and wealthy citizens, so there is not enough taxes coming in to retire bonds. Of course there are other reasons for the federal debt going up, useless wars, bailing out banks and Wall Street, subsidies to industry, etc. However the main reason we have a federal debt is that the U.S. government is the source of all currency and if that currency is withdrawn by balancing the budget, we would be in perpetual economic depression. Those with excessive wealth (I consider the wealth of Dennis Prager to be on the low end of the excessive wealth scale), use this type of propaganda to advocate for low taxes for the wealthy, by trying to equate themselves with a middle income conservative household. They are nothing like a conservative household. The exponential growth of compounded interest creates wealth by extracting it from the very conservative households this propaganda is appealing to. Look here, there is an example of the accumulation of wealth put forward by a 1700's philosopher that I like to use. The economist Michael Hudson translated his writings into U.S. currency so we could understand it. If you took one U.S. penny at 5% compounded interest, and started it in a savings account at the birth of Jesus Christ, by the year 1750 the value of that initial penny would be over 180 earth size globes of SOLID GOLD. This of course, is completely unsustainable. By issuing this kind of conservative propaganda, the wealthy elites are trying to obscure from us the way they grow their wealth, not from hard work and effort like you, or Elon Musk, but from extracting wealth from all of us, so they can get compounded interest based on their already immense accumulated wealth. The same thing happens when you get 20% of the population who have accumulated wealth 2.5 times our annual GDP, the compounded interest being paid on that accumulated wealth can only be gained by extracting wealth from the bottom 80%, but even then, there is a limit. This is why since late September of 2019, the Federal Reserve has been pumping liquidity into the banking system like mad. The world is running out of money to pay interest to the wealthy. Central banks all over the world are pumping currency into the banking system, and that currency is being borrowed by corporations and the wealthy seeking a greater rate of return in the stock markets. That is the entire reason the stock markets are booming. Being progressive in the modern era means putting a stop to the over-accumulation of wealth, because it is simply unsustainable. It is not about jealousy or envy, those words are propaganda talking points. It is about our very survival as a species, that is what being a "progressive" is all about these days.
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  485.  @cynthiajohnson9412  - My entire life I have been interested in the military, mainly because I am a model builder. I am pushing now 60 and only became aware of our county's economic situation a few years ago. Definitely soured me toward doing anything further with military models.
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  486. Yes, our gutless corporate democrats caved in to promises the GOP never intends to keep. Democrats had leverage for the first time since TurtleRump was sworn in, and what was accomplished with that leverage? Nothing at all.
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  487. Here are the latest figures released by Oxfam. Globally 54% of all wealth is owned by the 1% and also globally, the top 20% own 94.5% of all wealth. With the bottom 80% holding only 5.5% of all global wealth, stagnation is either already here or will set in for all global economies. The wealthy elites are well aware of the situation, yet will do nothing to change their behavior. My belief is that we need a global hard cap on the wealth an individual or business can accumulate.
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  488. The truth of the matter is: Wealth grows faster than the economy does, and as you all know wealth does not grow by itself. Wealth feeds off the economy, kinda like a parasite because wealth is the ultimate freeloader. Take for example, the playground bully. More than twice the size of the other kids and using that advantage to shake down the smaller kids. That would be a good representation of wealth and our economy in 1947. Since then wealth has grown 6% per year averaged, while the economy has grown 5% per year averaged. Since the economy started with a smaller body and grows at a slower rate, you won't be surprised that wealth is now very nearly five times larger than the economy. This is simple math folks. We have been conned into thinking that finance and investment is how money grows. The truth is that the government and banks creates new money using debt, which is then promptly stolen by wealth. And when the new money is not enough, wealth shakes us down some more and calls it "inflation".
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  489.  alexdapostman  - Yup, you nailed it. Just finished reading "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" . . . pretty much a summary of how the global elites put a headlock on the entire global economic structure. The time for pitchforks and guillotines is drawing nigh.
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  490. Things are far worse than what Solana Rice is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). She is correct about the institutional racism, but this situation goes far beyond that because we are all being affected. This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
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  491. Summary of the Trump Presidency: "It's not my fault, it's not my fault. Save yourself, I'm not going to do my job."
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  492. Job creators my a*s, these people are sucking us dry like parasites. Overall, the value of financial assets grew by $13.68 trillion in 2021, an 11.58% increase over 2020. That value increase is just over 66% of GDP for the year. When financial assets increase in value, it is not because of savvy investment planning. That increase represents a vacuum cleaner that is sucking wealth straight out of the paychecks, wallets, purses and bank accounts of the bottom 90% of households in the USA.
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  493. Francesann Jackson - Yup, totally qualified to be kicked off the bench!
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  494. Peter - The reason African's have not built cities is very, very simple. They don't need to, and they do not want to. Once again, you are advocating the use force like a good little hypocrite. The only reason an natural African would choose to live in an African city is because they are being forced to by capitalism and the so called advanced western societies invading and taking their lands. You are worse than an idiot, because you enjoy this blatant racism and you are doing it on purpose.
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  495. More like the American Pipe Dream, we have been sold a bill of goods, a con job.
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  496. I did an Excell spreadsheet to see if our economy could actually pay for all the rentier capitalists. Imagine my surprise when after entering 70 years worth of GDP and financial asset data, when it showed me that wealth has been growing faster than the economy for all that time. The economy cannot keep up with wealth extraction. Since 1947, the economy has averaged 5% growth annually. Financial assets have averaged 6% annually, and started 1947 at over twice the size of the economy. Last year the growth of financial assets was greater than 66% of our GDP. A few more years of this and we will all be debt slaves with no means of getting out of it.
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  497. "Housing Units" are categorized as capital assets. As long as this is the case, we will never have affordable housing again.
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  498.  @thomasnickerson9258  - Your ignorance is not so astonishing. You have repeated oligarch talking points here repeatedly, so we know you have been indoctrinated into defending the billionaire matrix they use to drain wealth from all of us. Fact is, the USA does invade other countries to drain away natural resources, toppling democracies and installing dictators. Our country uses the IMF and the World Bank to put developing countries into debt peonage, forcing them to take loans in dollars instead of their own currency and not allowing them to use their own industry to build the infrastructure the "loans" are intended for, instead we force them to use American corporations to build the infrastructure they cannot afford. Either you are a troll, in which case you know all of this already, or you are a fully indoctrinated home grown tool of the billionaire class. If you are home grown, then just look into who owns the media you listen to. If you do look into that, then you may just my be able to grow a pair of your own someday soon.
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  499. Agreed. Fox News Headline translation: Lair and criminal tells more lies to the American people in front of corruption stained White House.
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  500.  @Stillnapie  - Not for those who have so much wealth, they can keep rolling it over and over . . . without paying an annual capital gains tax. The average for an S&P 500 index fund since 1994 is over 9%, I think your information is applicable to some but not those at the top of the wealth distribution scale.
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  501. Western Civilization - You wrote: "Right, tell that to the many shops and stores in DC destroyed, and windows smashed when Trump was sworn into office. Also Antifa isn't violent ? You must be joking" Western Civilization - You don't know who those thugs were, could have been Nixon risen from the dead with his old cronies . . . . For all anyone knows they were Eric Prince Blackwater thugs hired by Betsy Devos to create havoc, the same ones who attacked Berkeley a few months later. We all know the republiKKKans quivering under tRump's tweets will do anything to create an incident. What part of "Anti-fascism" do you not get? Antifa has been around since before Hitler, Franco and Mussolini, standing in direct opposition to those fascist leaders. We went to war to eradicate fascism in 1941, are you telling me that all those brave soldiers died to protect the KKK and nazi sympathizers so they could have a modern resurgence under tRump? You seriously think that Antifa is a greater threat than those proven mass murderers? To whom exactly, average Joe American or the KKK? I guess you really stand against Western Civilization. Sad. Pathetic.
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  502. Jesus says: Fox "News" message to their audience: It's okay to be a racist. It's okay to be fearful and afraid. It's okay to be hateful and violent. It's okay to be stupid. Gotta love Jesus!
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  503. Really, that old trope? Imagination is sorely lacking and I'm not leaving this country just because I think it could be better than it is.
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  504. Peter Nachtwey - You Wrote: "All the social niceties that Wolff talks about require real money and there isn't an infinite supply of it for Wolff's social programs. Get over it. Money is just a way of allocating limited resources." What a horrendous joke you are trying to pull Peter. We do not have real scarcity, we have artificial shortages. We have for decades had an abundance that exceeds the actual necessity for money. The only reason that money is still around is for one ancient human pastime only: The pursuit and retention of power.
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  505.  michael piro  - You wrote: "I actually do my research concerning this issue". Your research is incomplete. You left out that these were capitalist sacrifice zones, areas abandoned and sucked dry, where the inhabitants were left without resources. Now the entire country is turning into a capitalist sacrifice zone, left that way white people will turn on each other in the same manner that black people have turned on each other. Lets see you hold feet to the fire, those who are really responsible in the first place, who are the owners of industry, the holders of vast wealth and the politicians owned by these wealthy interests. Your research sucks because it is biased and incomplete. You are serving as a tool by promoting and propagating information that is partial and not at all inclusive of the root causes.
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  506. Do you have alternative solutions?
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  507.  @DEUltra82  - After reading your comment, I think you missed the real issue, which is not about taxes. It is about the exponential growth of wealth, which is totally unsustainable. Did you miss the part about a penny at 5% interest becoming over 180 earth size globes of solid gold in 1700 years? We have a much larger problem on our hands, the top 20% globally already own 94.5% of all wealth, there is nowhere to go from there. Capitalism is on the brink of catastrophic failure. When every central bank in the world is printing money like mad, which is happening right now, the whole system is on the verge of collapse. What I don't understand is the irrational disregard of the speeding train on imminent collision course with immovable granite mountain.
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  508.  @maxamphetamines  - What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb.
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  509.  @manniefresh3425  - Ignorance? Perhaps you are a fool. What is happening with our economy is actually quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. Capitalism in its current form is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
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  510. Victoria Seeley - Well said. Take into account that our government finances do not hold any similarity to our household finances. Since the time of Nixon we have a fiat currency not tied to the gold standard, meaning the government can be much more flexible with spending than households can. The republicans and neo-liberals have used this flexibility to pay for wars and bailing out Wall Street bankers . . . the most irresponsible form in which to use the financial flexibility the government has. During this time, they have lied to us continually about the nature of government spending, scaring us with talk of looming debt and deficits while they take full advantage of the government to meet their own ends.
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  511. That was just so difficult to listen to, there was not a straight answer to be found and Grover started off by assuming the question Thom posed was something "other" than what was asked. Typical plutocrat supporter.
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  512.  @davidlafleche1142  - You are delusional and stupid. Stop listening to conservative media, then you might get healthy.
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  513. John Maltby - Really? Are you saying that capitalism does not kill people? Better take out the propaganda ear buds . . . because capitalism has killed millions.
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  514. Executive orders will be reversed, that is what TurtleRump has been doing since he has been in office. What we really need is barrel tight legislation, with forethought put into all the ways republicans will try and unravel the legislation when they have the opportunity. ObamaCare was not close to perfect, but just look at how difficult it has been for republicans to repeal it. We have to guard against executive orders chipping away at legislation, that is the lesson to take from the TurtleRump years.
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  515.  @javieroliveras344  - What is happening with our economy is actually quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. Capitalism in its current form is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
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  516. Tomato Pa - Peter excels at ignoring challenges. Peter still has not reconciled how median wage of today buy less than half of what the median wages bought 30 years ago, but somehow in Peter's world that is the loser workers fault.
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  517. Nothing will fundamentally change. Big money in finance is happy.
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  518. No reforms or justifiable tax increases will be lasting until wealth itself is capped. The fulcrum around which all this evil rotates is Excessive Accumulated Wealth. The only purpose such excessive wealth is used for is the exertion of power, most notably to dismantle all reforms which restrain accumulated wealth. Once you have accumulated enough to maintain a luxury lifestyle for a lifetime, that is enough. It is not enough to raise taxes on the wealthy, we have been through this cycle many times already. We the People must cap wealth for everyone, it is necessary for our safety as a society.
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  519.  @averagebloke4474  - Right. Trump was the republican candidate because the republicans were too weak to deal with him and his TV show popularity. Trump gained the presidency because the "land", in the form of the Electoral College, over rode the popular vote of "the people" because the Constitution has not been updated to fit modern times. We have an old election system that requires overhaul, but that system serves the wealthy. So Trump is no genius, just the latest figurehead for a 12,000 year old problem that humanity has not outgrown.
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  520. No!
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  521.  @TheGubernatis  - Why the umbrella? There were helicopters overhead with high resolution cameras and the guy did not want to be positively ID'ed from the air.
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  522. Very well stated Paul. I'm right there with you. I registered democrat to support the Justice Democrats and I am a Boomer. I'm going to write in Bernie in the general election or vote third party because I am sick and tired of being shot and stabbed in the back. Enough already.
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  523.  @tomtesoro7994  - Thing is, Germany had an industrial base that could be grown by building armaments. In the USA the industrial base is gone. Is Starbucks and Amazon really enough of a business base to pull off fascism in the USA?
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  524.  @chrismullaney8369  - That may be true, but this is 2020 with all the technological and manufacturing advances that entails. Back in 1935, it too a great deal more in manpower to manufacture the tools of war. Now what would the USA use currently at full production, maybe 3% of the workforce?
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  525. Simon's - I just had an extended conversation online with a right wing ex-military service member. He claims to support the Constitution, yet he kept falling back to really scary talking points about how to defend this country against socialism, a hot civil war was the only solution. In essence, this guy wants to shoot and kill everyone until no one remains except those who agree with him. There was no reasoning with this person, just like there is no reasoning with the right wing politically. I'm done trying to convince them through dialog, their masters have done one hell of a job with their indoctrination.
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  526. Chump needs another criminal to be his second . . . if he had an honest Chief of Staff then Chump would be a fish out of water, Chump would not be able to be a criminal he has to be.
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  527.  @DarkWraithKevin  - Ok, I just watched this video. First of all, Prager U is a propaganda channel set up by Dennis Prager. While his videos are very appealing to conservatives, they are highly skewed. When I refer to "progressives", I'm not talking about the way households or local governments are run. I'm talking about how the federal government is run and the way the wealthy gain more wealth. We run our household with conservative methodology. Local and state governments must operate using a conservative methodology or they will go broke. That is not the way the federal government or those with excessive wealth operate. There is a distinction and a difference. The federal government creates money and can never go broke. None of our federal tax money is used to run the federal government, all of the federal government operating expenses are covered through congressional appropriations and spending bills signed by the president. Spending bills signed into law are the check, and the U.S. Treasury can always cash the check. The federal government chooses to sell bonds, though there is no requirement for this, it is a safe haven for savings because the federal government can never go broke. Our federal tax money is used to retire older bonds, but the reason the federal debt keeps going up is because taxes have been lowered over the past four decades for the higher income and wealthy citizens, so there is not enough taxes coming in to retire bonds. Of course there are other reasons for the federal debt going up, useless wars, bailing out banks and Wall Street, subsidies to industry, etc. However the main reason we have a federal debt is that the U.S. government is the source of all currency and if that currency is withdrawn by balancing the budget, we would be in perpetual economic depression. Those with excessive wealth (I consider the wealth of Dennis Prager to be on the low end of the excessive wealth scale), use this type of propaganda to advocate for low taxes for the wealthy, by trying to equate themselves with a middle income conservative household. They are nothing like a conservative household. The exponential growth of compounded interest creates wealth by extracting it from the very conservative households this propaganda is appealing to. Look here, there is an example of the accumulation of wealth put forward by a 1700's philosopher that I like to use. The economist Michael Hudson translated his writings into U.S. currency so we could understand it. If you took one U.S. penny at 5% compounded interest, and started it in a savings account at the birth of Jesus Christ, by the year 1750 the value of that initial penny would be over 180 earth size globes of SOLID GOLD. This of course, is completely unsustainable. By issuing this kind of conservative propaganda, the wealthy elites are trying to obscure from us the way they grow their wealth, not from hard work and effort like you, or Elon Musk, but from extracting wealth from all of us, so they can get compounded interest based on their already immense accumulated wealth. The same thing happens when you get 20% of the population who have accumulated wealth 2.5 times our annual GDP, the compounded interest being paid on that accumulated wealth can only be gained by extracting wealth from the bottom 80%, but even then, there is a limit. This is why since late September of 2019, the Federal Reserve has been pumping liquidity into the banking system like mad. The world is running out of money to pay interest to the wealthy. Central banks all over the world are pumping currency into the banking system, and that currency is being borrowed by corporations and the wealthy seeking a greater rate of return in the stock markets. That is the entire reason the stock markets are booming. Being progressive in the modern era means putting a stop to the over-accumulation of wealth, because it is simply unsustainable. It is not about jealousy or envy, those words are propaganda talking points. It is about our very survival as a species, that is what being a "progressive" is all about these days.
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  528. BIG LOU is a prime example of a brainwashed American. He has been soaking up oligarch propaganda for decades and this is the result. BIG LOU is unaware of the hustle, the big con, that he has been recruited to defend, the $47 trillion transfer of wealth to the 1% from all of us, over four decades. Part of the hustle has been to erode critical thinking skills to the point where millions would willingly give over their free will and property to defend the fortunes of billionaires, an erosion that BIG LOU clearly demonstrates.
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  529.  @markintexas1296  - When federal income taxes were first introduced, it was only for the wealthy. If you want to see who is really stealing your money, it was the wealthy who bribed politicians to shift the tax burden onto you. You may not know this, but every family in the country pays about $5000/year in "taxation without representation" which goes directly into the pockets of the wealthy. Whenever your bills go up, whether by inflation of simply cost increases, that money goes directly into the pockets of the wealthy. Your ire is misplaced, directed that way because because the owners of media like Fox News (billionaire) and such, want you fooled.
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  530.  @markintexas1296  - Well now everything you wrote makes sense. You have never actually read the Constitution.
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  531.  @paulcolburn3855  - A few decades ago, I made a set of molds and from them build about a dozen 40 inch Argo models, even modified one into a remote control sea worthy battleship. Ahhh, the memories! Ok, enough of memory lane. My previous reply was not much more than a quip, i'm not familiar with the case or its disposition. Personally, I believe Zuckerburg is a sociopath, does not care about anything except power and control. If that is what passes for merit these days, then it does not deserve my respect. MY concern is this, the economy is rigged in such a manner that currently wealth grows fourteen times faster than our GDP. That growth is paid for by putting people out of their homes. I would get into specifics, and I will if this dialog actually merits that, but I cannot help but to notice that even confronted with the facts, people just shrug.
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  532.  @paulcolburn3855  - Oh, I can assure you that the Federal Reserve is not honest. I have been tracking information from the Fed for quite some time. In the 3rd Quarter financial assets report, the Federal Reserve altered the information going all the way back to 1952 by padding the totals. Every year from 1952 to the present was altered, revised upward. I have my suspicions about why. Now, on to what you wrote. You are kinda making my point for me with your next observation. There were companies over $10 Billion in 1965, two of them. General Motors at almost $17 billion and Exxon/Mobile at $10.8 billion. Both companies have far exceeded the growth rate of the economy to arrive at their current market caps of $82.63 billion and $258.33 billion respectively. This growth was not accomplished by the making and/or selling of goods, only a small fraction of that normal economic activity resulted in their current market caps. The vast majority of the growth has been financially fueled by stock purchases and repurchases, a financial tool that produces nothing tangible, but raises the costs of goods to consumers for the sake of increasing the stock value. An example is the difference in Exxon/Mobile market cap between 2020 and 2021, which is $83.83 billion. That is a staggering 48% increase over a year, a year when less oil was sold, not more. In order to support that market cap, gas prices must go up, (which they have, substantially), which means that consumers absorb the price increase without a commensurate increase in value for them (all to fill the pockets of the wealthy with free money). Everything is now tied to the financial markets, real estate and health care are two of the big ones. Every time a financial asset increases in value, it raises costs for the consumer. So it really does not matter how responsible you are, all of us pay the increased price and get nothing of value in return. This is called diminishment of societal wealth or austerity. So the economy grows, but the bills rise 13.6875% faster every year and wages do not even come close to matching that. This is what puts people into debt, not because they lived irresponsibility as you claim. The reason for all the envy and bitterness (your term, which is really a crock of BS) is that people know they are victims of economic theft. From the time of the 1974 ERISA Act, when people were forced off defined benefit pensions and into the stock market for their retirement plans, people have been stripped of their wealth bit by bit. The reason is simple. Wealth cannot grow at a compounded rate that is larger than the rate of economic growth. If wealth does grow faster than the annual rate of economic growth, then it must strip its greater returns from existing wealth, or more money must be printed by the government and given to wealth. What you call responsible investment, I call theft, because the money was not earned, it was taken from some other hapless citizen. Furthermore, wealth stripping was not enough. Now the Federal Reserve is plowing money into the stock market, using corporate bonds as the vehicle. That is just printing money and throwing it at wealthy people, while degrading the value of our currency (the real cause of inflation). Then you look at how all government functions have been handed over to the private sector, which demands a profit. So the private sector either overcharges the government, or it strips the profit from the beneficiaries of the government program. Private prisons are a good example of this. C'mon man, you are fighting a battle that has already been lost. All the facts stand against you. The only thing that supports your position is the indoctrination networks set up by the billionaires Koch, Mercer and Murdochs. They know that this is a wealth extraction economy, because they helped set it up. Have you ever read the 1971 "Powell Memo"? This economy was planned way back in the 1940's and executed in the 1960's. The conspiracy is what you live within and think is "normal". Time to stop taking the blue pill my friend, only the red pill leads you to the truth.
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  533. woodchuck 00 - I cannot answer that, I don't know what Bernie has said. What I can tell you is this, any system that accumulates too much pressure at any point . . . is a system designed to fail (whether intentional or not). We have a system that has failed before, yet has been kept deliberately intact because it favors one small percentage of the population even when it fails. The problem is . . . this is not the 1930's. We will not have THAT escape route this time around. The problem is this, all the system regulating governors are being removed . . . even though we have historical knowledge of what happens when this is done. This path is lunacy and will inevitably lead to a catastrophic failure even for the wealthy and corporations. What you suggest in your first comment, that lowering corporate or income tax will help . . . is only increasing pressure on an already overloaded system. What we should do, will take more than a short comment to explain . . . and yes Sweden has worked out a lot of these pressure buildup issues within their economy and political structure. We can learn a lot from them.
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  534.  @NathansHVAC  - There is always a troll.
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  535. Peter Nachtwey - You always write something like this: "Socialism, Marxism and communism can't exist without the use of force." Capitalism also cannot exist without the use of force. A population enslaved under capitalism is held in place by force . . . lets see how you refute that. Besides that, there has never actually been a true Marxist, socialist or communist country so your statement is patently untrue. If you are talking about dictatorships proclaiming to live by those economic models, that hardly counts as a viable example. Can we say "straw man"?
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  536. Truth Matters - You have your head stuck in the swamp water.
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  537.  @ursamagickmt672  - True. Yet with the research material Thom puts out, his YouTube channel should have many, many more views.
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  538.  @debbieframpton3857  - Then the same logic should apply to the wealthy, who have borrowed trillions that they cannot pay back. But no, they get bailed out by the government.
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  539. Soooo . . . . we all know what we have to do, correct? Never, ever vote for a BOUGHT politician again. Real people only who raise their campaign funds from us . . We the People. The we jail all the criminals we can expose, make sure this kind of thing does not repeat.
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  540. Agreed, I have bookmarked both of today's radars for future reference.
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  541. Keknology - Who are you working for . . the Kremlin? Stop trying to rewrite history. Nothing you have written here is true.
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  542. Hewlett Craphard - Only correct in that a pact of non aggression was signed, and that was a matter of necessity, convenience and mutual gain for both sides. Aside from agreeing internally that they hated each other, the USSR and Germany agreed on virtually nothing.
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  543.  Hazzycakes  - Out of curiosity, I just checked the national GDP of the USA. It stands currently at $19.39 trillion. No wonder housing, health care and education have shot up so much . . . it was necessary in order to provide a rate of return on existing wealth. That $30 trillion in current 1% holdings was only $16 trillion thirty years ago. Most of that new $14 trillion was not from productive endeavors, it was existing wealth seeking a rate of return. From $14 trillion in new wealth created over thirty years . . . to $30 trillion in new wealth created simply from interest payments in 14.4 years . . . . does anyone but me see a problem with this? The national GDP is forecast to be almost $30 trillion in 2030, how can the economy be that productive when half the workers are currently in minimum wage jobs? That forecast for 2030 is only possible if wealth is extracted from the population though the medium of higher prices . . . to support a rate of return for oligarch wealth. We have already been robbed blind, now they want our limbs and organs also?
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  544. Statutory Grape - The original comment author has copied and pasted the same thing on multiple videos. There is no interest whatsoever in dialog.
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  545. Thom hit the nail on the head two days ago with this summary: Worker productivity since Reagan has gone up 321%, while worker wages have risen only 1/10 of 1%. Meanwhile, the simple costs of living such as housing and energy have tripled and our Federal Treasury has been raided by private interests for trillions of dollars. We, as in you, I and the ordinary people of the USA must fight back. It is time for a Maximum Annual Income . . . . and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. That is the only way to fight what is happening, open ended profits are killing us. Personally, I think the wealthy oligarchy is taking revenge on us for the FDR New Deal . . . even though the wealthy never really suffered under the New Deal. Any reforms we get will be dismantled until we the people take away the tools used to dismantle reforms. Than means capping wealth and income, no two ways about it.
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  546. I love the word "scheme". That word denotes that one is being crafty or secretive. Of course it could also mean something systematic or organized in its configuration, but most people interpret the word "scheme" as akin to being dishonest. Carbon cap and trade is one of those schemes that have been floated to solve part of the climate crisis, allowing carbon credits to be purchased by heavy users from those who do not need as many carbon credits. Funny how the idea of capping personal wealth is NEVER discussed as a serious way to cut down on carbon emissions, especially when the wealthy are more than ready to advocate for caps on everything from welfare to health care.
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  547. Kelly Rellis - You are just ranting like a lunatic. Republicans and corporate democrats already gave our country away, so what is your point? It certainly was not the "pathetic socialists in Congress" who have damaged our country almost beyond repair, so you are just sounding like a crazed idiot.
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  548. The kids are calling out the corruption, and the cable news cannot stop them if they want to scoop the news. That is a huge advantage and these kids are using it well. The AR-15 is a HIGH velocity rifle with the bullet traveling at such high speeds, that body tissue 3 inches from the entry and travel locations are blown up . . . just shredded by the shock wave of the bullets speed. That is a 6 inch round tube shoved through a body at every entry point. Some of the parents got to see what happened to their children . . . I am 56 years old with two adult daughters and I cannot bear the thought of what those parents had to endure because I have to ask . . . what if they were my kids? The 2nd Amendment is not understood today in the same manner that it was understood upon its creation. Did you ever wonder why they used the word "State" instead of "Country"? Congress already had the power to call up an armed militia, so the "country" did not need the 2nd Amendment. However, the "States" did need Militias and needed the men in those militias to have access and legal right to carry a gun. But does anyone here know why the States needed these Militias? Hint: It was not to protect against the Federal Government.
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  549.  @Nutrollio  - You wrote: "progressives are not popular here in America". Could it have something to do with the immense fortunes in propaganda being spent to fight progressives. Think about that for a moment, the right wing billionaires fear progressives so much, they will spend hundreds of millions to fight them.
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  550. People need to understand, republicans don't pass these laws because they believe in them. Republicans pass these laws on behest of the billionaire oligarchs to keep people divided and distracted, while the billionaires continue to collapse our government and economy.
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  551. Jason Snead was a senior policy analyst in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. This proves he is a republican and that he is a liar with zero actual concern for voting integrity. The Heritage Foundation was founded by oligarchs for the benefit of oligarchs and they helped write the Oligarchs propaganda Playbook.
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  552. Creek Walker - Thank you for your comment. I am about the same age and I'm somewhat heartened to read that others are thinking thoughts similar to my own. After reading the majority of the 70 odd comments here its pretty obvious that most folks viewing and commenting are of sound mind and judgement. Others such as Ace1King1 . . . . not so much. That part of the population which is represented by the likes and kinds of Ace1King1 . . . . are like errant children. They will have to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming by the adults, because I don't think the majority of us want the kind of future habitat our government and business leaders are creating. The democratic and liberal minded folk prefer dialog and compromise, however we have to add brute strength head-locking to our repertoire. We must have the guts to put *Ace1King1*, tRumPutin and all of their lot lot into a headlock they cannot escape from . . . because they cannot be contained through dialog and compromise. When the democrats and progressives regain the majority ( and we will) . . . we must put into law the restraints that will keep these types from endangering us, the economy, humanity at large and the living planet itself . . . . to keep them from ever having the opportunity of harming us again.
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  553. Yeet Yeet - Thank you for another appallingly ignorant comment. Obviously you do not follow your own post about being open minded. The consequences on our economy due to republican policy is very apparent, you have to be a blind follower or willfully ignorant not to know that.
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  554. Yeet Yeet - I looked up those so-called sources that Ace supposedly used. Absolutely nothing about tRumPutin came up on "commentator12" or" Catamaran Channel" with both YouTube and Google searches. So lets see here: Made up sources, Made up facts. Yup, lets make sure we keep an open mind here!
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  555. jack johnson - Cute. What are you trying to say, and why are you excluding yourself from what you are saying?
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  556. No reforms or justifiable tax increases will be lasting until wealth itself is capped. The fulcrum around which all this evil rotates is Excessive Accumulated Wealth. The only purpose such excessive wealth is used for is the exertion of power, most notably to dismantle all reforms which restrain accumulated wealth. Once you have accumulated enough to maintain a luxury lifestyle for a lifetime, that is enough. It is not enough to raise taxes on the wealthy, we have been through this cycle many times already. We the People must cap wealth for everyone, it is necessary for our safety as a society.
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  557. A better law would require all Presidential advisors, assistants or whatever they call themselves to take a salary to work in the White House, to divest themselves of all financial ties by putting everything into an approved blind trust. In addition, they must have American security, American note takers and American translators, and all talks and meetings must be recorded and archived. Nepotism would be a $10,000 dollar per day fine effective day one, a grand a day is nothing to these people. We cannot have an Executive Branch that operates in secret from everyone. Even Top Secret meetings must be recorded and archived, to be opened when the administration is no longer in office.
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  558. Agreed. No one mentions that the morbidly wealthy drain both the economy and government treasuries through their wealth ownership.
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  559.  @jedhardy5200  - Don't forget that in addition to the tax cut, the 1% consumed over 7.5% of our economy last year just to get paid "interest" (free money) on their $30 trillion in accumulated wealth. The 1% are parasites or a cancer . . . either way they must be dealt with accordingly. Note: $1.5 trillion in tax cuts plus $1.5 trillion in interest payments = $3 trillion to the 1% in 2018.
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  560. People need to understand, republicans don't pass these laws because they believe in them. Republicans pass these laws on behest of the billionaire oligarchs to keep people divided and distracted, while the billionaires continue to collapse our government and economy.
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  561.  @johnmatthews4717  - Funny. Now we know you are fact devoid.
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  562.  THEY LIVE JUDGEMENT DAY  - I was going to point out that the masks are not to protect you, they are to protect others from you. However, the best indication of your credibility is your moniker. Errol Flynn wrote to you "don’t be stupid" to open his reply to you, but you just can't help yourself from being stupid and the proof is all over this comment section.
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  563.  @sherrigiles9142  - What an idiot. Didn't your parent teach you it is wrong to lie? If you are going to lie, you can do better than that.
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  564. This is all out money (influence coupons). If things are ever going to change, it must begin with a hard cap placed on individual wealth so that no one individual has undue influence over political/economic decisions.
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  565. Marc Short - short on truthfulness . . . as in has none. You think the American people cannot see through you Marc?
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  566. This is easy to understand. The 1% in the USA has over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth, chasing a "rate of return" in a $20 trillion annual economy. Just look at what a 5% rate of return is for $30 trillion . . . . just the interest alone is $1.5 trillion. The entire 2018 GDP gain in our economy was $560 billion, so almost a trillion dollars had to be extracted from the overall economy just to pay interest to the 1%. That is a huge bit of "socialism" for the 1% just in the past two years, $1.5 trillion in tax breaks and $1.5 trillion in interest payments . . . that is all "free money" for the 1% folks. Just consider that 5% is a low number, the S&P 500 index funds have done over 9% annually since 1994. The 1% lopped off 7.5% or more of our entire economy in order to give themselves "free money" which they did not lift a finger to earn. I've been calling my representative about this, it is completely unsustainable.
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  567.  @EDROCKSWOO  - Double standard. The police murder unarmed black men and then get off without doing jail time. The looters should get exactly the same punishment as every murdering cop who got off scott free for executing citizens.
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  568. flower2289 - Been moving around in the real world for half a century and what I have learned is this genuine nugget of wisdom. . . . stunted flowers like you need more sun and water. Take your own advice. Meanwhile AOC is certainly more compelling, realistic and rational than wilted flowers like yourself.
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  569. You know, the comments here are rather strange. Yes, there are more homeless people here than in any other state. Why? Because the weather is survivable all year round, it has nothing to do with political ideologies. California roads are not the best to be sure, yet as my daughter departed her state due to divorce, she noted that the roads that were not interstate highways were exceedingly bad in every state until she arrived here. I'm going to point fingers here, "you people", who write all the snide comments about "Commieforna" and the democratic politicians here, yet you are blissfully unaware that you are being manipulated. This video is manipulating you. John Stossel is not an unbiased reporter. His Fox Business show "Stossel", aired viewpoints on individual freedom, free market capitalism and small government, all very common in the American media. Yet what most people seem unaware of is these are the talking points of billionaires, whose purpose is to use propaganda in pursuit of power. The homeless issue is not a product of political positions, because it happens regardless if a democrat or republican is in power. Homelessness is a product of growing wealth, when large corporations buy up whole neighborhoods, driving up costs of home ownership for everyone and driving those less able to cope onto the streets. The wealthy cleaned up in 2020, with financial assets gaining almost ten trillion dollars. I believe the entire reason Trump never responded to the Covid pandemic is because corporations wanted to fire millions and re-hire some of the fired workers at lower wages. Stop blaming the politicians and political parties, while they are not saints, they are not the ones in the drivers seat. Use your common sense people, wealth cannot get bigger while millions lose everything, not unless something fishy is going on with our "elite" wealth holders.
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  570. In one of two leading industrial powers of the 1960's, the Captains of Industry looked about at the world opening up before them. They said unto themselves, why be Captains of Industry in the United States of America . . . when we can be Kings of Capitalism over the entire world! That is when the national economy of the USA was abandoned in favor of a global economy that forever crippled the American worker. We should recognize this simple fact and devise a plan to extract ourselves from under the claw of predatory capitalism run amok. Professor Wolff is presenting us with some options, and there are others with valid ideas. One way or the other, we are living with the consequences of OUR industries abandoning OUR country and its workers. The same old shhict being sold us by Washington D.C. will not work out for us, and we know it. Do we consign ourselves to enslavement . . . to forever being in debt just to live? Or . . . just a thought here . . . do we make some bold new plans? I for one do not believe that any sane person needs more than a set amount of money to live fabulously. Work hard and earn a lot more than others . . that is ok. Yet when you reach a certain point, society will be better served by your excess earnings going directly back into the society from whence it came. The mankind will be able to do the BIG things, the stuff a healthy, robust and profitable private industry would just never tackle. Personal, business, corporate . . . tax it all so no one is holding excess profits "offshore" anymore. No one needs THAT much money unless POWER is what they really crave. For that reason alone, excess wealth should go back into the society from whence it came. That would stop individuals from adversely affecting all of mankind with stupid and deadly decisions. We can see first hand how dangerous it is for mankind to have so much wealth and power concentrated into the hands and limited minds of so few.
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  571. Trump is setting the stage for civil unrest so he can declare martial law and disband the Congress. This is the dictator playbook going way back, for anyone who studied the history of wars the pattern is obvious because it has been done many times in the past.
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  572.  @mypetcrow9873  - Marx-ism is a misnomer. The "ism" applied to Marx is inaccurate, it was put there by capitalists and right wingers trying to discredit Marx. At this point in history, it is the capitalists and the right wingers who have been discredited and Marx in his era was quite the analyst having spotted the weakness in capitalism.
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  573.  @Zach-ju5vi  - You have run away from factual confrontation, so don't expect to be taken seriously by anyone who does understand capitalistic idealism and the rot it creates.
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  574.  @Zach-ju5vi  - You are incredibly naive. What you are writing is a fusion of old industrial capitalism and McCarthy style communist fearmongering, which outs you as both a consumer and purveyor of fact less propaganda. It is a shame you don't research or fact check what you write about, the ideas about "all products through the government" are so very old and moldy.
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  575. juniorgod321 - Banks do not lend money for business startups any longer. The lending they do is limited to mortgages (80%) and energy(20%) . . . with 100% of the profits over the past two years going into stock buybacks. Banks no longer serve the function of helping new businesses to start, too risky . . . so at least half of your argument has fallen apart.
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  576. Rob Smith - There was something else that happened before computerization and automation which has IMHO dealt the U.S. economy a death blow . . . by the death of 1000 cuts. Our demise was brought about during the 1960's when I was a child, when our leading capitalists abandoned our national economy and labor force. One by one and then by the hundreds, our U.S. industrialists who owned the means of production here in the States, sought to abandon the overpaid U.S. labor market because (dramatic pause), thanks in part to WW2 . . . . the entire world of labor had opened up to them and was beckoning seductively (come hither you profit seeking and very handsome men of capitalism . . . ). There was no conspiracy to do this, it was capitalism taking advantage of market conditions. Yet due to this action and the fact that they basically kept it all hush-hush at first, the citizens of the USA and the U.S. economy (that WAS working for workers) . . . began to bleed out all over the floor. Our representative politicians reacted by painting the floor red and whistling a jaunty tune that with the lyrics "I can't see so, nothing to see here". When our industrialists abandoned the national economy, they royally screwed us over. Everything else since then has been ineffective damage control.
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  577.  @stuckinthemud4352  - Yes. So-called investors are raping, pillaging and looting the U.S. economy. You cannot have an investor class holding more in accumulated wealth than the annual GDP of the USA without cannibalizing the economy itself. Clean the mud out of your brain and do some research.
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  578. MidScream1 - Yes, with my keywords I am just being honest. After reading your next comment and replies you have made to other posts, I am doubting that you you have a stable relationship with honesty. You are throwing out propaganda talking points, you might want to look into finding a voice of your own instead of repeating what the oligarchs want you to think.
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  579.  @lolazal1  - Agreed. The main threat to our country comes from within and accumulated wealth is the common denominator.
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  580. World wide, the top 20% own or control 94.5% of all wealth. When the bottom 80% must divy-up only 5.5% of the worlds wealth between themselves, what can you expect? Obviously capitalism is no longer a legitimate economic form and governments backed by capitalism are no longer legitimate in the eyes of the majority of people.
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  581. Joshua Hudgins - Your version of "Americas fundamental freedom loving ideology" is simple hypnotic brainwashing. When over the past 40 years has that worked for Americans in general? When over the past 40 years has the average American had a choice for lets say . . . getting a better paying job? Your analogy has not held for a very long time and the people are getting wise to the republican lie.
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  582. +Adam Kir - Yes indeed, you hit the nail on the head. I changed from Independent to Democrat, just to put pressure on the party from within. We will build up that progressive pressure until the democratic party changes its posture, or the pressure will build from within until it hurts like a splitting headache. At that point a split becomes inevitable, and a new born progressive splinter party will actually have the legs to win elections.
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  583. Hi Redsyrup, I agree with Ronin Dave about getting the voting base to step up. It may indeed be a pipe dream, yet at this time getting a third party to be a viable contender is the real pipe dream. As an Independent now registered Democrat, I intend to put pressure on the Dem Party until such a time as they choose to change posture . . . or it is demonstrated to all voters with no doubts remaining that the Dem Party is too corrupted. I think they are too corrupted now, but I also see the logic of taking over the party from within being the most efficient path to follow.
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  584. patrick van eylen - Thank you for that truthful little gem, I'll be spreading the word. More Applause!
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  585. yzeew w - Private insurers are for profit and they already squeeze out $550 billion annually from the GDP and raise the price of healthcare in other ways directly attributable to the for profit model. People tend to forget that doing a universal health care would not add such-and-such percentage as an overlay on the existing system, the point would be to eliminate the profit function from heath care. Talking profit here, going to shareholders and executives, they are parasitic and non - productive. Not talking about the earned salaries of professionals in the health care system. The health of a citizen population should not be a happy hunting ground for corporate profiteers. The government should put a healthy population/productive population at the top of priorities.
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  586. Xyz Same: Whenever I ask people around me if they know what methane hydrate gasification is, all I get are blank stares. They simply cannot grasp the notion that we are generating an extinction level event right now. Everyone should look up this: Permian–Triassic extinction event, methane hydrate gasification.
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  587. Vicky Paulson-What can we do? Stick to the Constitution. Elect new non-corporate Democrat Representatives into the House in 2018, that is our opportunity to clear the House of Representatives of republicans. In addition to the House, fully one-third of the Senate is also up for election in 2018, another opportunity to clear out more republicans from the Congress. Next, we need to promote and pass a constitutional amendment which will prohibit external funding of election campaigns and set up equal public financing for elections. This is to keep non-human persons (as in corporations and PACs) from buying our politicians, so they can go back to work for "We the People". Even now those frightening dictatorial types like tRump plus minions Bannon and Mulvaney, or even Paul Ryan, they all still have to follow the law and constitution. They are really abusing that power right now and not doing their due duty to "the general welfare" of the people as required by the constitution, but they are still limited and constrained in their actions by the constitution. Once we change leadership in the House and Senate in 2018, we the people must direct our employees (Representatives and Senators) to do their duty. Impeach and prosecute all the primary criminals now in office and their "advisors", plus go after all the republicans now in office who at this time are aiding and abetting these criminals. It is time for a massive purge, then we can rebuild our country properly in a way that truly does attend to "the general welfare" of ALL our people instead of just passing laws that benefit only the rich and big business.
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  588. First off I agree that Julio Rivera is a complete and total sociopath. Second thing is that Conservatism works very well for running a household, I use conservative principles for our monthly budget with good results. Once you get a Conservative into government, they are quickly subsumed by neoliberalism and then they are no longer a Conservative. In government you cannot hold to the Conservative ideology because in the United States we are bound by the Constitution to "promote the general welfare ' of "We the People". You cannot promote the general welfare using Conservative principles, it simply does not work because it morphs into neoliberalism which is by definition anti-Constitutional.
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  589. SuperThumpasaurus - Must be doing ok here because aside from Michael Moore, I have only name recognition for three out of four of the others you mentioned. As to the original post, this is what struck a chord with me: "Most conservatives are sociopaths that have no empathy for their fellow human beings." Truth be told, back in my days of innocence before the election I would happily spend my spare time building models and listening to documentaries on my favorite subjects. Got most of my news form the corporate media, thought I knew from that enough about what was going on. Bit by bit though, some news was getting to me from other sources especially about the economy. There came a point at which I decided to dig in and do active research, but I kept putting it off because other priorities were more important. When I really started to dig in, I found it was not as simple as being "all about the economy". It was the behavior of Mitch McConnell in the Senate that finally kicked off my personal economic investigation. He was blocking legislation of all kinds, but the lack of hearing for Obama's Supreme Court pick was beyond reason I thought. It was reported that he told then President Obama that if Obama released the news about Russia meddling in the election, then he Mitch McConnell would attack the president on the grounds of Democratic partisan meddling in election affairs prior to November 8th. This was too rich in smelly stuff for me, because I had been tracking some of the republican legislative obstruction in the Senate and I thought that McConnell's actions were very hypocritical because he does the partisan politics to the extreme. Once again I come back to the OP quote "Most conservatives are sociopaths that have no empathy for their fellow human beings." My investigations of the economy have now spanned 100 years and there is too much information for me to claim "expert". Yet the pattern is very clear to me, policy makers who lack empathy for their fellow human beings, and who may indeed lack a conscience altogether, have been manipulating our laws to alter the economy and indeed the very fabric of American society. This is the real core issue here. Forces are at work whose ultimate goal is power, unconstitutional power. The kind of power that breaks a people and a country. The kind of power that will render our United States Constitution useless and powerless. It does not matter if you or I am a conservative or liberal, republican or democrat, because all of us together will be under the boot. The data is out there to prove and to fight this, it just has never been honed into the sharp and keen "edge of the wedge" needed to force it out into the open. Some of the information gets presented in political debate, but it does not yet have the needed punch to get society's full attention. If the "Dark Money Forces" (I need a name for this) can keep the fog machine of misinformation going, they will succeed at their goal of power and domination. That is the sociopathic element, that is the psychotic element as well, and not just as characterized by an impaired relationship with reality, they simply do not care what happens to those under their boot.
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  590. + James Ramsier - It is indeed refreshing to read your comments, as a democrat I have been trying to reach across and talk to republicans and conservatives . . . who seem to indeed have a hatred for civil discourse and use of logic. Thank you for showing that attitude is not the only narrative the left will encounter when we try to bridge the divide.
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  591. +Trixiegirl88 - Found your post perplexing. After much research looking at both sides I found the left is powered by fact and the right powered by emotion, mainly racism and hate for the left. It seems odd to me that you came up with a different conclusion, could you give us some clarification? I've been trying to reach out to those on the right, have run into a stone wall of name calling and vitriol. Furthermore, please give clarification on how trump is not beholden to anyone but the people? His first act was an executive order against first time home buyers, hardly an action for the people. He has then proceeded through executive orders to dismantle everything President Obama has done for the people, and then his new federal budget is completely against the peoples best interests.
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  592. +Julie Ann Ennis - Thank you for your well reasoned post. Greetings from the USA and thank you for your rationality.
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  593. Ohhh my! White Defiler - You have some very big talk, but you can't back any of it up with verifiable FACTS! You Lose.
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  594. Optimus Fine - Hear, hear and Bravo! That was an excellent and well reasoned response. You have now made me extremely envious. Before all you knuckle-draggers start telling me to move to Canada if I like it so much (because you know you want to), this excellent bit of writing by Optimus Fine is exactly what we liberals are trying to create for all of us in the United States. Why you insist on letting the corporate welfare go on and on, while bitching your ass of about your tax dollars paying for healthcare for all, is simply beyond reason.
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  595. amaezed one is a goad, using the only means by which these toads know how to interact with the more learned peoples of democracy.
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  596. amaezed one - Everyone but you . . . though your tailpipe seems to be stuffed with a potato and your timing belt has slipped.
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  597. +Steadfast - We have noticed. Congress for the most part is complicit. We need to take back out country and government before these criminals take down our Constitution.
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  598. I have a question. When is Donald J. Trump going to enact measures to protect the United States of America from continued russian assaults on our election process? He received the classified briefing on russian interference in our 2016 election before he was sworn in. There has been ample time for assembling a National Election Security Team to directly address this assault. Not a word has leaked out about protective actions the president has taken or is considering taking to protect the U.S. from further russian assault. If this plays out much longer with no word from the White House about protecting and securing our national elections, the suspicion will continue to grow that D.J.T. is, with his silence on this issue, is adhering to our enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. (Treason, U.S. Constitution, Article 3, Section 3.) The entire United States of America is currently standing witness to this overt lack of action. This is not fake news, it is out in the open what Russia has done in the U.S. elections and European elections. Please address my question.
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  599. Oh that was so rich kukocs13, those black suited and masked agitators that burned a Starbucks were Eric Prince/Betsy Devos Blackwater mercenaries. So don't try pinning your guilty conscience on us liberals, we are not the crazy ones. Since you are the illiterate fact hating, propaganda loving ass-hat, we'll leave the loony bin door open for ya-all.
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  600. AgreeCompletely.com- I can appreciate you're on a learning curve having traveled that rather steep road myself. Since then I've been trying to boil everything down to the simplest form and here is what I have: 1). Since 1973 median wages have been flat or in decline when adjusted for inflation. Since 1973 the GDP has more than doubled without the boost in worker wages that accompanied GDP rise before 1973. Since the workers did not get the money from the GDP doubling, we have to look at who did. I really doubt those who kept all those earnings are paying taxes at the same rate as the workers would have, nor do I think the US Treasury has gained an equal amount in tax revenue as would have been the case if the workers wages had risen with GDP after 1973. Not only have the workers been cheated by business and industry during this trend, the US Treasury loses revenue. 2). Since the mid 1970's industries in the USA have been shutting down domestic plants and factories to move the jobs to lower wage countries. At the same time they have continued to sell their products in the USA for at incredible profit. While still claiming to be American companies, they have managed to gain the system by keeping money overseas and avoiding US taxes. The US Treasury loses revenue. 3). Since the 1980's the top tax bracket for earned income went from 70% to 39%, which translates into a 55% drop in taxes. The US Treasury loses revenue. 4). Our current ratio of Federal Deficit to GDP is less than 5% of GDP, historically not the worst position the USA has been in. All this Republican hand wringing about the budget and overblown deficit spending seems very disingenuous when you compare our USA federal budget deficit to the historical record. Take into account that automation and robotics such as those on automobile assembly lines has boosted profits and caused even more workers to lose their jobs. Business and industry hires many accountants and lawyers to minimize their US tax exposure, and all those laid off workers don't pay the same level of taxes any longer. The US Treasury loses revenue. Your general comments seemed to be centered around this premise: "the poor are unwilling to work and bad with money, and that's why overcoming laziness with motivation and education are the answers". It seems to me that you are seeking to place responsibility for the condition of being poor onto the poor themselves, when it is very clear from the distilled data the poor had very little control over their current situation. Furthermore, look at the quite unfair disparity in tax rates for earned income vs unearned income. SInce the vast wealth of the USA resides in the realm of "unearned" income, it seems only logical that the tax rate should be lower for earned income and that the bulk of the "carrying load" in the US Federal budget should be born on the back of the "unearned" income. This way the earned income taxpayer does not have to shoulder this burden so disproportionally. We have all been conned by the wealthy and the politicians in their pockets. Right now we have taxation without representation, because our Congress persons with a few rare exceptions do the bidding of their wealthy donors, not the voters who put them into office. I stand with the Justice Democrats. California, 10th District . . . Jeff Denham (R) is a traitor and needs to be voted out of office for the good of our country.
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  601. These three women are awesome!
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  602. Median income in the USA today buys less than half of what median income purchased 30 years ago. We are both in the same bucket.
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  603. Guapo Desperado - Yes, that is a problem. However it is not an insurmountable problem. Space Based Solar must be placed in geosynchronous orbit which does not have the same population of space debris that the lower orbital altitudes have, nor would debris in geosynchronous orbit be moving so fast in relation to other objects at that altitude. We can develop a complimentary tech program parallel to space based solar development to clean up the lower orbits . . . we were going to have to sooner or later anyway.
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  604. We reign in capitalism by putting a hard cap on accumulated wealth. This much, no more. The result will be horizontal wealth distribution instead of vertical wealth distribution.
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  605. GigaRedoo - Peter does not know how to read anything that does not fit his world view . . . which is dog eat dog, losers can f*** off and die. (His words.) Every time he comments on Professor wolff's videos, it is all about how Wolff lies . . . but Peter never comes up with facts or solutions.
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  606.  @valeriab9735  - You are thoroughly brainwashed to believe myths that hurt you as much as any homeless person. Meanwhile the wealthy pocket half of our economic output. They want you focused on those dirty poor, so you will not see the looting of our entire country.
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  607.  @valeriab9735  - Oh, I see. Troll it is then.
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  608. thelinedrive - The ignorance is strong with this one. Where you you get so much stupid?
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  609. Andrew Grove - . . . . and to pay no more than congress does.
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  610. No one died in this attack against Saudi oil refineries, because it was a SELF INFLICTED WOUND! No one goes to the expense of launching a missile attack without explosive warheads, which would have in the least . . . opened up those refinery towers like bananas, and more likely would have FLATTENED many of those tower and container structures. This attack was self inflicted by short range artillery rounds and the recovered missile parts were taken out of storage to show to a war hungry corporate media.
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  611. Chad Clemen - Diplomacy? If that were the case, why not use "diplomacy" with our allies?
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  612. hermenutic - What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day.
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  613. Rossen Bossen - Evolution has already gone backwards when it spawns slack jawed idiots who make insane comments like your latest idiocy.
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  614. SupaDr00g - As usual you are as smart as a rock. Everything you write is regurgitated propaganda spoon fed to you by the Koch Brothers. Please, please have an original thought of your own!
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  615. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "In the end it is all about survival of the fittest, lucky and most adaptable." So Peter . . . what happens the 90% remainder of the U.S. workforce that capitalism does not deem as the fittest, the luckiest and the most adaptable?
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  616. Peter Nachtwey Love how you twist the definition of socialism to fit into your distorted world view. You are entirely incorrect, but you know that already (because you only come here to lie your ass off).
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  617. Peter Nachtwey - Peter, I know you are lonely and don't have any friends. I feel so sorry for you that this is all you have . . . baiting people purpose so you can get your rocks off. Your mother really did a number on you.
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  618. Zoe Phin - That is the best you can do? You are one "really smart cookie". Wow, turnips have a higher IQ, you almost make me wish to talk to Peter again . . . at least he has SOME intelligence.
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  619.  @davidlafleche1142  - That was dumb the first time you wrote it, it is still dumb the thousandth time. You were wrong the first time you wrote "Socialism always causes poverty", what is it that makes you think this time is any different?
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  620. The better question is: Why do we need the wealthy elite at all? They will always screw things up for the majority, history shows this to be true without exception. This time, if we even have a chance to make changes, we must bring the wealthy down to our level, thus eliminating the most destructive "class" of human beings. If we do not or cannot, they will cause our species extinction.
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  621. What happens when $30 trillion (wealth of the 1%) is seeking a 5% rate of return in a $20 trillion annual GDP economy?
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  622. Thyalwaysseek - Yes, that is a good fact to bring up. The good citizens of New York extended their socialist hands to the orange manga man, giving him over 140 million dollars and then being socially responsible socialists . . . allowed the mango to keep all the proceeds as he charged the citizens of New York to use the golf course their tax money had built. Perhaps you don't want or need anything for free . . . the mango man sure likes getting free stuff at taxpayer expense and he carries on with that free stuff tradition to this very day.
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  623. mcconn746 - That is probably the most intelligent statement on the subject I have seen in the comment sections. The bottom line is that our politicians have sold out the citizens of the USA . . . and they have sold out the illegal immigrants they themselves encouraged to cross the border.
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  624. Yeah, Capitalism is freedom. So why are we not feeling free? What Nikki Haley and Milton Freidman (because he is dead) will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb, socialism for the wealthy.
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  625.  Feng  - People like myself have gained multiple skill sets during our working lives, yet somehow the value extracted from us is always greater than the gains. What is so hard to understand about that, eh? Lack of comprehension is a greater problem, those dollar numbers just did not phase you at all, instead you went straight to blaming the "not so wealthy" with a one liner.
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  626. I also voted for Allison Hartson and though I am frustrated she did not win, she made a bigger dent in Feinstein than most people realize. With the dent Hartson made and Alexandria Cortez winning her primary, progressives are sounding the battle horn and are being seriously heard on mainstream media for the first time in my memory. Take heart, because the progressive genie cannot be stuffed back into its bottle now that the corporate media can no longer ignore us!
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  627.  @Vanderearden  - Bingo! You are right on point. Nice to read some rational discourse.
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  628. Buffalo_Chips - You should take a look at this article titled "How Cars Divide America. Car dependence not only reduces our quality of life, it’s a crucial factor in America’s economic and political divisions." Very illuminating, and verifies something I had begun to suspect.https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/07/how-cars-divide-america/565148/
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  629.  @allcatall3931  - "The dystopian results of homelessness" is caused by the central theme of neoliberalism, to increase shareholder value above all else. As long as increasing shareholder value is the most important priority of our economy, things are only going to get worse. This year, the increase in shareholder value has reached 49% of our GDP.
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  630. Just look at who he works for and who he represents. Steve Moore is owned by the billionaire elite and his job is to fog up financial information and create propaganda, it is certainly not to learn or educate.
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  631.  @aimwilliamson6609  - Michael Hudson is one of the best economists out there, along with Steve Keen, both very straight shooters. What I believe is going to happen in the coming year is more of the same. On September 19, 2019, the Federal Reserve started pumping money into the banking system every business day and has not stopped or pulled back since. Cutting through all the BS rationalizations, the Federal Reserve is doing this because the wealthy have pumped up the stock market so high that the banks liquidity had dried up. For as long as the stock market keeps rising, the Fed will keep pumping in money for the wealthy to use buying stocks, which in turn is diluting our purchasing power. This is now showing up in real estate, we are trying to buy a house but continually get outbid by all cash offers. This is happening because there is so much money in the economy, those who have it are buying up all the assets they can get their hands on. Eventually this will cause a popular political uprising, as ordinary folks get boxed into smaller and smaller financial spaces.
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  632. Seconded. What about it Thom?
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  633. Erik Humleker - Hear hear! That is exactly what we need to do.
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  634. None of these controls will work, until we understand that accumulated wealth on the individual level MUST be capped. An open distribution manifold for any device, government or economy does not work for anyone except for those holding the bucket under the open pipe. Until we cap wealth accumulation, no regulation or reform will be able to withstand the assault of those who hold the wealth.
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  635. Glad to see someone else actually knows about the F.I.R.E. sector of the economy. My calculations are that in the USA, the FIRE sector takes more than 23% out of our economy and that percentage is growing annually. You simply cannot have unlimited growth of financial assets without collapsing the economy.
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  636. OrionPax09 - It is well past time to enact a Maximum Annual Income and a Total Wealth Cap for all citizens of the USA. Realistically, 1.75 million dollars in annual income and a total wealth cap of 50 million dollars is more than enough to live in the utmost luxury for a lifetime. By all means make more than that if you can . . . with every extra cent going back into the society that created the wealth in the first place. All wealth beyond these ranges is used for one thing, and one thing only . . . the exercise of power over the powerless. It is time we end this corrupted system by placing limits on wealth accumulation. That one move will end most of the problems we have in this country, and lets face facts here . . . virtually all our problems are being brought on by morbid greed and the wielding of excessive power by those who have the undeserved and unearned lions share of the wealth.
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  637. deacon jones - One of the most frustrating things about a dialog on socialism is that for most, including you, the dialog starts and ends with a definition which is inaccurate and predicated upon a story/myth generated by oligarch propaganda. Their story is very effective and has the effect they are looking for . . . that you will dismiss socialism as a viable alternative and thus cement in place the structures the oligarchs depend on as a foundation of their power. As of this moment corporate oligarchy does these things you wrote about socialism: "is all powerful.and controls every thing,and dictates your rights". (You need to put spaces between your words). What is always left out of any tentative discussion once the myths are established as a baseline is this: unlike the current geriatric stage of capitalism, socialism has and will continue to evolve. I have done considerable research on the subject and while not an expert by any measure, I have learned enough to know the myth stories are not true. The one point which is germane to your narrative which I will bring up, the current discussion of socialism does not have "the government is your daddy" at its core. That particular phrasing is part of the anti-socialist mythology, whose goal is to prevent you from looking into socialism further. Socialism is not just a philosophy, it is an adaptable system which includes markets and free enterprise. If you were to look closely at the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution, both are progressive documents that are inherently socialist in nature. Capitalism and the oligarchs spawned by capitalism have twisted both to fit their own narratives and myths. The Founders lived in an age of slavery and many other ills, however even though like Bernie and myself they were stuck in the then current system, they had the vision to see a better future for the USA and humanity which is socialist in nature.
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  638. Robert Sinja - The clear explanation is that our elected officials have sold us out. From this point forward at every election, I am looking to see who is paying for the candidate's campaign. If the money comes from banks, corporations, PAC's or any wealthy source(dark money) . . . the candidate is bought and corrupted. These are the sellouts who are cutting our so-called "entitlement programs". They simply change the terminology because using the real term "earned benefits programs" would alert the less informed voters to a higher degree and put their political futures at risk.
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  639.  @helengarrett6378  - Well said! Could not agree with you more. "I want a new way altogether." That just might become a new revolutionary slogan.
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  640. Learn Social Justice - What FDR failed to do . . . is what we must do now, in the modern era. FDR never took the tools of reform destruction out of the hands of those who wield them. The tool od reform destruction is wealth. Tax avoidance by corporations and billionaires has combined with their subversion of the government to create a toxic economy for 90% of workers. The time has arrived for a Wealth Cap that is not only warranted but necessary. No one should be allowed to influence democracy beyond their single legal vote by using excessive and morbid wealth to buy the government or news media. Chavez in Venezuela made this same mistake. He did not nationalize the banks. He did not put a wealth cap on citizens. He left the capitalist elite intact . . . . same thing FDR did. In both cases the capitalist dismantled the reforms and the people always suffer as a result. Now we have two examples of what happens when you don't go far enough. Let people get rich based on the value of what they do . . . but not wealthy over a certain cap. It is simple and it works. The old steam engines used to over-rev and blow themselves up. Then some genius discovered the "governor", allowing the engine to perform in a safe range. We have seen demonstration after demonstration that humans require the same thing with regards to wealth. It is about time we invent the "wealth governor".
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  641. Angi Jones - Picture this: Let us say that democrats take both the House and the Senate in the 2018 elections. The House can start impeachment of both the president and vice president (Pence is as guilty as is Putin's Puppet) and the Senate can convict them both. So who is next in line for the presidency? It will be the brand new Democratic Speaker of the House. If we can take both Houses of Congress, we can get a new democrat for president before the 2020 election. That person can immediately start to reverse and repair what damage Putin's Puppet has caused. Vote Blue (no matter who) this November 2018!
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  642. Douglas Barton - I hope your first line is tonque-in-cheek. Everything else you wrote is spot-on.
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  643. The number of homeless and the number of billionaires have increased over the past decades, with a growth rate for both that is exponential. Currently for every new billionaire, there are over 900 new homeless people in the USA. What will it be two years from now. a ratio of 1 to 1000? Or 1 to 1200?
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  644. Captain Jack - Thank you for tarnishing the name of my favorite movie pirate. You just thanked Chris Cornelius for being one of the few to give you a positive response . . . when you do not deserve any. Setting aside your vaunted intelligence, straight out of the gate you are insulting, vulgar, condescending, dismissive, and just made an all around ass out of yourself. Love the fake polite farewells to those you spit on. You seem to me to be a highly ignorant blowhard who lives in a bubble of your own creation. For someone who was not feeling well and therefor could not engage in sufficient discussion, you certainly have appeared a great many times in this comment thread to berate those who would try to engage you in dialog. Normally, I like to comment on policy or the topics posed in a video. However, you rose to such high prominence on the butt-wipe scale, I felt that I must present you with accolades that you have merited.
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  645. The better question is: Why do we need the wealthy elite at all? They will always screw things up for the majority, history shows this to be true without exception. This time, if we even have a chance to make changes, we must bring the wealthy down to our level, thus eliminating the most destructive "class" of human beings. If we do not or cannot, they will cause our species extinction.
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  646. Republicans fall into two categories: the ones that lie, and the ones that willingly believe those lies...
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  647. Interesting how we now hear nothing about "caravans" coming up from the south, unlike last year when that was all Trump would talk about. No new border wall has been built, Mexico is not paying for the wall and we American are paying the tariff taxes brought on by Trump's trade war (trade wars are easy to win, remember that?). Are we winning yet?
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  648. You are not so demented Uncle, your comment is probably the most reasonable assessment I have seen in this comment section today.
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  649.  @Gamenetreviews  - Way to dance dude. When you can't confront the fact, pivot to Venezuela.
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  650. Trolls like Maria Schick never return to back up their comments or converse with those who contest the troll nonsense.
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  651. And not nearly as entertaining or educational as astrophysics. Our kind of economics is going the same route blue giant stars with over 100 solar masses, kaboom!
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  652. Aszhara - Thank you for bringing up the topic of terrorist attacks resulting in deaths coming from the right, it needs mentioning in a discussion like this. What will we name the non-violent anti-fascist protesters who must stand up to our enemies? Well said on your entire comment.
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  653. If you take a look at the growth of financial assets for the first half of 2021, it is greater than 80% of our GDP for the same time period. Screw taxing the wealthy, we need to CAP wealth.
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  654. UTGJ - Obviously you have no idea what a communist is. Kudo's on giving yourself the first thumbs up btw, very classy.
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  655. True statement. Accumulated wealth is harmful to the economy, which can be proven using simple math. Using the figures for 2019 shows the harm, confirming your statement. Privately held financial assets (wealth) exceeded $90 trillion, with a average growth rate of 5% to 7% annually. The GDP for the USA was $21.5 trillion with a growth rate over 2018 of 4.1% for the year. The pile of wealth grew by $4.5 trillion (using 5% figure), while the GDP grew by $848.8 billion. If only 18.8% of the wealth growth was converted top capital gains. that would wipe out all the GDP growth for 2019. Accumulated wealth is cannibalizing our economy, eating us alive, and for no better reason than for the wealthy to have bragging rights. Enough is enough.
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  656. Sorry DatNiqqa, I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and I remember what happened . . . we got Trump. No more "lessor of two evils". Screw that, I'm voting for Bernie as a write in or for a 3rd party candidate.
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  657. It is amazing that the American people allow themselves to be bullied by corporate boards and corrupted politicians, they after all set us up by welcoming illegal immigrants to bust our unions and furthermore set us up by not prosecuting those who hired the illegal immigrants. Way to go stupid white America, your republican education . . . I mean propagandist indoctrination is showing through.
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  658. Also agreed. The only way this gets solved is that we stop voting for bought candidates. We know who they are, stop voting for them.
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  659. Tamila - You really do have a problem with reading comprehension, don't you. You wrote: "Bernie Sanders is nothing like Eisenhower and if he were still alive he would be disgusted with Sanders." First of all, I never said Sanders was "like" Eisenhower, he is not. I was commenting on the leadership capabilities and comparing styles. Taxes on the wealthy were at 91% under Eisenhower. How could he possibly be disgusted with Sanders given the conditions of today? If Eisenhower were here today, he would assess the tactical and strategic situation in our economy . . . then he would quit the republican party and run for president again with Sanders as his VP.
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  660. That is because Fake Fox News hosts are empty headed dimwits, just like their viewers!
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  661. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  662.  @robinsss  - You really must catch up. the comment by "That Guy" explains the process well enough. The Federal Budget is paid for through appropriations, not taxes. Once the spending bill is signed into law by the president, that is the check, the Treasury always cashes the check. Bonds are issued to raise the money. Old bonds are retired with our tax money.
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  663. Nancy Mesek - Unless I am missing something . . . you might be referring to that other guy. From: Not a lemming!
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  664. IronskullGM - Very interesting article, I am gong to use the final two paragraphs of that article here as a launching point for further discussion. Quoted from the article: " As Sears, Roebuck and Company Chairman Robert E. Wood observed, after the war “we were warned by private sources that a serious recession was impending. . . . I have never believed that any depression was in store for us.” With freer markets, balanced budgets, and lower taxes, Wood was right. Unemployment was only 3.9 percent in 1946, and it remained at roughly that level during most of the next decade. The Great Depression was over." Here is where I pick up the discussion. What very few people discuss or even acknowledge is that in 1946, the fully intact industrial might of the USA had a captured world market for manufactured goods. That captured market lasted for at least a decade, until other countries ravaged by the war had recovered enough to rebuild or in some cases, start up their own industrial manufacturing base. The "captured market" decade of 1946 to 1956 is the sole reason that the USA fared so well for the three decades after World War Two, yet this point is never acknowledged by the "free market" types. When the manufacturing base of Europe and Asia had recovered enough to become competitors in the manufacturing realm, that was the end of the new American middle class. U.S. manufacturers started to move their operations to Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and eventually to China . . . leaving trained and highly paid American workers to rot. Balanced budgets, contrary to what the author of this article wrote, never entered into the economic equation. Taxes during this era stayed high, literally forcing reinvestment into privately held companies. The "regime certainty" of the 1920s having largely returned, that the author referred to, was in fact responsible for the inflation of the 1970's and showed that capitalism had not learned anything at all about how to create a stable economy. Facts on the ground are these: Capitalism is a "Monopoly Game" with rules that never change and those rules are antithetical to human society and that society's longevity. The "free markets" of today are not free at all, they are rigged toward the detriment of individuals and in favor of large monolithic corporations. This is bad recipe.
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  665.  @jamesfournier9450  - I agree with everything you just wrote. Every system need regulation, which capitalism does not have. The only reason capitalism is not positively regulated is because wealth buys power, which is easy to understand but obscured by propaganda (which is also bought by wealth). My background is in engineering, which when applied to capitalism could make the system work for everyone . . . and therein is the rub, because those with wealth do not want capitalism to work for everyone. They have deliberately engineered programs like 401k's and IRA's with the tax penalty so that they could manipulate the average American, which as an engineer I can see what they wanted to accomplish. The goal was to kill off pension plans through employers and create a so-called retirement platform to drain wealth toward themselves and ensnare average American's as accomplices to their plan. The device called "compounded interest" and it's deleterious effects has been well known for several centuries. In Michael Hudson's paper on compound interest called "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four-Thousand Year Overview Part II", he makes the following referral: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” In his Observations on Reversionary Payments, first published in 1769 and running through six editions by 1803, Price elaborated how the rate of multiplication would be even higher at 6 percent: “A shilling put out at 6% compound interest at our Saviour’s birth would . . . have increased to a greater sum than the whole solar system could hold, supposing it a sphere equal in diameter to the diameter of Saturn’s orbit.” Ultimately what this means is that we cannot have an economy with any portion operating by compounding interest rates for either debt or wealth generation. Any economic system that uses compounded interest either must have a periodic reset and debt forgiveness, or the system crashes. The wealthy know this, they want the system to crash regularly so that they maintain power. The only way we escape this is to cap individual wealth accumulation at a set limit, plus put a floor under the bottom via UBI or similar mechanism, or provide for system resets in both wealth and debt. In other words, we cannot let the wealth engineer the system to benefit themselves. Reference: https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  666. Here is a thought, let us have no federal taxes at all and institute a hard wealth cap for individuals and businesses. All capital gains, all earnings gains above the cap are taxed at 100%. A wealth cap would stabilize the economy and eliminate virtually all speculation fueled economic bubbles. A wealth cap would also eliminate virtually all private money in politics.
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  667. nuvisionprinting - Fight privatization with everything you have. We have an insane for profit system here where the getting health care is determined by how big your wallet is. The low budget plans offered by private insurance companies deny coverage for virtually everything . . . and the average consumer cannot read and understand the reams of small print that goes with the contract. Health insurance plans are for most, an extra tax with no rights or representation. My daughter has a mandatory participation employer sponsored health plan which deducts half the cost from her paycheck . . . where the deductible is $5000USD, which makes the coverage useless for her. Private health (wealth) care is a scam, and we here in the USA know that intimately.
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  668. Paradoxical Psychop0mp - Veterans have good reason to be angry, at least I think they do. However, your comment has me burning with curiosity . . . in what manner have your vet buddies been neutered? This is only supposition on my part, but if tRump was to turn the military against the citizens of the USA, my feeling is he would die from pitchfork wounds and burns . . . not from military firepower. With regard to a mass proletariat uprising, my gut feeling is that the target would be the oligarchs world wide. Not killing them . . . that would not be enough. The form of mass uprising would be a demand for world wide law prohibiting the amassing and accumulation of morbid wealth by persons and corporations. Limits need to be set on the accumulation of personal wealth, caps set so that no individual can affect the political structure of any country. Same goes for corporations, no more massing wealth in overseas tax havens . . . all such tax havens need to be eliminated. I have two adult daughters who are already very angry with the manner in which the Baby Boomers such as myself have systematically ruined their future through our greed. They are not angry with me, I have been fighting against my fellow boomers since before they were born . . . having seen for myself that the course we are on will lead to nothing less than the global extinction of life as we know it. They are now on the front lines, fighting the battles we should have been fighting decades ago.
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  669. R R - Your ire is misplaced. All money originates with the federal government, of which they tax back a portion in order to influence the economy. The local and state taxes you pay go toward much more than schools. Your ire would be better aimed at the oligarchs and capitalists, they are the ones who have stagnated wages, exported jobs and are employing automation to reduce the need for workers. You have succumbed to the oligarch's propaganda. They want you mad at the government . . . which keeps you from picking up a pitchfork and going after them.
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  670. Because from the 1970's onward, all economic productivity gains have gone to those who already accumulated wealth. This problem has a simple origin with wide ranging effects. We keep trying to solve problems created by the effects instead of solving the problem at its source. The 2019 economic year illustrates the origin clearly. The sum of privately held financial assets for 2019 is greater than $90 trillion. The 2019 national output by the productive economy as measured by GDP is about $21.5 trillion. From these two figures we can compare the size of interest earning wealth to the size of the economy, $90 trillion compared to $21.5 trillion. Financial assets gain 5% to 7% annually on average. GDP has grown by 2.56% over the past three decades. From these two figures we can compare the growth rate of wealth to the growth rate of the economy. If we use the smaller figure of 5% growth for financial assets, 2019 generated $4.5 trillion in asset growth. According to The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the United States Department of Commerce, Current-dollar GDP increased 4.1 percent, or $848.8 billion, in 2019 to a level of $21.43 trillion. If only 18.8% of financial asset growth for 2019 was cashed out as capital gains, that would wipe out the entire $848.8 billion GDP growth for the year. This is why we don't have affordable healthcare, education and housing like they did in 1950's, because all economic gains are going to the 1%. The only solution for this mess is to heavily tax capital gains or finally recognize we need to put a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. Every system has an upper limit. We need to recognize that our economic system breaks down because there is no governor on the upper end performance. Every race car fan knows what happens to high performance engines running at top speed, they burn up. Same thing is happening to our economy.
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  671. Hell, the wealthy started racism to protect themselves. What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb, socialism for the wealthy.
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  672. This racism and other-blaming was all brought to the surface and promoted by the very wealthy and industrial capitalists over 40 years ago, who needed a convenient narrative to obscure the neo-liberal agenda to create the modern Kings and Serfs society. . . which they knew would strip most Americans of their assets and wages over the past 40 years and accelerate the stripping over the next 40 years. This racism narrative is how they are hiding their action from all of us. Here is what we really need to be concerned with: The Macro Economic Scales. Right now 17 international wealth funds have $50 Trillion in their portfolio's seeking a rate of return. Even at a paltry 5% rate of return, it will only take 14.4 years to double. That is $50 trillion in "free" money gained in 15 years. Where is that going to come from? Certainly not from the legitimate "productive" economy, no . . . it will be "extracted" from all of us and from "regime change" countries. It is time for us to back public policy that puts a hard limit on wealth accumulation, because the appetite of "rate of return" investments cannot possibly be met. When you extrapolate out to 45 years, the $50 trillion of today will becomes $400 trillion. That means $350 trillion dollars gets sucked out of the planet just to pay interest. This is beyond unsustainable, it is destruction, disaster, rape, murder and plunder rolled into one ugly ball. You ever see what happens to a rooftop when too much snow accumulates on it? Collapse. The modern narrative of racism and other-baiting is meant to obscure the nature of the coming collapse. The sheer mass of that much accumulated wealth is going to collapse everything world wide . . . and we have to stop this. Time for an income and wealth cap, it is the only way we can manage this outrage.
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  673.  @wesleyhoulch1887  - First, you are in error about the teenager in white. He was moving forward, hands at his side when he was pepper sprayed, yet there was no threat to the officers. Only after he was pepper sprayed did he "charge" forward, after his eyes were disabled, he was clearly in pain and disoriented. That is not an attack. How do you react when assaulted in such a manner? Deploying pepper spray to get the group to disperse? That is a load of horse manure. The problem here is that you and so many other people have not only become desensitized to police violence, you have started to enjoy it like a spectator sport. The reality here is that your own ability to think clearly has become compromised by right wing hate media and your own lack of common sense. This type of police violence will simply motivate more rebellion and violence, not prevent it. Get some sense man, there is no safe learning environment when school administrators put a girl who was sexually assaulted on disciplinary detention or suspension and the boy gets off Scott-free, which is the reason for the protests in the first place. The school administrators bungled this entire situation, then calling the police to fix their problem just made it worse. How can you expect from anything else except rebellion from these students when such an injustice occurs? The problem here is you, the school administration and police solving problems with violence. Things will only get worse until you learn how to deescalate. Oh, and big difference between what happened here and an active shooter situation, comparing the two shows further lack of good judgement on your part.
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  674.  @AlyAly  - What we need to do is abolish accumulated wealth over $10 million. This one act will solve a great many problems.
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  675. J N - Keep talking, your ignorance is on full display.
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  676. Pall mall - The $15/month was going on before trumPPutin came into office . . . .
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  677.  @WalkTuahthePolls  - For those who have the slightest interest in saving themselves and this country, you must understand the implications of two words: Financial Assets. The amount of financial assets out there is staggering.Try to wrap you head around this. Take a sample size of $100 trillion in financial assets and set aside just the interest gained over one year in a separate account. The interest gained over one year on that smaller account would be 3.3 times larger than all of the economic gains posted in 2019. Even that tiny sample is hollowing out whatever economy there is, so just think about what that larger $100 trillion account is doing. The wealthy are dependent upon your ignorance of simple math. Their wealth passed critical mass decades ago and even the global economy cannot support their capital gains. That is why these "bailouts" keep happening, the wealthy are parasites. The economy stopped being profitable enough to pay "interest" on their investments long ago. The only solution to this is to stop allowing unlimited wealth accumulation, but as long as people don't look too closely and fail to realize our economy is being hollowed out, the looting will last indefinitely. This is why there will be an all out war against the establishment in this country, if there is any possibility whatsoever of saving the country.
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  678. Tim Borch - Wow! You have set a record for stupid, ignorant and illiterate. I can't help but to notice you have not answered a single challenge issued for you to substantiate your claim.
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  679. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
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  680. Phil Hunt - Read it . . . everybody needs to read the Powell Memo. Talk about a treasonous bastard . . . faking trying to save us all from communism and socialism, while herding us toward something far worse.
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  681.  @airbornestoner3077  - Does anyone actually think these things through? As a vet, you should know what the results of nuclear warfare will be.
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  682.  @Soleilune1995  - Bingo! Your opening paragraph had the answer, but not in a simplified and direct form. The simplified answer is: Over Accumulated Wealth. From that simplified answer, everything else springs. Look at this people: The economy is a system. Too much power breaks every system. Accumulated wealth equals power. Too much power in the hands of very few, over time undermines everything done for the benefit of the many. Every engine has a limit to its power. In the early days of steam, engines kept blowing up because they generated too much power or the boilers over-pressurized and blew up. To stop this, a limiter, called a governor was applied to the steam engine. A pressure relief valve was added to boilers. Both devices performed the same function, they put limits in place. So what is it that keeps blowing up our economic system? Too much power in the hands of very few. Wealth equals power. If we are ever going to have a better society, such as college education for everyone and the means of production put into the hands of the workers . . . then we must place a limit on accumulated wealth. To have never done this one simple thing, is the reason why "reforms" are always eroded.
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  683. I felt like the complete outsider six months ago when I said I'd vote 3rd party rather than vote for another establishment democrat. Was starting to waver, now feeling even stronger about my choice. Been voting for 36 years, tired of voting for the lessor of two evils.
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  684. Mycel - I voted for Hillary. That was before I really knew who Bernie was. You know who knew better than I . . . . who I should have voted for in 2016? My grown daughters, both of them. Learning from them was an eye opening experience for this old curmudgeon. We will not get anywhere in this country voting for milk-toast candidates. Voting third party is the only way we can protest the system of crony capitalism being foisted upon us. You can curse all you want, but voting for a centrist democrat for president dooms us all. The fact of the matter is, I am glad that Hillary lost. With Trump we now know exactly where we are lying down, which is in the dirt under the boot of corporations and the wealthy elite. We cannot change that by voting for another Hillary. If millions of people do a protest vote by selecting a third party candidate for president, then maybe the Democratic Party will finally learn not to run centrists and to support the people instead of money.
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  685. Well now, isn't that nice. I show up here to write something like "Trump, what an idiot" . . . . but I see that has already been taken care of in spades. Thank you brothers and sisters for helping to lay siege to Fox News. Does wonders for the heart and mind. :-)
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  686. More Oil! More Oil! More Oil! More Oil! More Oil! More Oil!
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  687. Katie, in 2019 the privately held financial assets (over $90 trillion) gaining at least 5% annually, grew by a minimum of $4.5 trillion. If only 19% of those wealth gains were cashed in, all the economic gains from 2019 are erased. The evil bastards know exactly what they are doing. One day soon, the weathiest of these who own the majority of privately held financial assets, are going to sell off their holding, which will collapse the economy entirely. They are simply milking us until the milk is gone, then they will take us around back of the barn and shoot us.
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  688. Here is something you might be interested in: I would like to impart two main items, one simple and the second requiring some elaboration. First: It was because of the Justice Democrats and their campaign platform that I switched my voter registration from Independent to Democrat. JD's are very appealing and they are in the main on the correct track. However, reform is not enough. Reforms are always undermined and then removed by the oligarchs and their minions. That leads to my second item. I live in California and my eldest daughter (29) lives in Missouri with her husband. Over this past weekend I called her and we discussed my wealth cap proposal. She asked me to define a "life of luxury" so we could have a basis for discussion. Since "luxury" is defined differently by different folk, I provided this baseline for our discussion: "If a family lives can afford to live in a 29 room mansion and they are building an new mansion with 92 rooms, that is too much wealth." She told me that "mansions" in her area ran from 1.6 to 3 million dollars, so we started our "thought experiment" using the upper limit of 3 million dollars for housing and another 3 million for property taxes over a lifetime. I would ask her for the upper limit on what she considered "luxury" for transportation, food, clothing, entertainment, furniture, healthcare, travel and other lifestyle luxury amenities. Together we came to a total of 50 million dollars in accumulated wealth which would allow her and her family to live in the utmost of luxury and security. So if we break that down into an annual income over a 30 year working life, no one should really require more than 1.75 million dollars per year of total income after taxes. You see, there are only a small proportion of millionaires and billionaires who use their wealth to benefit mankind. Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson, perhaps the Gates (though I don't actually see what they are doing, My Lady reminds me of their Foundation work) . . . and the guy who made his fortune making and selling those 5-Minute Energy drinks (Billions for Change). On the diabolical power hungry side of the ledger we have the Trump's, the Mercers, the Koch Brothers, Julian Sinclair Smith of Sinclair Broadcasting, Rupert Murdoch and family, the Bush family, the Dupont's, the Johnson family, plus countless others I cannot name without looking them up. Throw into the mix the lobbying cartels for every known corporation using their money to buy OUR government representatives. Put a wealth cap on all of them and big companies and corporations will have to break apart, ending monopolies. Co-operatives between many stakeholders will become the new norm instead of the exception. Large building projects will require the cooperation of many builders instead of a few Mega-Corps. Large companies owned by individuals will be forced into reinvesting into their employees and company infrastructure. Many of the things the Justice Democrats stand for will happen by default with one simple and sweeping change. I could go on, but if you are as intelligent as I believe, you will see the possibilities in this once you give it some thought. So many of societies ill's will get attention and even cures with the revenues generated by a wealth cap tax . . . and no one will suffer the deprivation of their chance to earn millions. With vastly increased tax revenue, funding the vast potential of technical and artistic talent among our population can be unleashed. With a Universal Basic Income people are no longer bound to the useless hamster wheel of human wastage the current capitalism economy creates. ALSO: There will no longer be an oligarchy with the means and tools to undermine these societal reforms. Just think about it.
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  689. I believe these right wing networks have been doing more than just indoctrination. Over the span of 55 years, from 1965 to 2000, our economy expanded by 336 percent. Wealth on the other hand, expanded 4599 percent. Think about what kind of long term planning is required for such a feat. I don't think our economy can generate that, just so far this year the gains for financial assets equals 49% of our entire economic output. There is no way half of our economy is being sucked up by the wealthy, is there?
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  690. John Michael Robinson - I have no doubt that a battalion of propaganda specialists being employed against TYT alone, same again for Secular Talk and the other progressive channels here on YouTube. This also applies to Christopher Chung's comment about fear, these propaganda trolls are seeding fear. There is an old order that has governed human society since the neolithic era, the strong rule and the weak follow. This old order is breaking up, my personal research has made me aware the tremors may have started earlier than the French Revolution or when capitalism was born. The weak have learned to become strong by banding together . . . and the strong (in modern times-the wealthy) are afraid. That is why so many trolls appear here on TYT, they are trying to undermine and discredit. It won't work! We know the game now. The old order has had its day. Trickle down economics resulted in stagnant wages and a minimum tripling of living costs. Now tax cut for the wealthy and deregulation again? It did not work in the 1920's or the 1980's and certainly is not working now . . . . so these dinosaurs have had their day.
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  691.  @Ariels888  Agreed. The single overwhelming threat that we American face right now is the built up critical mass of wealth that is syphoning everything like a Hoover vacuum cleaner. Nothing else comes close, and every reform being chased by our people will be impossible to accomplish because of this huge wealth mass. Every talking point put forward right now by politicians is a diversion, to keep our attention away from the realization of our true peril.
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  692. Zoe Phin - Whatsa matta Hon, don't like it when you get spoken to in your own lingo? You have contributed nothing in all of these many comments, you call people names, you divert and pivot, plus you write statements that make no sense. When asked for clarifications . . . crickets on that request, but meanwhile you post eleven new inane comments. So until you start making sense, I'll just keep calling you Peter.
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  693. Brad Christy - Funny thing though, the so called "trickle down" never reaches the majority of workers no matter how much they apply themselves. Another delusional capitalist defending the system which has been proven not to insure domestic Tranquility in the least. In order to benefit from your "flood", one must excise empathy and no longer care if children or grandchildren will even get to survive on a living planet.
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  694. I believe these right wing networks have been doing more than just indoctrination. Over the span of 55 years, from 1965 to 2000, our economy expanded by 336 percent. Wealth on the other hand, expanded 4599 percent. Think about what kind of long term planning is required for such a feat. I don't think our economy can generate that, just so far this year the gains for financial assets equals 49% of our entire economic output. There is no way this is the "free market", so these guys have taken over the government also. There are no government programs I know of that are not administered wholly or in part by corporations these days. The 1971 "Powell Memo" was a roadmap for the corporate takeover of all institutions and it looks like it worked.
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  695. MidScream1 - A vast majority of the rich do not, as you put it . . . work hard, create jobs and create wealth. Whatever gave you that idea?
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  696. MidScream1 - Who took a risk? The rich took a risk and created a successful business? Nonsense, you are spewing propaganda talking points again. The rich do not take risks, they use their wealth to create certainty, while planting these false idea constructions such as "individualism, risk takers, and makers vs takers" into the populace for you to pick up. They know you will not reason through the myths they are planting, making you a useful soldier to guard their riches without actually being paid for doing guard duty. Son, you are one of two types who spout this nonsense. 1). You are either part of the propaganda machine churning out this vomit. Or 2). You are one of the weak minded who has been ensnared by the lies you are believing. You have been recruited to play Guardian of the Realm, standing for "principles" which exist not for you, but for those whom you gladly serve.
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  697. Republicans are no longer Americans. The founders of this country set things up so that we would have our own indigenous national economy and that is the American Way. When the industrialists decided in the 1960's to abandon the national economy in favor of profits generated by cheaper foreign labor, they could not actually announce their intention to hollow out the national economy. So they colluded with the republican party who chose a simple minded republican from California to become president, so they could muddy the waters and further their agenda through "tax cuts". They have been faking being real Americans ever since, but in reality they are traitors who have raped and pillaged the economy and sucked out the accumulated wealth of the American middle class for over 40 years now. They will only abandon the pretense of being American when all that remains of this once great country is a dried out husk.
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  698. Thom, this video is a repeat of part-1.
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  699.  @donnawheeler2195  - Oh no . . . Trump is not THAT smart, he just tweets away calling his own pick for Fed Chairman an enemy.
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  700. Right wingers = Take money away from those who work hard to get it and funnel it into corporate welfare and giveaways to the wealthy. You sad ignorant people watch propaganda from a billionaire . . . who laughs all the way to the bank carrying your gold. Right wingers are liars and losers. If you are going to be ignorant, you will never have good government. Funny how most of the mass shooters in this country are right wing nut-jobs.
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  701. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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  702. How about you provide an example of how we have regulated capitalism. The chief aim of the capitalist is to remove all regulations and that is what has been happening, if you feel differently then provide examples. Otherwise you are a excellent candidate for being delusional yourself.
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  703. jack dawson - Your comments mirror my sentiments, it is all a game and we have had only one party for decades now.
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  704. It's not just billionaires. The whole system of paying wealth more in interest payments than the economy can support has got to go. Right now the top 20% has twice the wealth than the whole economy can make in a year, and they want "interest" money on that wealth? What? Money for free? Just because you already have money? What happened to working hard for your money? Straight up facts. "Investment" is nothing more than cannibalism. The 2018 economy grew by 2.56% and the whole economy never topped $20 trillion. The top 20% has OVER $50 trillion which they "invest" and they will not accept anything less than 5% for a Rate of Return (RoR). So, quick question. How do you get 5% RoR on $50 trillion in a $20 trillion economy that only made 2.56% all year? Math Quiz! The 2018 GDP growth was 2.56% ($560 billion) The top 20% invested $50 trillion at 5% RoR ($2.5 trillion) $560 billion minus $2,5 trillion = negative $1.94 trillion. So how do the top 20% get their 5% RoR when the economy did not grow enough? They raise health care costs. They raise housing costs. They raise energy costs. They raise education costs. They raise food costs. They raise transportation costs. In other words, they cannibalize the economy and "We the People". It is time to end this whole rotten system. Burn Wall Street!
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  705. J.A. Holland’s Quiet Storm - The trump trolls are out enmasse, don't let them stop you from writing your excellent commentary. This is the second comment of yours I have encountered today, just like the first one . . . this one is spot on.
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  706.  @MukoroJr  - Yes, that is what we are seeing. We have to move because our landlord wants to sell, but nothing we can find fits our budget and allows us to keep our cats. Bottom line, we are looking a forced downsizing downsizing and the death of our animals because they have nowhere to go.
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  707. Yup - The Koch Brothers $400 million in paid TV ads have started to hit us in California. At first I thought it was Jeff Denham(R) 10 District putting ads up again just like he did before the tax scam was passed into law . . . but this time it is Americans for Prosperity putting up the lying ads on MSNBC during the Morning Joe show. They featured an attractive woman who was saying that she received $2000 in extra income due to the tax cuts, and of course they are targeting the conservatives who watch that show. Too bad that lady has not gotten her Health Insurance bill for the year . . . . . yet. We have, it went up by 66% and we did not get anything from the tax cut. Thank you republicans, we are going to remember you at the next election.
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  708. ChantYip - Most of the twenty or so comments here are from woefully under educated people. "Where is she going to get money for free college education?" The same place the money came from for the bloated military budget. The same place the 3.5 trillion dollars in tax cuts came from that added 1.5 trillion to the deficit. People seem to think that taxes pay for what the government provides and all government expenditures. WRONG! All money originates from the sole manufacturer of U.S. currency, the government itself. You cannot pay taxes until the government issues the money, and the government can NEVER run out of money. In Congress appropriations come first, then the money is doled out. When tax revenues are used up, treasury bills are sold to cover the remainder. When are you stupid people going to get it through your thick heads that U.S. government debt and deficits are a necessary part of the economy, without which our economy will collapse? We can easily have fully paid college for every citizen, fully paid health care for every citizen and 100% of us can have decent housing without causing the economy to overheat or having the government go broke . . . BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT CAN NEVER GO BROKE! Geeze people, read the Constitution will ya!
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  709. Des Gonzaga - You are not paying attention. The USA cannot ever run out of money. Greece , Portugal, Spain, Italy . . . those countries are part of the EU and cannot manufacture their own currency . . . that is not a problem the USA faces. When those countries gave up their sovereign currencies, they sealed their own fate. The facts on the ground in Venezuela are not what the corporate media would have you believe, you should look into that for yourself. The economic theory you are putting forward pretends that we are still on the gold standard, we are not. There is no shortage of government money, that is a myth. The propaganda version of socialism is supposedly unsustainable, yet democratic socialist countries are flourishing and their people the happiest in the world. You have bought into the propaganda the oligarchs want you to believe. Do some research and break your shackles man . . . or continue being a tool. That is your choice.
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  710.  @jeremyrangel8138  - By the term "these people", you are talking of course about the people who are wealthy through doing no actual labor to earn that wealth. The chosen few. The royals. The Lucky Sperm Club. Those people. The ones who get their "food/shelter/healthcare" without lifting a finger. Ever.
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  711. The depletion of gold supplies had a lot to do with stagflation. Until 1971, the dollar was backed by at least 10% of it's value by gold. Nixon pulled us out of the Bretton Woods Agreement and then took the dollar off the gold standard. The adjustment from gold backed currency to fiat currency was in great part responsible for the resulting stagflation. With regards to paying for the Vietnam War, the French were still the primary bankers in the Indochina peninsula region during that time. They gathered all of the U.S. dollars deposited into their banks in the region, transported them to the United States and demanded the gold value instead of the current international currency exchange. Since the French paid the U.S. in gold for war supplies in WW2, their gold reserves were exhausted, until being replenished in the Vietnam War era, thus reversing the flow. The USA was on the verge of being unable to back the dollar in gold when Nixon single handedly changed international monetary policy that was in place since the end of WW2.
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  712. Right wingers are liars and losers. If you are going to be ignorant, you will never have good government. Funny how most of the mass shooters in this country are right wing nut-jobs.
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  713. Ned Thumberland - Nope. Someone else made that bed, not us. When our media lies to us by omission for decades, and the politicians are paid to keep the status quo in place, it is a rare opportunity for people to find out what has really been happening. Now we have been exposed to the truth, but some people are so involved or attached to the system, they fight to protect it even though that same system would rather see us die that get universal health care all other developed countries have.
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  714. Fake troll alert.
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  715. Lor M - Yup, just like the taxpayers paid a bunch of billionaires 1.5 trillion dollars last year with trum(PP)utin's tax scam cut. By comparison, 200 million is a hella'va deal because we taxpayers will actually get something for our money!
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  716. Innocent people, especially a president of the USA, should welcome investigations that will clear their names. Only guilty people rant against investigations and call them "witch hunts" . Sure are turning up an awful lot of guilty witches!
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  717. Just what exactly is Trump hiding? He is obviously hiding something from the American people, which means whatever it is . . . it is not good for us. Why is the Treasury Department hiding the Suspicious Activity Reports pertaining to Trump? Even Chuck Grassley has said that Treasury is hiding something. Just tell me, why does Trump repeat the words "no collusion" thousands of times if he is not guilty of conspiracy against the United States? Even this summit in Vietnam was a huge win for Russian propaganda and the North Korean leader, yet Trump plays it off like walking away was a win. What is he hiding?
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  718.  @osonhouston  - Agreed. The views on YouTube for Fox News is far greater than any other "news" channel. We lost this country to the billionaire owners of Fox News long ago.
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  719. The television news stations in the Sacramento, CA. area are all running stories of closing restaurants. The reasons cited for the closures always includes the mandatory minimum wage laws, though the other reasons given are not so consistent. Now my BS meter is tuned in and I can clearly see that these "news" shows are partaking in propaganda. We know from other cities with mandatory minimum wage laws that businesses did better and did not close.
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  720.  @davidlafleche1142  - You are the very definition of "isolated incident", which is another way of saying . . . your input is meaningless within the bigger picture.
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  721.  @davidlafleche1142  - No flat rate taxes, that is a con job. Progressive taxes are the only fair method, but it just needs one additional tweak. There must be a wealth cap at $10 million, after that taxes are 100%. This is the way we deal with the global elites. Most of the 1% is well below the $10 million in total assets mark, and that amount is plenty to live an opulent life. Putting in a wealth cap will put an end to the capitalist bubble cycle.
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  722.  @orionpax0946  - I have not said this for awhile since I have taken time to study the problem in greater detail, but what we need is a hard cap on wealth. Free enterprise has been conflated with capitalism. I have no problem with free enterprise, what I do have a problem with is a system that believes a percentage rate of return on savings or "investment" should be greater than the percentage growth of the economy. We simply cannot have 5% rate of return on wealth in an economy that only grows 2.5% per year (if that). Especially when accumulated wealth is many times greater than the entire yearly economy. I want to tax it all down to $10 million per individual, you can have that much, no more. This would solve a lot of problems.
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  723. Jennings644 - Do you know anything at all about the structure of the government you are criticizing? Adam Schiff is duty bound by his oath of office and the part that concerns us right now is this . . . "Loose Lips Sink Ships". What prosecutor has ever released information about the case before the case is ready to go to trial? None. The Mueller investigation is a tight ship, no leaks. Adam Schiff has seen some of the classified intel Mueller has and he is duty bound not to divulge what that intel is. That is why Adam Schiff say's there is 100% proof, he has seen it and he can say that he has seen it, but he cannot reveal what it is without breaking his oath of office. Why do you not know this? More important, did you know and you just don't care? Duty. Do American's care any more about how deep the meaning of that word is?
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  724. Meanwhile unnoticed for the moment . . . our health coverage costs are going to skyrocket this fall, due in full to the republican "tax scam law". That rise in costs will wipe out the paltry tax savings we are supposed to get. You know how we could solve all these problems once and for all? Make law enacting a Maximum Annual Wage, Bonus and Stock Option package for all corporate executives . . . and . . . enact a Total Accumulated Wealth Cap for corporations, individuals and families. Do this, and all these republican and corporate democrat tax law schemes and scams abruptly end . . . forever.
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  725. AZOffRoadster - Could not agree more. Time for the velvet gloves to come off. This is a matter of "enemies within". In the last two years I have taken on a serious research project into our economy. Within the first year I had learned the economy is all politics and the republicans have been fighting dirty for over 100 years. FDR hit them with a sledgehammer and that put them down for less than a decade. It is time we fight them hard and put them down for good, because the alternative is the literal end of our Constitution, our democracy and being completely stripped of rights as citizens. Already corporations have more rights than citizens and that is all due to the judicial branch packed with so-called conservative judges. They are not conservatives, they are shills for corporations. We have a lot of work to do and we have to use their tactics and more. Having the FBI and IRS scrutinize every member of congress and every federal judge is a good start. Next is the 28th Amendment: "Corporations are not people, only Homo Sapiens are people. Furthermore, money is not speech under the Constitution. Only the spoken or written words of people is speech." Finally, to cripple corporations forever, a Maximum Annual Income and Accumulated Wealth Cap must be made law. These three actions will put down the republicans and their corporate bosses in a manner that will end their reign of terror.
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  726.  @adamt1828  - Where do you people come from? Have you not been paying attention? If it were possible to do what you describe, Alabama would be the most populous state in the Union. I swear, so many people such as yourself are math illiterate. First of all, investing in the modern age is not investing in anything productive at all, it is a Ponzi Scheme. Bank of America graphed out the amount of money that went into equities last year, almost $1.1 trillion (a record amount). Equity holdings (stocks) make up half of the financial assets that households own. Yet financial assets increased in value by 13 times that amount, an impossible feat. You cannot have asset values rising at double the rate of GDP for decades without draining wealth from the citizens of a society, yet there are always fools coming out of the woodwork to claim that if a person learns to "live below your means", life will be just peachy. What you describe is a downward spiral into oblivion.
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  727. Evan C. - Not only a conversation about what democracy really means (which I completely agree), but also a conversation about where we want humanity to go . . . . because We the People have totally dropped the reins.
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  728.  @nts9  - My idea is a step along the path toward eliminating the cancer. We have to start somewhere and almost every idea from $15/hr minimum wage to medicare for all will be immediately undermined if we don't do something about accumulated wealth first.
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  729. maoistblock - Nonsense. President and Vice President will suffice perfectly.
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  730. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
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  731. Dediguise 001 - Peter Nachtwey is neither brainwashed by capitalists ability to control information or hopelessly ignorant. Nor does Peter believe in democracy, freedom and in equality. He is on the other team, the one that thinks the victims of capitalism's vampire tendencies should "F*** off and die". His words.
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  732. Blah, blah, blah . . . capitalism is not imposed without the use of force so get over it already. As usual Peter, you are a liar. There is nothing indicating Marxism is a threat to society . . . only a threat to your thieving capitalist ways.
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  733. For clarification about what Peter and I are referring to, I will post "the charts" as Peter refers to them. In one afternoon I did research and analysis, with astonishing results. I invite any other readers to offer their opinion of what I have concluded, and any actual facts that refute my findings. Links are at the bottom of the comment. Enjoy!: Even with a 300.3% growth in GDP per capita, the American people have been taking a continuous "income cut" every year for over thirty years because our median incomes have not risen anywhere close to GDP per capita. The economy is not doing well for the people, the fundamentals are off the tracks. Stocks are going up because of corporate buybacks, not because people are buying product. The corporate media is lying to you. Plus our politicians have been taken over by the corporations and wealthy interests, so they no longer represent “We the People”. Here are the baseline statistics: The United States GDP per capita rose 300.3% over the past 30 years. Median wages for men rose by 1.05% over thirty years. Median wages for women rose by 151% over thirty years. Median wages for women remains 35% lower than men’s median wages, even though women median wages have risen far higher than men’s over the past thirty years. In 1986 median wages for men were standing at 185.2% of per capita GDP. By 2015 median wages for men had fallen to 66.2% of per capita GDP, that is a 64.3% loss in earning power over 30 years. In 1986 median wages for women were standing at 82.3% of per capita GDP. By 2015 median wages for women had fallen to 42.4% of per capita GDP, that is a 51.5% loss in earning power over 30 years. Median household income rose 236% over the past 30 years. Since the growth of median income of men and women combined is only 152.5% over thirty years, it is a fact that there must be three or more earners per household in the present day. The days of single and dual earner households are gone. Median household income in 1985 was $23,620, well below the men’s median income of $35,324 which points to the fact men did not head most households at that time . . . or since then. With a 64.3% erosion of men’s earning power over thirty years, the modern household must have three, four or five working people in order to have an increased median household income of 236% over thirty years. New homes have gone up 335% over thirty years. Existing homes have gone up 292% over thirty years. Rents have gone up 299% over thirty years. Energy has gone up 177% over thirty years. Transportation has gone down 3% over thirty years. The cost of public college gone up 305.2% over thirty years (not including the costs of boarding, books and supplies). Of these items listed above, all except for two items fall within a range of growth similar to the GDP per capita growth over thirty years. The two anomalies are energy which has risen only 60% as much as the other items. The real sore thumb is transportation, which is the one thing everyone notices when price changes occur since we are a commuter culture. I smell something foul here, prices being fixed as to not draw attention to other giant cost increases within our economy. Don’t piss off the commuter or you will have revolution! However a steady upward creep of prices against diminished earning power will continue beyond our ability to pay, all happening very quietly so no one will notice or complain. Here is the list of items where the capitalist corporations are really sticking it to us, this is the wealth extraction economy at work. The cost of childcare gone up 546% over thirty years. The cost of healthcare gone up 601% over thirty years. The cost of pharmaceuticals gone up 894% over thirty years. And finally: The federal student loan burden being carried by our youth has gone up 14,800% over thirty years. In conclusion, the median earning power of American workers cannot keep up . . . and has not been able to keep up with basic living costs for decades. This is forcing all of us into eternal debt. You cannot have a GDP per capita going up and pay the workers less, while at the same time increasing basic necessary living costs at GDP per capita rates (or double, even triple that). Sources: https://www.census.gov/const/uspriceann.pdf https://www.census.gov/const/uspricemon.pdf https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/uspriceann.pdf https://www.realestateabc.com/graphs/natlmedian.htm https://ycharts.com/indicators/sales_price_of_existing_homes https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/grossrents.html https://www.zillow.com/home-values/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household-bills/9892984/How-prices-changed-over-30-years.html http://traveltrends.transportation.org/Documents/CA08-4.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/30/us/spending-for-health-care-in-1985-rose-at-lowest-rate-in-2-decades.html https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/new-peak-us-health-care-spending-10345-per-person http://www.in2013dollars.com/Tuition,-other-school-fees,-and-childcare/price-inflation/1986-to-2016?amount=20 https://www.statista.com/statistics/184914/prescription-drug-expenditures-in-the-us-since-1960/ https://college-education.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005532 http://www.onlinecolleges.net/student-debt-in-the-u-s-part-2-a-brief-history-of-student-debt-in-the-united-states/ https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/ https://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-156.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/acsbr15-02.pdf https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/usa?year=1986 http://statisticstimes.com/economy/north-american-countries-by-gdp-per-capita.php
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  734. Peter - Tisk, tisk, tisk. You are leaving out all the other relevant data, on purpose, so you don't look the fool. That does not work Peter. You must read the chart, and then cross reference that data with other relevant data. Of course if you look at median income growth ALONE and claim victory. . . you are the one looking foolish. Median income is stagnant. Costs of living keep pace or exceed GDP per capita growth. If employers will not raise their employee pay to keep pace . . . that is theft of income from workers.
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  735. Now to address the arrogance of the modern Robber Baron types, a club that Peter belongs to. Notice that when he is cornered and obviously intellectually defeated, he resorts to gaslighting. By selectively ignoring data, and by counting on the idea that most people will never check the figures, Peter thinks he can get away with his arrogance by browbeating others into submission. Hence the obvious gaslighting: "What other irrelevant data do you think is relevant?" Pay attention people . . . this is the face of our enemy. He and the other like him will have to be subdued and restrained by a transformed society, with new laws that we the people make in order to keep these highly irresponsible and emotionally voided people from inflicting this economic carnage onto our future generations . . . that is if the cretins not doomed all life on this planet already.
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  736. c.j. macq - Yes indeed. The indoctrinated masses have been trained to be Guardians of the System. The only way it seems to break the indoctrination is for the individual to buckle down and do the hard work of researching the economy . . . which leads to understanding that politics and the economy are the same thing. That is how I broke the propaganda hold over me, I set myself the task in 2016 to find out what the hell was happening to our economy. The research took me back decade by decade until I reached the end of World War One. I could have gone farther, but I had enough to see the repeating pattern. The wealthy always undermine everyone else and undo all reforms. My conclusion is this: it is past time to put an upper limit on wealth accumulation. Too much accumulated wealth is like poison in the bloodstream, it slows the body functions and creates blockages which eventually kill the host body.
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  737. David Beaulieu - Nice to read someone else besides me bringing up the methane "bomb", as you put it. Most people are completely unaware and dismissive when they are told about this imminent global catastrophe. Geologic history has shown methane to be a planetary killer . . . and you are correct. There is no coming back from that.
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  738.  @sarathompson2035  - You are probably lucky to have not taken economics classes in college. Nothing that you have been learning here is taught in college classes, unless you are lucky enough to have someone like Professor Richard Wolff teaching. However, even Professor Wolff gets fixated on one particular aspect of economics, for him it is worker co-ops, handing over control of the enterprise to its workers instead of a small group such as a board of directors. While that aspect of economics is compelling and as I believe, the way of the future of private enterprise, there are obstacles and inherent deficiencies which make that path nearly impossible to achieve in the present economic environment. With regards to Italy, this is a very interesting subject. Italy gave up their sovereign currency (the lira) to join the European Union, as did Greece (drachma) and Spain (peseta). These countries are suffering enforced austerity and are being coerced by the European troika [the decision group formed by the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)] to take loans they do not desire, just to be able to pay the interest due on previous loans taken out during the world financial crisis of 2007–2008. These three countries and several others, do not have a manufacturing base to speak of, their economies depend mostly on tourism. They simply cannot afford to take out loans to complete construction projects due to this enforced austerity. With no future to look forward to, these countries are losing population, mainly the young folk who are seeking better opportunities elsewhere. One of the most captivating speakers I have had the pleasure to listen to is the ex-finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, who is currently an MP in the Greek Parliament. Listening to Yanis talking about his tenure as Greek Finance Minister was an eye opening experience, he was popularly elected by the Greek people to put a stop to the systemic looting of the Greek economy by the trioka, but was overridden by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who accepted the loans Yanis was elected to stop. Yanis subsequently resigned his position and started a new movement in the European Union called Diem25 (Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 ) to fight the encroachment of right wing radicalism leading to a potential fascist takeover of European countries. Yanis is all over YouTube, he is definitely worth listening to. To answer your final question about proposed solutions, I will answer that in a separate post, as I am running out of time and I want to shoot off a reply comment to another participant in your comment thread before I must attend to other duties. Cheers!
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  739.  @DavidAdkins78  - There is nothing voluntary about the bottom 90% of our population having $47 trillion siphoned off over the past forty years, to enrich the top 10% of wealth holders. It seems that you, like so many others, have become enured to in inherent fraud of the neoliberal economic system. Do you think being forced to pay for housing, education and healthcare (just to name a few) costs that increase faster than wages is voluntary exchange? You used the word "propaganda" in reference to socialism, when it is very apparent to me, that you yourself are suffering from the effects of propaganda and outright lies being told regarding our present form of capitalism. Now before you go accusing me of being a socialist or communist, I am not. Capitalism as an open ended system is a disaster for nine out of ten families in the United States, because it is no longer based on the free enterprise system. It is very clear to me that you are not familiar with either "basic economics" or "history", but rather have become steeped in oligarch propaganda yourself. Have you read the "Powell Memo"? Have you read the paper by Michael Hudson that I linked for Sara? Did you read my own comment about financial assets and worked out for yourself the math involved? If you have done any ONE of these, I would like to read your rebuttal.
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  740.  @etep878  - You understand perfectly. What we have now is not a working system, it is a Ponzi Scheme. Take the exploding homeless crisis for example. Housing is not a right, it is a capital asset. In my area house values have increased by a factor of 11 since the 1980's, but wages have increased by only a factor of 4. Straight math says there will be a homeless crisis when housing costs exceed earnings, yet no one actually addresses homelessness in those terms. It is always a diversion, drug problems, mental illness, lack of personal responsibility. Financial assets ended last year at $118 trillion, making gains that equaled 66% of our GDP. Growing asset prices that fast outstrips society's capability, there must be limits.
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  741. independent vote - Exactly, I was all about dialog and compromise for decades . . . . No more.
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  742. Hey Jim Thompson - when are you going to start being concerned about the top 20% benefiting from the biggest "free money" scam perpetrated in recorded human history? You know that everyone who inherits wealth is a socialist that is using other people's money? Did you know that the top 20% have accumulated over $50 trillion in financial assets (thanks to Reagan, who is Thatchers best bud), and they did so without lifting a finger or actually "working" to get that money? Do you know that this accumulated wealth is currently cannibalizing our national economy? How is that (you may ask)? You cannot have a sum greater than our entire national economy, extracting an interest payment from that economy that is double the size of economic growth without cannibalizing the economy itself. Lets see if you can understand this bit of math: 5% interest on $50 trillion is $2.5 trillion. 2.56% GDP growth on the U.S. economy in 2018 came out to the sum of $560 billion. Subtract $560 billion from the $2.5 trillion being extracted from the economy in the form of interest payments = $1.94 trillion. $1.94 trillion, that is how much was extracted from the economy to pay free money to the top 20% of income "earners". That by its very definition is "socialism" for the wealthy. So tell me Jim Thompson, when are you going to start complaining about that? The top 20% stole that money from you, me and the rest of the bottom 80%, because there is no longer a productive economy in the USA that can support that kind of rate of return. Why? Because the damn capitalist have hollowed out our industries and sent them packing to China!
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  743.  @dawnemile4974  - Dead as a door nail and not really giving a rats HmHmmm about the mess she left us in.
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  744. This is why we must place a wealth cap on all individuals and corporations. Excessive wealth distorts the economy and our politics. The individual wealth cap should be $10 million. I don't have a figure for the corporate wealth cap, there has to be tight controls on how much cash they can hold before being required to reinvest in their companies.
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  745. We have vote by mail here in California, works great and you can go online to verify your vote was received and even check your voting record. Simply no reason this cannot be done in every state.
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  746. Blank - Eisenhower - yes, Reagan - no. Perhaps the economy did well during part of Reagan's tenure, however the policies which came from his administration have devastated the middle class economy ever since. Perhaps you should call yourself dipship, for being so fantastically ignorant.
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  747. In the old days we did not have all of the distracting and entertaining electronics, the rich and powerful are graced with a potent pacifier for the public these days. I'd say we can be stepped on a bit more before the uprising begins.
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  748. Guyfranke - I second you comment and will add this . . . C'mon people, have we not learned anything from our history? Aren't you all tired of the wealthy putting their boots on our necks and telling us to enjoy it because "that's the way it is"? We live in a modern world, the old ways are cooked, spoiled and smell really bad. The suffering is intolerable. There is no real need for the rich to be rich, it is time for civic duty to humanity to take the reins of power. Tax everyone and every business at 100%. Make sure that everyone has basic human needs and dignity . . . then reward the makers for their contributions(enough to live in luxury but no more than that). Never allow anyone to become wealthy again or to concentrate power around their person. We can do so much more when the means to do so are not held privately. Let each human rise to their potential, instead of grinding us all into the dirt while saying "pick yourself up by your own bootstraps". I don't know about all of you, but I've never seen "bootstraps" in my 56 years alive. The notion that we must pull ourselves up on our own is as old fashioned and obsolete as bootstraps themselves are.
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  749.  @denisevarner3402  - I'm not against financial success either. However, the real question is: Why do we need the wealthy? They will always screw things up for the majority, history shows this to be true without exception. This time, if we even have a chance to make changes, we must bring the wealthy down to our level, thus eliminating the most destructive "class" of human beings. If we do not or cannot, they will cause our species extinction.
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  750. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  751. No, that is incorrect. The real cause is predatory financialized capitalism. When asset prices are driven through the roof, people fall behind and become desperate. Housing has gone up in price ten fold in California since I was a young adult, wages and pay are not even close to keeping up. Financial assets grew by over $8.7 trillion in the first half of this year, which is over 80% of GDP. The people who sell the idea that this is the fault of the democrats or the left, are the billionaires who own media empires. They want your attention diverted so they can continue looting and pillaging while telling you "look over there"!
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  752.  @Israel-nb7ip  - What is happening with our economy is actually quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. Capitalism in its current form is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
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  753.  @davidzachmeyer1957  - Just in case you have not read through all the comments: Yes . . . it was Clinton. And Reagan. And both Bush's. And Obama also. And they all played a part, every one of them. That's not our problem anymore. We have to do something about the now oligarchy they created, that is the real threat here. Blaming past presidents won't help, that is a tactic they have deployed against us. Straight out of the oligarch's propaganda playbook, turn the population against each other by giving them bits of red meat to fight over. Our real enemy is where the money and wealth is. There needs to be a hard cap on accumulated wealth. Every system has limits built in, but they have conned us into thinking that rich is good and richer is better. Unlimited wealth for those who can grab it. Once you understand that this system needs one single limiter, one governor to make sure the machinery of the economy does not rev out of control, that is when "We the People" will actually have real meaning. Ours is the power they fear, which is why they must have us divided . . . because together we can put the governor on the machinery and make them just plain old ordinary. Its a simple thing, but it is their greatest fear. A HARD CAP ON WEALTH. Make it to the cap and still be a millionaire but everything above the cap is taxed at 100%. THAT IS THE SOLUTION.
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  754. No system, natural or artificial, is capable of infinite growth.
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  755. No thankyou - I must reluctantly agree. After spending an afternoon researching, I found that in addition to stagnant wages . . . those wages have lost half their buying power over the last three decades. The response all the way around has been yawns and denials. Well, in another 20 years it won't matter because we will have neither health or money.
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  756. It is going to have to go deeper than a wealth tax, what is really necessary is a wealth cap. This much - no more. We have already been set up to lose all wealth in three decades, most people simply don't know that. Do the math. Rate of returns on wealth are eating all economic gains, and bigger chunks of the economy every year, but that is never enough. Before we know it, the entire economy will be devoted to providing unearned wealth for the 1%. There are caps and limits for everything else, the same must apply to wealth or we all become just a battery for the elites power. Time for a new Constitution, new Supreme Court and a new economy.
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  757.  @OldieBones  - Agreed. Murdoch is an immigrant whose only skill is telling lies to protect billionaires. The only thing worse are the sorry saps who actually believe the lies, because they make things worse for all of us.
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  758. intelmike181 - How old are you Sonny? That is one of the most naive statements I have read here today. I'm in my 50's and what you wrote is a fantasy story for MOST workers. Just because your little story works for some does not make it mainstream realistic for a majority of workers in this race to the bottom economy. You wrote: "You just have to be smart enough and hard working enough to take advantage of the path out of poverty and into properit." Smart enough? Hard working enough? You obviously do not have the life experience to make a qualified judgement about these issues. Also, what is properit? Is it like Covfefe?
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  759. Kathleen Smith old white woman - Yes! Just heard about Germany actually paying customers to use electricity. Heard about one company using these surplus times to be paid to pump water into a high mountain lake, then when power is scarce they run the water through generators and get paid again. Brilliant! That is what we need here in the United States, logic and common sense. We are being held hostage to big oil and gas. Our home heating for the winter is outrageously high, and we are in a mild California climate. PGE does not want to use solar and wind except for mandated minimums, they make too much money off of petroleum products and natural gas.
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  760. Kyle, there is a significant difference between misstatements by the media which the Mueller team published corrections for . . . and a possible misrepresentation of the Mueller Report by Barr. There is a caravan's length of difference between the two. No, we don't have to accept or move on. The wording of the Barr summary clearly does not exclude that Mueller found conspiracy or collusion, just that it did not rise to the level requiring charges to be filed. Furthermore, Mueller may have operated under the edict that a sitting president could not be charged with a crime, which would significantly color the investigation. We do not know to what extent Barr interfered with Mueller, and it is extremely probable that Barr's interference would not be challenged by Mueller. William Barr is the AG, not the media. Mueller may just just want to wash his hands of this investigation, or he may be waiting until he is called by Congress to lay out the AG's interference. The crux of the problem is that we just don't know, and while we don't know the whole thing still smells like the top and bottom of a fetid swamp which has not been drained.
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  761. Infrastructure in disrepair, falling apart due to republicans . . . so republicans are trying to assassinate themselves?
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  762. transcendence - You are anti transcendent. Where do you think all of the technology originated? U.S. taxpayers paid for all of this. This nonsense of "property" has got to stop. All of mankind (past and present) contributed to all of the technology we now have. We build everything on the shoulders of our ancestors, so on one truly "owns" the technology we have now. What we really need is a common share of all productivity to go to every person in the world . . . instead of this incredibly wasteful and antiquated system call "property rights" and the "free market". If we all do not make that move to shift economic systems, there will be no transcendence for anyone because the so called "free market" with its attached private property rights will consume everything possible . . . . until a lethal dose of methane gas is released by the warming planet wiping us all out (and all the other animals as well). Just plain stupid.
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  763. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "This is very possible but they didn't have that debt to earnings ratio when they got the mortgage." Yes, they did. It is happening. You cannot refute that. You wrote: "I quote myself "They spend too much, promise too much and there are too many free loaders." This is the truth. You can't refute it." This is not truth. It is diversion, hyperbole, your pretend version of reality. Peter, you consistently present this message without basis in fact. You never address the why or the how, you just make declarative statements. You wrote: "Yes, with the aid of machines. It is the machines that are more productive not the operators." in response to me writing: "yet humans are producing more with less effort. " Peter, this is where you fail completely. Humans made the machines that allow for greater productivity. Therefor it is humans that have become more productive. Hence it is humans that should collectively reap the benefits of greater productivity, as the machines have no need except to be maintained. Peter, you are not "just" a jerk. You are a deplorable human being without empathy. You are not alone in this, the president and his entire cabinet are just like you. Eventually, if you cannot come to your senses as a human being, the application of force will be required to subdue you. Is that really what you want for yourself and your fellow human beings? Humanity cannot move forward as a species without self destructing using your vaunted market based capitalism as an economic model. The only other option that allows you to keep this broken system in place is that the elite kill off all the "useless" humans. You cannot refute that. Please try though, I want read how you think the future looks. Finally you wrote: "It is UNANIMOUS and not just me." Peter. I don't think you really understand language. Unanimous means that everybody agrees. Look, here is the definition: adjective: unanimous (of two or more people) fully in agreement. (of an opinion, decision, or vote) held or carried by everyone involved. The only people you are speaking about are those that hold your belief . . . . in relation to the population at large your belief does not make for "UNANIMOUS", plus a belief is not fact. Refute that. All this bluster on your part is a smoke screen to keep from having to discuss the real problems that arise from free market based capitalism, or the political decisions that landed us in this highly skewed economy. You have refused time and again to discuss the real issues, instead focusing all your energy on derision. Solutions: Raise all taxes personal, business and corporate back to the pre-Reagan era, that will solve the federal debt problem and the city financial problem. Make capital gains tax levels the same as personal income tax levels, that will solve many government debt issues. It is too late to reinstate the tariff system that protected the indigenous American economy for almost two centuries. The way forward now is a basic universal income for every person on the planet. Not to adapt to the global economic situation makes the use of political force or actual physical force against people like yourself inevitable. Either you pay the higher taxes and modify the economy so that income from greater productivity is distributed fairly among the population . . . or the torches and pitchforks will be coming for you Peter, sooner or later.
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  764. Joseph Inhiding - I cannot help it, I must quickly reply to your final points in the paragraph starting with: "I conclude that the jobs being created in America are the wrong types of jobs." I concur. Among the last items I wrote to Peter this morning was about it being "too late to reinstate the tariff system that protected the indigenous American economy for almost two centuries". The economy is a system like a machine. Periodically you have to take the machine off line to make repairs or upgrades, to do maintenance. Sometimes the machine needs to be replaced with a one that is of current technology. You don't see ships or locomotives running on steam engines these days, that would be ridiculous. Our economy is running on a 300 year old system . . . . . . . . . . .
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  765. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "What happened to coolmodelguy? Did he give up? I have been able to prove him wrong at every turn. He really needs a reality check because he has just been repeating libtard propaganda without any facts." Peter, Peter. Do you enjoy lying? Do you enjoy distortion? You have not proved anything, much less prove me wrong. You think the purpose of our little talks was to prove me correct over you, like I have that kind of stake in new economic systems I've been exploring? You are missing the point Peter. You cannot afford to have over 100 million pissed off workers in a national population of 300 million, who also live and work in the richest country in the world. Telling me to "get over it", calling me "libtard", and deliberately distorting the behavior of people seeking solutions just makes me angry . . . and not just at you. Angry at everyone like you. That is a dangerous game to play. See . . . as I told you before, I know people just like you. Self made business persons who started in the 1970's and 1980's on a shoestring budget and have been successful. I admire them and do not begrudge their success. However when they start to lecture about how lazy people are or how anyone can do what they have done if they work hard and apply themselves, I have to take issue. Each of you is "a product of your time and age". Take Ed for example. He started a t-shirt business in the 1970's selling from flea markets. He parleyed that into a printing shop and then a sign shop. He is now retired and his son runs the sign shop. When we talk, I have to remind him that "when" he started his endeavors was just as critical to his success as hard work. There is no way a t-shirt seller at a flea market today will end up 30 years from now with a multi-million dollar sign shop. The markets is saturated with cheap t-shirts meaning there is no profit in it for startups, real estate and building costs are astronomical . . . and last but not least the nature of economy has changed drastically in 40 years. Peter, you have become famous, a symbolic figure whose sole purpose seems to be to shit all over people who are less successful than you, and those who are seeking answers or even a better way to live. That makes people angry. You never answered my question: Peter, why are you here? Why are you always on Professor Wolff's videos making insults and belittling the work of an economic's professor who is providing sound economic information? Before you say what Dr. Wolff teaches cannot possibly work, can you prove that? Do you have any examples to base your opinion on?
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  766. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "I am pissed as hell that I am paying the health care insurance for about 35 employees AND THEN I must pay 3.8% additional on my capital gains to subsidize some loser that doesn't contribute." Ohhhhh . . . Boo Hooo! Cry me a river. You are so short sighted it is not even funny. Your capital gains should be in the upper 30% range, not down in the 20% range. You are getting off too cheaply with your capital gains, living large of the backs of taxpaying laborers (wealth redistribution for the wealthy, socialism for the rich). Your taxes have been cut over and over again with no net return to the economy in the form of improved wages, more jobs or better jobs. You say the federal government cannot live within its revenues, all the tax cuts you do not deserve are the reason why. Those "losers" are people who cannot contribute, not "doesn't contribute". This is another example of you distorting things to fit your narrative. With all the tax cuts since the Reagan era, your lot has been deliberately shorting the federal treasury and then you blame those whom you put out of work or have been forced into lower paid labors . . . . for increasing the federal deficit. You call it the government "promising too much" and try to shame people such as myself. Can you feel the anger building Peter? Keep on lying, keep on obfuscating, keep on distorting to fit your selfish narrative. You will feel it.
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  767. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "What distortions? I just posted a link that shows 60% of US families are free loaders?" That is the very type of distortion I am talking about. 60% of US families are NOT freeloaders just because they get "transfer income". That income only partially compensates them for the effects of the extraction economics and job losses you willingly participate in perpetuating. Using that logic then, all of your earnings and wealth is due to you "freeloading" off of the entire human society. You could not make it without society at large to sponge off of, just like those 60% of US families cannot make it without that "transfer income". Stop making villains out of the very people you depend on to make a living, if you do not enjoy being called out on the hypocrisy of your statements. We are all one tribe as Joseph has pointed out, you want to divide us due to a misplaced sense of entitlement. Your whole life view is skewed and selfish to the extreme. This is the very thing that has to be corrected within our society, the idea that economic rape is ok.
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  768.  @Mark0003260  - Well now, your conventional wisdom is shining! I've been where you are, thought the way that you obviously do now. How do you think conventional thinking originates? Took me a long time to figure that one out and whoa-donkey!! What do you know! Turns out people like you and I have been duped friend! Look, I am pushing 60 years and until about 6 or 7 years ago I was as conventional a thinker that could be. However, running a small business is an eye opener and things I was observing did not fit the conventional wisdom paradigm. What you have demonstrated with your comment about Prop-13, real estate prices and property tax is conventional thinking based on a narrative, put out by people who want you to believe that narrative. The narrative makes sense, sounds logical and honest. The problem is, it is a narrative, which is to say, it is not true or honest. People get triggered when I tell them they are the victims of propaganda, but propaganda is designed to be effective and cause the people who hear it to believe it and defend it. When I responded to your comment, I did a Google search to find out about Compton and Lynwood. There was so little information that comprehensive. There was no mention of a housing boom associated with the production increases of World War Two. These two areas ARE sacrifice zones, just not so much in relation to capitalist heavy industry. More so as the entire United States is a capitalist sacrifice zone, having been moving towards this end since the termination of the "Bretton Woods" Agreement and the move to separate the dollar from gold. As much as I would enjoy being a millennial, really I am a late boomer. I see what is happening in my children's world, that reality is completely divorced from conventional wisdom and thinking. I think that just like myself, you have been made into a fool for someone else's benefit. Hope you don't get triggered by that statement, but instead start really digging into some serious research because you have some catching up to do.
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  769.  @Mark0003260  - What an young and innocent pup you are, to be led astray so easily. You act like you know what you are talking about, because it has been drilled into you by master propagandists. Where do you think the inflation came from? Where do you think Prop-13 came from? Do you even know how to do basic math? Why do you think there was never legislation to address the property over taxation problem? The issue you have is one of regurgitation, not actual rational thought. The racism you spout, was engineered. The inflation, especially in housing, was engineered. Prop-13 was engineered, not because it gave tax breaks to homeowners because that could have been done through legislation but was not. Prop-13 was all about compounded interest, a useful tool when your intention is to gut the Constitution of the USA. Did you ever read The Powell Memo? I did. It laid out the roadmap for the wealthy to take over the country, which they have essentially done. Lewis Powell was on the Supreme Court and his memo showed the rot from the top, just at the moment is began in earnest. Have you taken a look at the ratio of financial assets to the size of the economy? Taking real estate out of the equation, the size of the economy is less than one fifth the size of financial assets. Since financial assets capital gains grow faster than the economy, even an arrogant fool like you should be able to realize that something does not pass the smell test. I have given you more than enough information with just the ratio question, which you could use to launch an investigation on your own. If you have any brains at all, you will look up the size of the 2019 economy and then compare that number to the total value of financial assets owned by households and non-profit corporations. The math does not add up, our puny economy cannot support those levels of capital gains. Why do you think the bailouts in 2008-2009 were given? It was never about too big to fail, it was always about looting the infinite printing press of the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve. Now in 2019-2020, the looting has gone on steroids beginning with the REPO crisis that started in September and culminating in "The CARES Act" of 2020. Trillions of dollars injected into the stock market at the drop of a pin. How could the Congress do that when they always whine about the deficit and federal debt? You are an idiot. You call me as ignorant as a millennial, yet you don't even have a grasp on simple national financial matters which are very easy to research! What you are spouting is the narrative directly out of the Oligarch's Propaganda Handbook, which you willingly swallowed whole. You think black people ruined those towns? Then you are nothing but simple tool, easy to use and very obedient. How could you be so submissive? Are you even a real American? No wonder this country is turning into such a cesspool when people like you think you have all the answers, but never actually had an original or inquisitive thought in their lives. Disgusting.
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  770. Unless we do something about wealth accumulation, trying to reform our system into a stable social democracy will fail because reforms are always destroyed by wealthy interests.
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  771. Brainy - When I went to middle school in Colorado (late seventies) it was all white except for one black student. I was the scrawny kid always getting beat up and he was getting harassed also . . . so we naturally gravitated toward each other. That situation opened my eyes early on to the ongoing racism rampant with white people, except I did not understand what racism was at the time. Ever since then I push back against racism, but most whites will hear nothing of it. Shame too, my black friend was a really good person.
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  772.  @bobroberts2371  - You are being ridiculous. Police are out of control. At the very least the police should adhere to the doctrine of "do not fire unless fired upon". The very profession is all about putting one's life on the line to "protect and serve", not to be executioners.
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  773.  @pwd1134  - Clear as mud, both you and those officers need to learn some physics. The officers started firing only three seconds after they exited their vehicle. There was no time for clearly understood communication. Furthermore, the man in the truck could not possibly have brought a shotgun to bear upon the officers without clearing the door or the windshield to be in a firing position. The only plan of action demonstrated by these officers was that of an execution squad.
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  774. Is Jason Snead a republican? Edit: Never mind, I just looked him up. This was with his picture (same guy) on the Heritage Foundation website: Jason Snead was a senior policy analyst in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
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  775. Billy - I don't know how one misses the fact that it is the right that keeps interfering in south American countries, destabilizing their governments and causing the mass migration of refugees toward the United States. The right does this at the behest of capitalists who either want to seize resources to exploit from those countries (Venezuela), or that they want to destabilize budding socialism because they fear it will spread to the United States. We don't need to "close the borders". What we need to do is mind our own business and stop interfering in the business of our neighbors to the south.
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  776.  @julesmasseffectmusic  - What is happening with our economy is actually quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. Capitalism in its current form is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
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  777. Cathy Morrone - I did not read the book, these were my own thoughts arrived at after my own research project into our economy. I am 57 now, two years ago after becoming very concerned we were not getting the whole story from our so-called news media, I started an in depth research project into the economy. I found to my surprise that politics were tightly entwined with the economy, and that what I will term "criminal political complicity" has been involved in keeping the "rich" wealthy for over 100 years . . . at the expense of society and our country. Every decade I looked at compelled me to explore further back in time and I paused my research at the post-WW-1 era around 1917. What I wrote here today were my own conclusions.
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  778.  @rappinron1384  - Why outrage over Anifa or BLM? They protest the behavior of the bad guys and they are not criminals.
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  779. Patrick Shelly - Good question. The problem that I see is this: Prior to the Reagan era and the infamous Powell Memo, there was a high marginal tax rate. The economy was doing good, more or less. There was however, a massive shift in capitalism when industrialists started to move heavy industry jobs out of the USA in favor of low-wage areas of the world. This move gave rise to what we now call multi-national companies and their ability to exploit labor outside the influence of U.S. law. At the same time, these industrialists started a massive campaign to undermine labor unions in the USA . . . and they succeeded in gutting unionization. Skip to the current era. The power of the worker has been gutted while at the same time the FIRE sector of the economy has expanded exponentially. Our citizens who are workers who gain no advantage from the Finance industry, the Insurance industry has turned into a wealth extraction platform, and the Real Estate industry has been taken over by speculators whose activities have increase the cost of housing several hundred percent while wages are stagnant for the worker. Each one of these industries which comprise the FIRE sector of the economy is essentially a playground for the wealthy, and the so-called gains contribute nothing to the real economy. I will forgo touching on the bailouts this sector received from the U.S. Treasury in order to simplify my answer. High marginal tax rates did not stop the wealthy from creating undue governmental influence in our economy back in the 1960's, 70's and 80's, thus creating the income inequality problem we have today. High marginal tax rates will only slow, but not eliminate the speculation (gambling) industry which is so appealing to those with excessive wealth. Speculation was a contributor to the Great Republican Depression (FDR's name for that era) and is the major contributor to the excessive wealth accumulation of today. Speculation is what caused the Great Recession of 2008, and that behavior has only ramped up since then. Extraction economics is what happens when the real economy fails to perform and the wealthy have to achieve their gains through other means. This will not stop unless a mechanism is put in place to curb these financial behaviors. Here is the big picture: In 1984, the income from rents, dividends and interest payments exceeded the income from wages in the USA. Rents, dividends and interests payments to create income and greater wealth is a form of extraction economics, none of them contribute to the real economy. In the current year, rents, dividends and interest payments exceeded all profits from every company and corporation world wide. This is unsustainable and will lead to an unrecoverable economic crash at some point. The only mechanism I can discern which can prevent or moderate an economic crash of that magnitude is a cap on wealth and income. The thought experiment my daughter and I performed was applied to a family of four, and left out critical components such as the eventual empty nest and inheritance. We agreed that a 100 million dollar wealth cap was substantial enough for a good life, but not enough to buy politicians or to influence votes other than ones own vote. There is no justifiable reason whatsoever for the existence of billionaires, the hoarding of wealth has the same effect on the economy as the loss of blood circulation has on the human body.
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  780. Patrick Shelly - Perhaps the sequence of events should be everything that you have laid out, followed by a cap on income and wealth. The laws and regulations laid down during FDR's administration dealing with banking and finance have been all but rolled back or eliminated, these need to be restored. I agree that campaign finance reform is a necessity in this age, it is an uphill battle with a great deal of resistance. The real problem is this, while there were laws in place which enabled the "Golden Age of Capitalism" from the 1950's to the 1980's, the tools enabling the dismantling of these laws were left in place by FDR when the New Deal was enacted. The tools I refer to is concentrated wealth. Without doing something about that specifically, no reform will ever hold. We have seen this happen repeatedly since the Gilded Age. Right now we have entrenched wealth in the hands of 20% of the global population, more so at the top 1% of the global population than in the remaining upper 19%. Hoarded wealth inhibits or even reverses economic growth. Capitalism demands growth, yet without capital circulation that growth is not possible without expansion into arenas where that expansion is unwelcome or even detrimental. Without the capital that is being hoarded by the wealthy, the consumer and worker class does not have access to capital which is needed to make purchases that are required to continue growth. This situation has lead to anomalous national policies such as the purposeful asphyxiation of the Venezuelan economy by the USA. The USA conspiring with Saudi Arabia to overproduce oil to lower the price, concurrent with the USA levying economic sanctions against Venezuela. The choking of Venezuela's economy was purposefully orchestrated from outside Venezuela with one goal in mind, the seizure of Venezuela's natural resources by multi-national oil companies in order to continue the expansion of capitalism by artificial means. The expansion of capitalism in this manner is not natural and is an economic cancer on the world. The only way we can salvage the situation and possibly restore balance to a global economy (which is quite ill) . . . is to limit the wealth any individual, family, company or corporation can accumulate, while simultaneously eliminating the practice of tax avoidance and international tax havens.
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  781. Arthur Galaxy - Yes, I noticed that about the food also, it was like a buffet laid out in the back of the garbage truck and not at all wilted or dirty. I've seen my share of thrown away food, and that food looked like it just came out of a restaurant.
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  782. Celephaith - You and I have a similar story. My father had six children, bought four houses that I know of, we always had at least two cars, plus a camper and expandable tent trailer for outdoor adventuring. We went on vacations and many fishing expeditions. This was all on a single income, my stepmother never was employed once she married my father. My father was a machinist, and I followed in his footsteps. In my case, I have never been able to buy a house or keep more than one car at a time. After having two children, it was very clear to me that I could never afford to have more. Now my children are adults and there is no hope for them to have children of their own (and they both know that).
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  783. The United States chose socialism a long time ago, for the wealthy. Americans don't even realize that the top 20% skims $2.5 trillion in free money directly out of the economy every year, without lifting a finger to earn that money. That is socialism for the rich.
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  784. Jesse Stoler - Because it has been lost to history, most Americans do not know that Bush's grandfather was part of the attempted coup d'etat against FDR and the Constitution of the USA. We must stop electing and forgiving these dynastic families, because they are . . . right now, still working to corrupt and overturn our Constitution. If the democrats win the White House and the Congress in 2020, the first order of business has got to be the 28th Amendment . . . . that corporations are not people and money is not speech. Doing this will de-fang the republican party . . . then we can tear off their hides and reduce them onto the ash heap of history.
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  785.  @mywhorled  - Vast majority? You must be living in an alternate reality . . . . or like Trump, you are just a liar.
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  786. Rob James - The republicans swear that nothing in this "tax scam" is written in to cut social security, medicare or medicade. That is correct. Yet as soon as this wealth transfer "tax scam" is signed into law, the deficit hawks will wake up from their slumber and start shouting that our earned benefits (which they call entitlements) will have to be cut because the deficit is too high. They have done this trick before, look for a repeat performance.
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  787. World wide, the top 20% own or control 94.5% of all wealth. When the bottom 80% must divy-up only 5.5% of the worlds wealth between themselves, what can you expect? Obviously capitalism is no longer a legitimate economic form and governments backed by capitalism are no longer legitimate in the eyes of the majority of people.
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  788. Real Progressives - With that comment, you have proven to not be progressive at all . . . just an idiot or a corporate shill. It is not only about the individuals who accumulate wealth. The tax structure that supports this country has been eroded by tax cuts and the growing military-industrial-corporate-political conglomerate influencing federal tax policy in their favor. That is WHY the federal taxes are not sufficient to pay for the necessary government economic investment spending. The erosion of wages caused by corporate-industrial America over the past 40 years also hurts federal tax revenues. But you already know this . . . your purpose is to sow disinformation. Please knock it off and peddle your wares elsewhere. We know better than to believe you.
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  789. Dedier - I've listened to both extensively, both are good as is Yanis Varoufakis, Michael Hudson and Stephenie Kelton. However look at the views numbers for all of them. Granted there are multiple media platforms which all of them use, yet these economists reach only small sliver of the overall population. When I recommend to anyone that these people should be listened to so we can change our systems to something better, eye-rolls are the least derisive response I usually get. What we really need is a hook with very simple bait so appealing to the populace at large, something that will get people eager to address changes to our economic systems. Any ideas?
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  790. Хлоя Марш - Yeah . . . .right. We tried all of this in the 1920's, and that turned out just spiffy. Sooo . . . .do you enjoy lying in this manner, does it get you off? Well good, at least one person is enjoying your little bubble trip.
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  791. The depletion of gold supplies had a lot to do with stagflation. Until 1971, the dollar was backed by at least 10% of it's value by gold. Nixon pulled us out of the Bretton Woods Agreement and then took the dollar off the gold standard. The adjustment from gold backed currency to fiat currency was in great part responsible for the resulting stagflation. With regards to paying for the Vietnam War, the French were still the primary bankers in the Indochina peninsula region during that time. They gathered all of the U.S. dollars deposited into their banks in the region, transported them to the United States and demanded the gold value instead of the current international currency exchange. Since the French paid the U.S. in gold for war supplies in WW2, their gold reserves were exhausted, until being replenished in the Vietnam War era, thus reversing the flow. The USA was on the verge of being unable to back the dollar in gold when Nixon single handedly changed international monetary policy that was in place since the end of WW2.
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  792. Lady V - My thoughts exactly.
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  793.  @dirgramsey6132  - How do you feel about the top 20% skimming $2.5 trillion off the economy this year? Also, in every country that approaches 50% in taxes, the citizens don't have to pay out of pocket for health care, college education or childcare. The savings by not having to pay out of pocket for those items alone is greater than the extra tax burden. But to my first question, how do you feel about the top 20% getting $2.5 trillion in free money, not lifting a finger to earn the money and how do you feel about helping to pay for their free money?
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  794. Thom, please elaborate upon the overthrow template from 1932. Do it over and over again to reach as many as possible. I never thought in my 56 year lifetime in terms of revolution, yet by being a student of history I do now recognize this is the time for revolution.
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  795. This was never about illegal immigration. What the entire immigration narrative is about is this: Changing the subject from the wealthy squeezing 900 billion dollars out of the bottom 50% over the past 30 years. Immigration is a distraction tactic, nothing more.
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  796. Gang He - That explosion of "low performing people" you refer to is the result of actions taken decades ago. This is no accident, it is the result of collusion between industrialists and politicians, both entities seeking to enrich themselves. The path for them was to hollow out national economies to create a global predatory capitalist economy, but it was important not to let anyone know this was happening. With national populations turning in on themselves because they do not understand what is happening to them, the new globalists have an endless pool of cheap labor to keep profits high while depressing wages in all 1st world countries.
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  797. Blue Jay - "It's biggest reducer of inequality to have ever existed."(capitalism). Where did you get that load of crap from? If you are going to say capitalism has raised the standard of living world wide . . . you are wrong. The stagnant wages of workers in the USA have not kept pace with "capitalism" raising the cost of housing, food, transportation, energy, education or health care . . . so your statement is flat out wrong. Furthermore, world wide standards of living have only risen commensurate with the hollowing out of the nations economies where capitalism was born . . . a zero sum game. Russia is no longer communist, although the authoritarian governments in Russia since the time of Stalin have never been communist except in name. Even China is communist in name only The internet was not created by capitalism, the taxpayers of the USA paid to have it developed. That by its very definition is "Socialism". Only the purveyors of propaganda could write that the internet was created by a capitalist society and then leave out the most important detail that its development was paid for socially by all of us. Capitalism may have been good for us for a time, now it is a virus that is eating the host body for the sake of profit.
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  798. Thunderbird - Excellent, thank you for the link!
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  799. John Smith - Compounding the problem for the poor? That is nonsense. With Medi-care for all, the entire USA would be pooling its resources. That will be a lot more powerful of a pool than for-profit insurance companies, and everybody would be covered. Plus the administration costs would be much lower than they are with the current system.
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  800.  @splendidsnapshot9915  - Critical thinking ability is not what these pundits do and most people are simply unaware of the grift going on in our country. There is an unspoken reason why a majority of our citizens are not seeing increases in their incomes, the very people these pundits are fawning all over themselves for are sucking us dry like parasites. Overall, the value of financial assets grew by $13.68 trillion in 2021, an 11.58% increase over 2020. That value increase is just over 66% of GDP for the year. When financial assets increase in value, it is not because of savvy investment planning. That increase represents a vacuum cleaner that is sucking wealth straight out of the paychecks, wallets, purses and bank accounts of the bottom 90% of households in the USA.
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  801.  @gibblespascack1418  - Are you really so thick? The pitfall of compounded interest have been known for thousands of years, because when enacted it is theft. You rationalize so that you can ignore your theft. In 1772, Richard Price wanted to pay off England's war debt with a sinking fund, writing the following "One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." While he though it was a fabulous idea, where is anyone going to get 150 million earth sized globes of solid gold? You are ignoring facts boy. While it is great that your parents retired well funded, the money was stolen and those it was stolen from, well . . . . they were robbed of their retirement. For every one of you, there are ten whose stolen money you now possess.
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  802.  @Pensnmusic  - Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story and for those final three sentences. Priceless truth.
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  803.  @aldenheterodyne2833  - The Fed is once again bailing out the banks . . . . which for some reason are "short" on money even though they are making huge profits. Between September 23 and October 10, the Fed will be pumping $75 billion of liquidity per business day into the banking system. The market repurchase agreements, or repo program was initiated when the overnight borrowing interest rate between banks skyrocketed from 2% to almost 10% in a day. Pumping almost $1 trillion in liquidity into the banking system dilutes the value of the dollar . . . once again making things we need to live cost more. We need to put a stop to this. There is one very easy solution that everyone seems to ignore . . . put a cap on wealth accumulation. No system, natural or man made, exists without limits . . . except how wealthy certain people can get. Enough already, we need to apply common sense to the situation and place hard cap limits on wealth . . . that one action will solve so many of our problems in the economy.
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  804. Jesus says: Fox "News" message to their audience: It's okay to be a racist. It's okay to be fearful and afraid. It's okay to be hateful and violent. It's okay to be stupid.
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  805. Vote the oligarchs out before they turn the planet to ash in exchange for short term profit. . Those politicians whose campaigns run on any corporate, big business, banking or billionaire wealth . . . . are in the rear view mirror. I will seek out candidates who serve the people and fund-raise from the people. We the People can change this.
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  806. I am concerned about something far more destructive than executive pay inequality. The 1% in the USA have amassed so much wealth (over $30 trillion) that just to satisfy a nominal rate of return (lets use 5% interest) it eats all of our annual GDP growth PLUS an additional sum equal to almost double our annual GDP growth. Here is the math. The 1% currently have over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth. Our U.S. economy is just below $20 trillion annual GDP output. In 2018 the growth in output for the USA was $360 billion. The interest on $30 trillion at 5% is $1.5 trillion. So here is source of my alarm. Output growth for 2018 was $360 billion yet the interest payments (free money) to the 1% was over $1,500 billion . . . . where does that extra $950 billion in 1% interest come from if not directly out of our pockets in increased costs for housing, medical care and education? Why should the 1% get all that free additional wealth for doing nothing . . . when ordinary good people have to choose between rent or food or medical care? The 1% have surpassed the critical mass of wealth that will enable them to cannibalize us just to satisfy their craving for more interest generated wealth (free money). These people are not "investing" . . . they are using their wealth to be predators, which will turn us unto a society of Kings and Serfs. This has me freaked out and angry, what exactly can we do about it?
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  807. Thing is, Germany had an industrial base that could be grown by building armaments. In the USA the industrial base is gone. Is Starbucks and Amazon really enough of a business base to pull off fascism in the USA?
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  808. Linda Bianchini - All that you have succeeded in doing is proving two points which put you at the back of the classroom . . . first is that you really don't know how the federal government operates or gets funded, second is that you have bought into the long con job being run by republicans. Rather than explain all of that, i'm just going to tell you . . . I hope you are happy with the role you have played in undermining the Constitution and bringing on the decline of the USA. You must be so proud.
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  809.  @Jsteeezz  - You are making a comparison similar to comparing water to granite. The only thing they have in common is that both are constructed from atoms.
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  810. The True Texan American - Where did you go to school? Why do you not know how to use the English language? If you are truly a Texan, then the Texas schools have failed you. Yet, I suspect you wear a baseball cap with a single large red star on it.
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  811. Chaos brought on by greed and the acceptance by the population that unlimited wealth is a normal condition. Humanity needs a really hard blow to the brain, in order to understand that what we accept as normal, is not a survivable condition. No natural or artificial system is capable of unlimited growth. If we are to survive as a species, then we must change the conditions, change the game. The current game is a race to oblivion.
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  812. Yes indeed, plus the Trump and Munchkin answer is to give even MORE loans to corporations who are already in debt up to their ears because they borrowed loads of cheap money over the past decade to buy back their own stocks. The death spiral is only going to get steeper because of the CARES Act.
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  813.    - It is time to put a stop to that. A wealth cap, hit the cap . . . 100% tax on everything above the cap.
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  814. We need a wealth cap and an ownership cap. Private ownership and private property is fine up to a point, but to use Thom's example of Rupert Murdoch, the ownership of media outlets must be restricted. The only reason Rupert Murdoch is able to own so many media outlets and put them under the umbrella of Fox News is because he is a billionaire. Putting a wealth cap of $50 million in place eliminates the ability of the Murdoch's of the world to own so may media outlets. Furthermore, a corporation like iHeartMedia (formerly Clearwater Communications) must be restricted to owning no more then five radio stations, instead of the 855 radio stations it currently owns. This is a time when we must destroy corporations and make it explicit in the law that only real persons (actual human beings) can own property and there must be a limit on what or how much can be owned by any individual or group.
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  815.  @driftlesshermit  - I just finished making a list. Using a graph supplied by the Federal Reserve (FRED, StLouisFed), I wrote out in whole numbers, the annual sum of financial assets for households and non-profit organizations since 1945. It hit one trillion in 1953. It hit two trillion in 1964. It hit three trillion in 1971. It hit four trillion in 1975. In the first quarter of 2021, that sum hit one hundred and nine trillion. The top 10% own 86% of the total, or $94.22 trillion. The numbers have been too large for any economy to support for over two decades. This is madness. The growth is exponential, and since nothing called a "system" grows exponentially, what we have now is not a legitimate economy. Since we all depend on the economy, we all are just going to have to get smart and change it . . . . or most of us, if not all of us will perish within half a century. Pass the word. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO
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  816.  @susanpetty4115  - Agreed with all of your points.
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  817. The truth of the matter is: Wealth grows faster than the economy does, and as you all know wealth does not grow by itself. Wealth feeds off the economy, kinda like a parasite because wealth is the ultimate freeloader. Take for example, the playground bully. More than twice the size of the other kids and using that advantage to shake down the smaller kids. That would be a good representation of wealth and our economy in 1947. Since then wealth has grown 6% per year averaged, while the economy has grown 5% per year averaged. Since the economy started with a smaller body and grows at a slower rate, you won't be surprised that wealth is now very nearly five times larger than the economy. This is simple math folks. We have been conned into thinking that finance and investment is how money grows. The truth is that the government and banks creates new money using debt, which is then promptly stolen by wealth. And when the new money is not enough, wealth shakes us down some more and calls it "inflation".
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  818. First of all, I don't believe this "Paranormal investigator" lives in the United States because he or she simply does not know how to write in english as it is spoken, even though he or she is definitely an educated person. This means we are dealing with a foreign agent or "troll". Second item: people who say they are anti-abortion are actually pro-breeding. They have no interest in the person after they are born, medical care is off the table, education is off the table and economic well being is off the table. The do not care that 40,000 people die each year because they lack medical insurance, nor do they care that another 40,000 people die each year due to opioid overdoses, nor do they care that 25,000 people die each year in suicide by firearm. So the idea that "American babies being slaughtered in plan parenthood slaughterhouses across America", is a a disgusting, ignorant and incompetent basis for claiming that you actually care about people.
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  819.  @markintexas1296  - No Buddy. Taxes are simply the government taking some of the money it puts into the economy, back out again. What you are saying comes from oligarch/billionaire propaganda, because they know with less money they have less power. Don't be a rube.
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  820.  @paulcolburn3855  - I'm going to partially disagree with you about why the uber-rich are so wealthy. I'm actually onboard with the IQ part of the equation, with a good does of luck and timing. Many people have sufficient IQ to become wealthy but the critical factors of coming up with a service or product which meshes with a key slot in our developmental timeline was simply not present. This is where I disagree with you completely, the uber-wealthy have access to leverage the remainder of us do not, compounded interest on financial assets growing at a greater rate than economic growth. The uber-wealthy own the greater share of financial assets. The current ratio of financial asset totals to the economy as measured by GDP is nearly 5 to 1. When financial assets have a return greater than 10% compared to the economy which rarely performs better than 3%, the rich gain wealth without ever lifting a finger or exercising their IQ. Furthermore, your claim that Robert never discusses IQ in relation to wealth is true, because there is no basis for such a discussion. The claim of the "value of IQ in the meritocracy that is the information age" is actually baseless, because the information age, just like prior ages, is not a meritocracy.
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  821.  @paulcolburn3855  - Everything I sent to you were my own written words, I write prolifically so this is not a problem for me. I also do my own research, then I find multiple sources looking for deviations, a scientific method. Even so, I doubt that you will follow up. Not because you are lazy, just indoctrinated. I've been there myself. Spent 55 years of my life believing what you just wrote, but it is simply not true. I don't mind at all when someone grows wealthy from their own good work. But to put the fruits of their labor into a Ponzi scheme called the financial markets, where their well earned fortune grows exponentially beyond the means of the productive economy to support? That is theft, actually looting or pillaging are more accurate words. Your wrote three paragraphs of indoctrination material. The wealthy spend a small fortune putting that material together and another small fortune disseminating it over decades. Those are facts, the real facts on the ground. You are far too invested in this indoctrinated knowledge to question it, but I gave you the roadmap. I know it takes time, because I put in the time, to go over the Federal Reserve charts and list out the dates and numbers, then do the math. The chart links are in my previous post. The wealthy paid a lot of money to indoctrinate the both of us. It took me over five years of research, in my spare time, to learn what exactly was going on. The scope is staggering, but they have the resources to accomplish this feat. For me, it all boils down to a simple math equation. Over a 55 year period, you simply cannot get a 4599% increase in wealth from an economy that has only grown by 336%, especially when that wealth started out at half the size of the 1965 economy. It is simply impossible. Our economy is not capable of this feat, so none of those billionaires you mentioned actually earned a majority of their wealth, they just tapped into a pre engineered wealth looting machine to get it.
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  822. Yup, you are indeed one card short. Another troll farmer in action and a liar to boot. We all know that for a solid 100 years, it is the republican party that sells out to corruption. Democrats track record on that score is not even half the record set by the criminally corrupted republicans . . so I'll take the half bad over the entirely bad all day long.
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  823. JoeyFiveandDimes - Capitalism is a racket . . . and Peter Nachtwey knows this full well. It is his business to put people out of work with automation. He is a serial abuser of Professor Wolff, his solution for the resulting capitalistic ills of the economy and the planet is for affected people to "F*** off and die". . . his words. We have had extensive conversations in other video comments. Peter has a long track record of killing jobs and smearing the "losers" in the economy that result from his efforts.
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  824. Here are the latest figures released by Oxfam. Globally 54% of all wealth is owned by the 1% and also globally, the top 20% own 94.5% of all wealth. With the bottom 80% holding only 5.5% of all global wealth, stagnation is either already here or will set in for all global economies. The wealthy elites are well aware of the situation, yet will do nothing to change their behavior. My belief is that we need a global hard cap on the wealth an individual or business can accumulate.
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  825.  @financialeducationwithloui7006  - Since you are a financial educator, please explain something to me. The U.S. GDP lost 2.3 percent, or $500.6 billion in 2020. Yet privately held financial assets gained $9.867 trillion in 2020. How is it possible for financial assets to gain so much when the real economy lost ground?
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  826. Where else but the haunt of the morbidly wealthy in empty suits, Davos.
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  827. The only way to stop this is to put a hard limit on wealth accumulation. The wealthy ARE the problem, lets get rid of them by making them ordinary.
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  828.  j a  - Republicans have conned the Boomers and those who came before them into sacrificing our children and grandchildren, just so that the wealthy can sit on their piles of assets. AOC is a REAL American, unlike the traitor GOP. Anyone want to debate that? Bring it on.
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  829.  j a  - If you believe AOC lied about anything, you are an idiot. You presented no argument. But just for openers, the top 20% globally own 94.5% of all wealth. There is no place to go from there. The top 20% in the USA own $55 trillion in financial assets, which at 5% interest was over 13% of the 2018 GDP. Since the GDP did not even grow by 13%, that means their "free money" came right out of our pockets. The GOP is protecting the oligarchy at our expense, AOC if fighting them. I'm on her side and unless you enjoy sacrificing our children to the oligarchy, you should be with us, not Rupert Murdoch.
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  830. Meanwhile, for every new billionaire, there are ten thousand new homeless. Over $13 trillion in new money was created in 2020, with most of that going from the Federal Reserve, through corporations and then directly into the stock market. For $13 trillion, we could house every homeless person for a lifetime. It is wealthy greed that drives up the price to live, and those wealthy people are the ones who don't follow rules, especially for taxes.
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  831. Agreed. The 1% plan to take it all. Drain the wealth, kill democracy and start the age of modern feudalism. The republicans are out to crush the working class, because that is what their end game requires. When you look at the math, wealthy people have so much money that their capital gains are taking bigger and bigger bites out of our GDP, consuming the host economy like lethal parasites. For business monopolies, Covid-19 is a great opportunity to buy up failing businesses and consolidate, preying on our distressed society. Congress made it easy for them to do this with trillions of dollars, passes by both parties. Until we realize how dangerous it is to let people control so much accumulated wealth, we will never have the opportunity to expect anything different. No reforms ever survives in the presence of accumulated wealth. Every reform dies, because wealth kills reform. We must start with that simple fact.
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  832.  Kommisar   - Funny. The Federal Reserve "created" $13 trillion in 2020. You know where most of it ended up? Answer: In the stock market. The value of financial assets went from $94.2 trillion to $104 trillion, in a down economic year. That rise in value corresponds to roughly half of our real GDP. It makes no sense for you to get all "alarmist" about how much money it will cost to change our energy structure, when clearly the government is willing to buy $13 trillion in worthless paper bonds, just to keep the rich people happy. Oh, and by the way, the polar caps are melting. There is a tremendous amount of methane locked up in the ice, enough so that we will not be able to breathe if just a part of that methane gets into our atmosphere. How are you going to grow the economy when we all have to live under plastic domes just to be able to survive?
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  833.  @nicholausbuthmann1421  - We had a 94% top tax bracket and they squirmed out of that. There needs to be an individual wealth cap, everything above that cap, we take it all, and give nothing back.
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  834.  @SweetandSourohmy  - Still looking for the owning . . . . 14 minutes late! BTW, my country of origin has no bearing on the owning.
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  835. The stock market is a casino and the Federal Reserve is currently propping up the stock market to prevent a crash.
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  836.  @biometronome7010  - Realistically for what I suggest to happen, voters need greater awareness of wealth and its power. Aggregated wealth is far more powerful than our economy and our politics, it has been "rigged" that way purposefully for centuries, so that awareness is dampened as a self protection measure. For the moment, let us pretend that the voters did elect politicians who could get the job done by placing controls on personal wealth accumulation. The real question then becomes, how much wealth is too much? My answer is that personal wealth becomes a threat to society when that wealth is large enough to tip political scales of any size, local to national. If such a political transformation was achieved, the resulting democratic processes would allocate where the "leftover money" should be applied. "The rise to power of great wealth" It is the power of great wealth that utilizes "Divide and Conquer" in order to protect itself. Is it not past time to focus on our actual nemesis, the great wealth? That overwhelming anxiety the society suffers from is caused by "great wealth", which is, for all intents and purposes, the un-elected government that is really in control of our lives.
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  837. Looks like it is up to us people to vote in 2020 and remove him ourselves. Nancy Pelosi's donors love Trump so she is certainly never going to act on our behalf and allow even the political theater of an impeachment inquiry.
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  838. Linda K. - That is all well and good, but the president #45 has been undermining the people since he took the office, and he is clearly not defending the Constitution for which he has sworn an oath to uphold. What promise or promises exactly has this president delivered upon for the American people?
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  839. Pelosi cannot get in trouble because there is no mode of enforcement for the top echelons of government or business.
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  840. Steven Nur Ahmed - I also challenge Robert, some of his ideas are far too mainstream. Yet is value as an educator in these times is far greater than his established political orientation. Just saying.
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  841. If the democrats are being smart about this, these first two Articles of Impeachment are the shaped charge that blows a hole in the republican party's credibility armor and then we will have rolling impeachment articles coming in one after the other to widen the breach.
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  842. No reform like $15/Hour minimum wage will last as long as the tools used to dismantle reforms remain. Accumulated wealth is used to destroy reforms, so until there is a hard limit to wealth accumulation, there will be no lasting reforms. Social reform cannot happen without economic reform. The idea that unlimited wealth accumulation is a bug rather than a feature must take hold in our society, because without a hard wealth cap all reforms are doomed.
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  843. Kevin Sarpei - Well now . . . looking through hundreds of comments for the last time you posted is a waste of time, would have been easier if you had answered my reply to the last time I read your lead comment . . . . at least then I would have received a notification. You are trolling, for what purpose I don't care. You do not seem to have a legitimate desire for discussion, only provocation.
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  844. Everything we learned about how great freedom generating capitalism is and that the United States is a bastion of democracy, it is all a lie. Proof of the lie is that the math cannot be reconciled. We have an economy with over $90 trillion in privately held financial assets gaining over 5% annually, with that growth depending entirely on a smaller host economy of $21.5 trillion which grows less than 3% annually, with all shortfalls guaranteed to be made good by the Federal Reserve printing press. So how does that kind of economy generate freedom or democracy for anyone except the wealthy?
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  845.  @ChrisMorrisMusic  - “immediately”, in politics, means nothing. Just like "accountability" means nothing.
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  846. Donald Grant - Sadly there is no political party laying out a "plan" for the future development of mankind. We are far past the point where a political candidate can repeat "jobs, jobs, jobs" and get elected. Tax cuts are not the answer either. When I look about, it is apparent to me that we no longer need tall shiny new skyscrapers and corporate "development". That is a piss-poor way to spend our resources. It is also apparent to me that endless growth is not viable or even possible. What are we as humanity actually doing? Nobody seems to know. It is time for us, and by "us" I mean the population at large . . . to design our own future. It is absolutely useless to have Apple for example, sitting on over 200 billion that it cannot find suitable investments for, simply because the capitalist rate of return is not enough for Apple to "risk" that money. We the People can find suitable investments for that money. So rather than giving Apple a huge tax cut so they have more money they are unwilling to invest, we need to appropriate those resources. Can you imagine the teachers that could be hired and paid decently with the money Apple spent on that stupid spaceship building . . . er, tech campus? Yet there is no political vision of the future being offered by any of the current crop of politicians. All I ever hear is short term platitudes like, "jobs and infrastructure" . . . which is the equivalent of looking at your feet while walking instead of looking down the road toward a destination.
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  847. As the castles are built and stocked with the loot stolen from national treasuries, so the castles will be stormed, brought down and the treasures evaporated back into the thin air they were created from.
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  848.  @jonathanmccain8646  - After reading your question about having a source for the USA not auditing billionaires, I did a search with this question, "Has the IRS ever audited a billionaire"? In all of the responses, only one mentioned billionaires. CNBC had an article called "Do billionaires get audited by the IRS?", however inside the article there was no mention of billionaires getting audited, only millionaires. All of the search samples cited the IRS funding cuts over the past two decades making it harder to audit the wealthy. There is no proof that the IRS has ever audited a billionaire.
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  849. Peter Blah blah Blah Nachtway is back again . . . nothing new to add except "F*** of and die" to all the losers. You keep saying "The worker traded their time for money. No one forced them." Complete and utter bullshit Peter, can't you come up with something new to support your habit?
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  850. Randy Autrand - Randy, that little rant was a waste of breath. You have been suckered, the problem is that both parties are corrupted by the "wealthy run amok" and your brain is just a little too tiny to handle that information. Lets see if you can cotton on to the real issue, if brain rot has not made you incapable yet. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  851. @Debra Hopp - You wrote: " No way I would support any party that would vote for socialism. America is supposed to be for the people of the people by the people, NOT Under Government Control." Unfortunate that your understanding of socialism is based purely on propaganda. You really should disregard the old stories and get yourself educated. Socialism is not "government control", it is worker control.
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  852. Solo Skipper, you had me in agreement at the first line. We need one vote/one person and the end to the wealthy controlling our media, politics and economy. Right now, wealth growth is larger than our economy. I can only track financial assets and they gained half the economy last year in value. Since financial assets are only a third of total oligarch wealth, this is a problem (they created this for us, so they see it as a win). Not only must we have one vote/one person, we also must have a wealth cap and an end to compounded interest as a way of economic life.
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  853. Yeah right. Right wingers are liars and losers. If you are going to be ignorant, you will never have good government. Funny how most of the mass shooters in this country are right wing nut-jobs.
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  854. Lucky Fisher 72 - You are falling for the scam comrade. Everything you think you know about Venezuela is being spoon fed to you by Rupert Murdoch and corporate media, because capitalism has extracted so much from everyday Americans that it is running out of fuel. So Murdoch feeds you lies so you will get bent out of shape and support a U.S. invasion of Venezuela . . . not to liberate the common people but so that Murdoch's friends in the oil business can raid, loot and pillage. Are you not tired of being an ignorant puppet?
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  855. In 2018, vote out all corporate, bank, Wall Street and wealth backed candidates. Does not matter if they are republican or democrat, can't trust them to do the "people's" business.
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  856. Republicans do not stand for the Constitution or "We the People", and they never have. Look at what happened in the 1930's when they tried to form a coup by using General Smedley Butler to raise an army, only to have the general report them to Congress who in turn did nothing. Republicans have and always will represent the interests of the royalists. Just because they are not called kings or barons or dukes anymore does not mean they have given up the quest for ultimate power over the people. That is why republicans are traitors, they hold the interests of moneyed powers over those of "We the People" . . . always have and always will.
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  857. Wealth cap is the only solution for continuing capitalism without a global collapse or human extinction. Hard cap on accumulated wealth at $10 million.
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  858.  @oliviayoung8040  - I agree, get the economic message out there. Most people don't know that a sum nearly equal to half our GDP last year was added to the value of financial assets. Nor do most people understand how impossible that sum is, the real productive economy under no circumstances could have produced that wealth. Wealth is power, and the wealthy feel no remorse for rigging the economy to pay only themselves. To them this is a game, to us it is deadly serious.
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  859.  @alephtav9415  - I'm afraid the 25th Amendment is a dead end, none of the Cabinet nor the vice president are going to cooperate because they fear Trump's base of supporters. It really is up to us in 2020 to remove Trump, this also means whoever the democrats nominate has to win the red states. The media . . . . is bought. I watched MSNBC's Chris Matthews yesterday blatantly attempt to alter facts when he asked the guest why these four freshmen congress women "call themselves the squad" . . . the corporate owned media will try to alter the narrative to minimize progressive lawmakers and candidates.
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  860.  @realxflare  - The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  861. The latest numbers are that the 1% globally control 54% of all wealth, and that the top 20% globally controls 94.5% of all wealth. Here in the USA, the top 20% received $2.75 trillion in "free money" in 2018, simply because they have a combined $55 trillion in financial assets. Just here in the USA, that $2.75 trillion windfall to the top 20% equals over 13% of the entire GDP. Furthermore, speculation in 2018 has topped out at over one quadrillion dollars (over 1,000 trillion USD), in the derivatives market. The economy is simply a game to the wealthy, having nothing to do with the productive economy which is a paltry $75 trillion world wide.
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  862.  @vanessamaldonado5877  - The problem with an armed rebellion is this; the wealthy have sown so much discord and disinformation that any rebellion is bound to be unfocused and thus easily overcome. Then the wealthy will use the apparatus of government to make sure rebellion cannot happen again, using the first uprising as pretext and legal precedence. The problem we have is with wealth itself, or to be more specific we have problems because of unregulated wealth accumulation. It is a fatal system flaw, which the wealthy present as the main system feature (anyone can get rich). When I delved into the numbers this system flaw became apparent, no system can run on limitless values but we pretend our economy can do exactly that. Why do we believe this? Because the wealthy market to us a vision of an economy as they want us to perceive the economy. The entrenched beliefs instilled in our population by wealth owned media, would be used by the wealthy to demonize any armed rebellion. Unless an armed rebellion knew exactly who the enemy is, any use of force is likely to make matters worse. What we really need is a simple message of clarity strong enough to overcome the propaganda fog put out by the wealthy. After all, since when have the wealthy ever made good decisions for society?
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  863. @Kirito Kun - No politician . . . . yet. The younger generation that are the age of my adult children are getting ready to take matters into their own hands if we refuse to act against the oligarchy. I'm on the side of my children.
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  864. Funny thing about those bailouts. Now they are called corporate bond purchases. The financial asset market gained $9.9 trillion on the first 3/4th of 2021, which is equal to 49% of our GDP for the same time period. The purchase money that created those gains did not come from the productive economy, so we are essentially looking at borrowed money driving the financial asset market.
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  865. Yes indeed. No reform stays in place when capitalist tools(wealth) is used to dismantle reform. It is past time to deal with this problem by removing power(wealth) from the capitalists for good. This does not mean markets and trade disappear like the fearmongers will tell, it means individuals and corporations will no longer have the means to disproportionately shoe-horn their best interests ahead of all citizens everywhere. It is time for a accumulated wealth cap on individuals and corporations.
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  866.  @JB-1138  - What is has more to do with is concentrated wealth. If the U.S. government has trillions to give to the wealthy so they can play in the stock market, then there is no need for the homeless to be so poor that they cannot live in housing. Of course it has to do with politics, but since all politicians from Nancy Pelosi to Mitch McConnell are owned by the wealthy, it really is a problem of too much concentrated wealth now isn't it?
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  867. Lori Cataldi - This why we have to refocus our energy. Our efforts are wasted when we try to do reforms of any kind, because those reforms will always be dismantled. Instead of changing a myriad of different laws trying to combat undue influence, there are only two simple rules that must be placed into law. First in an Annual Income Cap, the second is an Accumulated Wealth Cap. It is vast wealth in the hands of individuals which is the root cause of all our woes and the dysfunction of wealth inequality in our worldwide collective societies. Vast wealth is the toolkit used to dismantle all reforms put into law, and the one glaring example I will put forward is FDR's New Deal. In the decades since the New Deal, the wielders of vast wealth have been dismantling the New Deal piece by piece. Now the New Deal is gone, destroyed. This happens to every law, every reform ever put in place to protect the majority. There is a simple guide as to what the caps should be. By all means, earn your millions until you have enough for you and your family to live in the utmost of luxury for a lifetime. Beyond that point, return everything you earn back to the society that helped you create the wealth in the first place. No one makes millions in a vacuum, everyone who does so has the help of the entire society of human beings . . . every millionaire made is a joint venture with society. I'm 57 years old and my eldest daughter is 30 years old. Between us we have the life experiences of our generations. We did a "thought experiment" to ascertain what the income and wealth limits should be. Her ideas encompassed more than my own, so we generally went with her numbers. I would like to see more of us doing such "thought experiments" so we can come up with a consensus that will make an annual income and accumulated wealth cap palatable to the majority. Do these two things and all dark money political contributions evaporate down to a level where the will of the few no longer dominates the will of the many. We already know excessive wealth beyond what is needed to live a life of utmost luxury is mostly then used to exert power over the powerless.
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  868. This video is getting low views, not because people are uninterested, but because we already know how dire things are. I almost skipped this video, because it seems the fight we must win first is an economic battle instead of an ecological battle. The bottom 80% of our people are enslaved and will never get out of debt because we are paying the top 20% "interest" just because they are wealthy already. Until we change this economic dynamic, we cannot do anything about saving the future of humanity.
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  869. jack johnson - My day is your day, I was born in 1961. My daughters are college age . . the jobs are not there for them. What I intend to say is this, schedules for employment at "part time" jobs today are so fluid in nature they cannot be depended upon. Plus they do not pay enough to cover books, tuition, room and board. You wrote: "YOU ARE KILLING OUR ECONOMY." Are you are blaming the college kids for economic doldrums? One more thing, why is this the sole concern in your comment?
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  870. I only clicked on this video to read some of the comments. What I see here is massive projection. Virtually everything the left is accused of here, is exactly what the right does every day, out in the open. Nice to see that the right is so flexible, you have twisted yourselves into pretzels in order to agree with this blatant propaganda. This is all about wealth folks, and the means used by those who have it, to continue growing it exponentially. They use you folks as their protectors, their guardians. Yet nothing grows forever. Either wealth will have legal limits one day or humanity will go extinct. Those with the wealth use it to take power over our politics, and therein is the rub. Going extinct is intolerable, so those with wealth will smear anyone who finds unlimited wealth growth intolerable, and you folks buy directly into the smears. This video is not about tolerance or intolerance, it is a recruitment tool to get good little soldiers to protect the "right" of the wealthy to keep growing their wealth by extracting it from everyone else. Period.
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  871.  @sueann3701  - "MAM"?
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  872. Blame the pursuit of infinite wealth. We allow it, even though no system can achieve infinite growth.
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  873. Soooo . . . whatever happened to the vaunted "states rights" that the republicans are always yammering on about? Given this speech, then it is logical that the federal government MUST use one set of voting regulations and impose those regulations over all states, ending forever gerrymandering and voter suppression.
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  874. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
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  875. The end game for republicans is to burn down the Constitution and hand the country to the oligarchs to begin the New American Autocracy. It is not just the "small Government" cult, it is much larger than that. In the modern age it stated with the 1971 Powell Memo written by a SCOTUS Justice, however the tentacles go back in time to the Butler rebellion attempted coup d'etat against FDR. The republicans have brainwashed their supporters for over 100 years. The "personal responsibility" and "rugged individualism" cons are perfect examples. The roots of the personal responsibility con goes back to when the old industrialists pulled workers off the farm to work in factories, it is a scam to transfer guilt from perpetrators to innocents. These capitalists knew they were ruining a self sustaining way of life in the name of profits and they needed a way to subdue workers when layoffs occurred. So they used psychology as diversion. The rugged individualism scam was used to convince the worker population that one day they too might become rich and you don't want some damn socialist stealing the gains of your hard work. The capitalists knew full well that with a population to defend them, they could keep on getting rich off worker toil, pay off the right people and build wealth with little to no effort on their part. Look at the wealthiest 1% today, these people do not know the meaning of hard work. Do any of you think Bezos or Gates actually break a sweat for the 20 million a week they supposedly EARN? The fuse on this powder keg was lit decades ago. In 1982 the income from rents, dividends and interest surpassed ALL of the combined wages being paid in the USA and it has grown worse with every passing year. Now, in this decade after the 2008 recession, the income from rents, dividends and interest has surpassed the earnings of all companies and corporations . . . world wide. We live in an Extraction Economy, all economic growth is a measure of wealth they are extracting from all of us, not from actual economic productivity. The republicans did this at the bidding of their masters, the Donor Class or 1% . . . and in the 1980's the democrats jumped into bed with the republicans by taking campaign donations or bribes from the Bankers and Wall Street. The incentive, is that all these politicians are getting rich. You cannot become a multi-millionaire from $170, 000 annual salary with the high prices in Washington DC. Yet, most members of Congress are exactly that, millionaires. Trump's purpose is to weaken and topple the democracy once and for all, that is why the republican Senators are sticking with him . . . to get their reward when the democratic USA is toppled.
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  876. No, not all firearms. However, in deference to our current SCOTUS and those who believe in the strictest possible interpretation of the Constitution, muzzle loading flintlocks should be the only legal firearms for citizens and the military.
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  877.  @zackeryzackery9381  - The United States chose socialism a long time ago, for the wealthy. Americans don't even realize that the top 20% skims $2.5 trillion in free money directly out of the economy every year, without lifting a finger to earn that money. That is socialism for the rich. Furthermore, you don't understand what communism is, your comments are a huge banner proclaiming your ignorance so your "fact" about Bernie is worthless. Bernie is not a communist, he is barely a socialist.
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  878.  @Quartermoon193  - If you have never read the "Powell Memo" written by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell in 1971, you should give it a read. Business interests have been out to take over the country since FDR's day and now they have done it. Furthermore, there is a math issue. There is at least $97 trillion in financial assets, most of which are owned by the 1%. Just using a simple interest rate of 5%, the interest alone is 22% of our GDP. They have rigged everything to drain both the average citizens wealth and the national treasury. The only thing left for us is accept being serf's or to eliminate wealthy people.
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  879. Republicans are assassinating themselves through deregulation?
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  880. Beate Moseidjord - Ohhh . . . what soulful grief and woe. What have we on the left done? Clearly we should be asham . . . . blah, blah, blah. Really, you Russian provocateurs are not very good.
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  881.  @MK-fk4kp  - Yes, billionaires are the brains behind society. Just like the brain at the end of a man's penis. Extreme tunnel vision, limited field of view (ahem . . . all of them). That is why they could not figure out how to run a society or economy when a virus comes to visit.
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  882.  @johnmatthews4717  - Ok then, here is a real sentence or two for you. Making use of a made up word in order to appear clever, is neither clever or intelligent. Your appearance here in the comment section is one of a provocateur, yet as shrewd as you are trying to be, the results are nothing more than gibbering sputem.
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  883.  @johnmatthews4717  - TLDR: That just means that you are illiterate. Nice try though.
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  884.  @Lee-xb7lb  - Doubt it. How can capitalism save so many lives when the system is entirely indifferent and uses raw power to corrupt whole nations?
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  885. Could not agree more. Too bad my daughter will not listen.
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  886. Antonio Calhau - Your suggestion has already been done, it was called The New Deal. Reforms such as the New Deal are always wiped out because the excessive wealth necessary to wipe out reforms are left in the hands of the sociopaths . . . .
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  887. Indeed. What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb.
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  888.  @openwheelracing88  - The key detail here is that Bernie does not incite his followers to be vicious. Trump does that, he does need to be held responsible for inciting vicious and even riotous behavior in his followers. Bernie has not done that, even a single time, to my knowledge. A sanders supporter blaming a Warren supporter for this or that, is simply the nature of politics. Someone employed by Sanders to aid his campaign needs to be held to a higher standard, but requiring, or even asking that Sanders supporters never lay blame at another candidate's feet is simply a bridge too far.
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  889.  @tuckerbugeater  - Capitalism is too deeply rooted to overturn with revolution - David Harvey, Marxist Economist. If we look at this rationally, the system needs boundaries to operate properly. A hard cap on individual wealth and a bottom net one cannot fall through are required to get our capitalist system to operate cleanly.
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  890. As the castles of the 1% are built and stocked with the loot stolen from national treasuries, so the castles will be stormed, brought down and the treasures evaporated back into the thin air they were created from.
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  891.  @prisonmike4971  - Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  892. @Black Jock - Could not agree more. Just in 2019 alone, the financial assets stood at over $90 trillion, gaining an average of 5% over the year. They want us to believe that the economy, which is puny by comparison at $21.5 trillion, can generate $4.5 trillion for the financial market when GDP only grew 4.1% (that is $881 billion, with a B)? Furthermore, there is 1.2 quadrillion in fictitious wealth out there in the form of derivatives, something that us regular folk have no access to. These derivatives can crash and bring down what remains of our economy at any time. It is time to limit wealth and get rid of the oligarchy.
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  893.  @j4mm3d  - Better her to be grandstanding than to allow a Wall Street executive to tell us about their favorite colors. At least what she is saying is relevant to us instead of the 1% who own 84% of all stock.
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  894.  @Selig07  - Critical thinking? Ok, I just watched this video. First of all, Prager U is a propaganda channel set up by Dennis Prager. While his videos are very appealing to conservatives, they are highly skewed. When I refer to "progressives", I'm not talking about the way households or local governments are run. I'm talking about how the federal government is run and the way the wealthy gain more wealth. We run our household with conservative methodology. Local and state governments must operate using a conservative methodology or they will go broke. That is not the way the federal government or those with excessive wealth operate. There is a distinction and a difference. The federal government creates money and can never go broke. None of our federal tax money is used to run the federal government, all of the federal government operating expenses are covered through congressional appropriations and spending bills signed by the president. Spending bills signed into law are the check, and the U.S. Treasury can always cash the check. The federal government chooses to sell bonds, though there is no requirement for this, it is a safe haven for savings because the federal government can never go broke. Our federal tax money is used to retire older bonds, but the reason the federal debt keeps going up is because taxes have been lowered over the past four decades for the higher income and wealthy citizens, so there is not enough taxes coming in to retire bonds. Of course there are other reasons for the federal debt going up, useless wars, bailing out banks and Wall Street, subsidies to industry, etc. However the main reason we have a federal debt is that the U.S. government is the source of all currency and if that currency is withdrawn by balancing the budget, we would be in perpetual economic depression. Those with excessive wealth (I consider the wealth of Dennis Prager to be on the low end of the excessive wealth scale), use this type of propaganda to advocate for low taxes for the wealthy, by trying to equate themselves with a middle income conservative household. They are nothing like a conservative household. The exponential growth of compounded interest creates wealth by extracting it from the very conservative households this propaganda is appealing to. Look here, there is an example of the accumulation of wealth put forward by a 1700's philosopher that I like to use. The economist Michael Hudson translated his writings into U.S. currency so we could understand it. If you took one U.S. penny at 5% compounded interest, and started it in a savings account at the birth of Jesus Christ, by the year 1750 the value of that initial penny would be over 180 earth size globes of SOLID GOLD. This of course, is completely unsustainable. By issuing this kind of conservative propaganda, the wealthy elites are trying to obscure from us the way they grow their wealth, not from hard work and effort like you, or Elon Musk, but from extracting wealth from all of us, so they can get compounded interest based on their already immense accumulated wealth. The same thing happens when you get 20% of the population who have accumulated wealth 2.5 times our annual GDP, the compounded interest being paid on that accumulated wealth can only be gained by extracting wealth from the bottom 80%, but even then, there is a limit. This is why since late September of 2019, the Federal Reserve has been pumping liquidity into the banking system like mad. The world is running out of money to pay interest to the wealthy. Central banks all over the world are pumping currency into the banking system, and that currency is being borrowed by corporations and the wealthy seeking a greater rate of return in the stock markets. That is the entire reason the stock markets are booming. Being progressive in the modern era means putting a stop to the over-accumulation of wealth, because it is simply unsustainable. It is not about jealousy or envy, those words are propaganda talking points. It is about our very survival as a species, that is what being a "progressive" is all about these days.
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  895. @H&SAnimations - The technical term for what you wrote in your comment is: Bull Shit.
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  896. The Captains of industry have promoted themselves to Kings, demanding not only the profits but taxes from the people as well. It is time for another Revolution.
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  897. Adi Ahmad - Thank you for your comment, because that is exactly how I felt when viewing tRumps sons with their dead trophies . . . sick to my stomach. Such cruelty compounded disregard for life and nature, these rich people have a deadly mental illness (deadly for their victims . . . animal, plant and human).
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  898. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just said on TYT "the republicans are afraid I will send their kids to college". Priceless!! I certainly wish we had a JD win out here in California, but I'm so happy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her district.
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  899. The republicans will resort to shenanigans and do something blatantly illegal to keep Trump in power, just look at what they did on September 11th in North Carolina . . . lying to the democrats about not doing any votes on that solemn day, then doing a clearly criminal vote to override a legitimate veto by the governor while the democrats were honoring the dead.
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  900. The Tea Party was absorbed by the Koch Brothers, who turned it into the Tax Evasion Alumni Party.
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  901. Yes, repeal the Affordable Care Act, which was really Insurance Company Care Act. Bring in Medicare for All.
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  902. David, you hit a bullseye! In the years after WW2, the wealthy rigged our politics to grow wealth 1% faster than the economy. That may not seem like a lot, but the result today is that wealth increases in financial assets alone are eating greater and greater bites from our economy. In 2020 that bite was 40% of GDP, and last year financial assets gained enough value to be greater than 66% of our GDP. To top that, all of the gains in GDP since 1947 equal only a small fraction of what wealth has gained, that is why we can't have good things, the rich stole everything we made!
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  903.  @hfortenberry  - I agree with you. I've seen enough of the "lessor of two evils" in my forty years of voting. Here is what a Biden win is going to do. First, it is going to put Americans to sleep. Everything is fine, we got rid of Trump. Cool, we can stop paying attention now. Four years is going to tick by while the country goes back into Obama daydreams. Meanwhile, nothing gets done on climate change, four years gone from the clock. Moving on, the little know time bomb of financial assets will continue on its merry way. Just paying interest and dividends on financial assets takes up a quarter of our economy, which is the hidden reason why Trump won in the first place. All that interest and dividend money has to be well hidden in the economy, so housing will go up, health care will climb faster and interest rates on credit cars will exceed 35%. All of this sets the stage for a new, smarter version of Trump to run on the republican side for 2024, saying truthfully that the democrats simply cannot do anything right. Ok, you are so into getting rid of Trump, you just screwed the entire human species. Happy now?
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  904. Jim M - You are correct, it didn't work in 2016 and it may not work either in 2020. Yet I will lay odds that a greater percentage of voters like myself will vote third party in 2020 than did in 2016. I'm going to add my weight to that greater percentage who chooses to vote, yet will not support more of the same corruption from the democrats. We will gain numbers and that mass will eventually tip the scales by forcing the democrats to move toward the left, or it will fracture the Democratic Party. No more playing it safe, I'm all in for forcing change. If that means four more years of Trump, so be it. By the way, Beto is a sellout, another centrist. I'm not joining the platitude bandwagon.
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  905.  @e-spy  - Why is the GOP still here? Billions and billions spent warping peoples minds with propaganda, oops, I mean "free speech". Better to focus on those billionaires, the smallest of minorities who crave complete and utter control over society. They are the real threat.
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  906.  @lancehymers4674  - Firefly, I love it. What is happening with our economy is actually quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. Capitalism in its current form is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
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  907. Jason Carpp - You are correct, yet it is because of the policy path that Reagan started that we have ended up with Putin's Puppet (PP man).
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  908. Republicans are no longer Americans. The founders of this country set things up so that we would have our own indigenous national economy and that is the American Way. When the industrialists decided in the 1960's to abandon the national economy in favor of profits generated by cheaper foreign labor, they could not actually announce their intention to hollow out the national economy. So they colluded with the republican party who chose a simple minded republican from California to become president, so they could muddy the waters and further their agenda through "tax cuts". They have been faking being real Americans ever since, but in reality they are traitors who have raped and pillaged the economy and sucked out the accumulated wealth of the American middle class for over 40 years now. They will only abandon the pretense of being American when all that remains of this once great country is a dried out husk.
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  909.  @lachlanbell8390  - If you think Richard Wolff is a moron, then you have learned nothing. Corporate over reach or corruption will always be with us unless wealth accumulation is dealt with. Every reform will be undermined and eliminated unless the tools which enable the killing of reforms are dealt with.This means a wealth cap, there is no other way to deal with corporate greed and corruption, we have learned this lesson already. What you are doing is parroting capitalist propaganda because capitalism has NOT lifted billions out of poverty, it has enslaved billions. Your lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment on these matters is truly staggering.
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  910.  @orionpax0946  - How about ramming this change down their throats . . . . Cap individual wealth at $10 million. I mean Jeez . . . who really can justify needing more than that to live an opulent life? There also must be caps put on how much cash corporations can hold, the elimination of stock buybacks and also caps on offshore accounts and holdings. The whole structure of the economy and politics is due for a metamorphosis.
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  911. It is past time for a third party. If the democrats put another corporate or establishment candidate up for president like Booker, Biden, Harris or Beto . . . I will be voting third party for the first time in my life. Being born in 1961 at the tail end of the Baby Boom, I have had enough of the propaganda put forward by both republicans and democrats. I joined the Justice Democrats to help push the democrats to the left, but I am seeing that effort having no effect for possibly decades . . . and we no longer have decades to waste.
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  912. Whenever we hear about the economy (and it does not matter which mainstream media source), the reporting is always about stocks, the stock market and GDP. Not once have I heard about the $90 trillion plus in privately held financial assets earning over 5%, nor have I heard how that pile of wealth earns so much from a relatively puny $21.5 trillion annual economy. The numbers don't add up. However, with those numbers I now understand why there have been such massive bailouts from the federal government, because without the bailouts these "earnings" are simply not possible. The entire "IRA, 401k and pension fund investments" have been a scheme, a hustle, a con of the American people, a way for the wealthy to make accomplices of the American people as they fleece the wealth from us and our country.
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  913. Trump actually used the same words and phrases at this Heroin Summit, as he did when he walked away from the podium during the executive Order signing and Pence tried to get him back. There is at least a year between the two events, which means that Trump is on auto pilot during his "episodes".
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  914. Sheepy2055 - Troll, troll, troll, troll, trolling . . . fucking lying troll. Everything you have written here is a lie and we all know that. There is no need to wrote a novel sized rebuttal to all the lies you are telling, because we have all been educated enough to see through your lies. So why are you Putin in the effort? You just look stupid and Sheepish.
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  915. John sweda - I might be wrong about this, but DACA was an executive order by President Obama. That means it can be undone through executive orders by subsequent presidents. The Dream Act was proposed as legislation in 2001 but failed to get passed and enacted into law.
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  916. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  917.  @George-pf8zb  - And run he did!
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  918.  @Zach-ju5vi  - Show me that you understand. Otherwise what you think does not matter.
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  919.  @Zach-ju5vi  - Just listen to yourself. Marxism is not and was never an economic system, what you describe is exactly what we already have now with the elites controlling everything. Your head is full of twisted facts gotten from projectionists who sold all of our industries and trade secrets to China. Wake up, do some fact checking.
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  920.  yandrsupreme  - Go look it up for your god damn self. I saw the video, he said it. Don't be a lazy shithead.
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  921.  @BladeRunnerUNATCO  - So rather than be smart, you are deliberately choosing the path of smart-ass. Thanks for confirming that you will be of no practical use to the rest of us, you can get back to returning those 1970's video tapes now.
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  922. juniorgod321 - One more thing . . . banks are buying up power generating stations just so they can shut down more than half of them. This allows the banks to charge enormous prices for electrical generation and sell it to the power companies for distribution. I have watched our power bill go up 400% over the past five years, even though we are using less electricity than ever before. With the price of fossil fuel flat . . . this is how the banks are making their profit and holding us hostage to fossil fuel companies.
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  923.  @adrianopolis8777  - That is the most pathetic excuse I have read today. While it is true that Obama failed us, it is outrageous to assert that America was prosperous before Obama, or that it was business restrictions that hurt anything (much less investor confidence). Where do you people get your information from? Investor confidence has nothing to do with a healthy economy and the idea that startups have any power to help this economy heal is an outright laugh. There will never be a "full recovery" because the USA has been gutted and the corpse has been put on the BBQ grill, by the very same "investor" class that you claim had its confidence taken by Obama. What a moron. Do some actual research and learn something.
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  924.  @markeast1574  - Agreed. Both of these "media" outlets are owned or funded by the billionaire oligarchy, so what "information" they get is usually pure propaganda.
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  925. MidScream1 - When my economic endeavors lead to a viable company, I will be going the direction of a co-op with all employees making compensation and personnel hiring decisions . . . so, you-betcha I will be leading by example! No reason why currently successful companies should not be following the same path right now . . .
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  926. MidScream1 - I challenge your honesty. Name one time socialism has been confiscatory. Name one era or country where socialism has been the dominant ideology. You said it has been tried before, but I'll wager you cannot say where or when . . . can you? Your statement proves beyond a shadow of doubt, that you don't know what socialism is because that thought was planted in your head . . . instead of being arrived at through deduction, research or being educated by a qualified professor. So prove you are not being dishonest here . . . I dare you.
    3
  927.  @gmanon1181  - I agree with you that police can be the most useful, and helpful, people in the world. In the city where I've spent most of my life, I've seen the full spectrum. Ordinary people are realizing that for the sake of all of us, it's better to treat each other right and peacefully coexist, this is true. However we have a full on demonstration going on, that the wealthy treat us like resources instead of people, plus the two levels of justice are plainly visible between the wealthy and everyone else. If my life is threatened, the police might take a report. If a wealthy persons life is threatened, the police will be visible in full force to protect the wealthy. Thom is correct, inequality is skewing everything including our justice system.
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  928.  @frostlegacy-andfarbeyond466  - Very true. I am in California. If Trump somehow holds onto the presidency, I will be advocating for California to secede from the United States. Personally I am just sick and tired of minority population republican states and republican senators dictating how this country is run.
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  929. Christian Soldier - You are an ignorant tool. My daughter was born with Neurofibromatosis (NF) and scoliosis of the spine. For her health care is not a privilege, it is a life long necessity and how dare you be so pompous. You are such a fool to ignore that among all the advanced nations of the world universal health care works just fine. You call yourself christian? People like you are the embodiment of evil, willing tools of a system that would strip away all human dignity just for your precious ideology. You make me sick to think you call yourself christian or American.
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  930. Christopher Pope - Thank you sir. It is my privilege to stand shoulder to shoulder with you.
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  931. Christian Soldier - "Health care is a privilege you give to yourself" That is what you wrote. When her mother died, my daughter lost her employer covered health care and I could not cover her because I had lost my employer sponsored health care over 20 years ago. We both have pre existing conditions which raise the cost of healthcare beyond our means. She was able to reinstate her heath care by using the entire amount of her monthly SS survivors benefit, which will run out very soon. As a college student, she is looking at a future without suitable jobs for someone with her medical condition. So in the very near future, she will not be able to carry on with the health care premium payments. So tell me sir, how exactly is she to grant herself the "privilege of healthcare" when she, nor I, nor anyone in our family can afford the very high premium costs associated with her pre existing condition? Loss of health care is a death sentence for her. That is what your statement has to do with my daughter.
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  932. Christian Soldier - Now you are just playing games with us, this is serious . . . so knock it off. In this modern age, it is impossible to separate the health insurance from the health care cost. When we deal with health issues we are always confronted with the nuts and bolts of how the system works. Your first post was "Health care is a privilege you give to yourself". Now you are deliberately messing with people instead of carrying on a dialog. Be helpful, be contrary, but don't play stupid mind games over the state of health care.
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  933. Joshua Hudgins - How does reorganization sink the state? Once the 14% profit taken by heath insurers is redirected into taxes, we get better health care for every citizen instead of some. So yes, I can blame the guy . . . for being an idiot and corporate stooge.
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  934. amaezed one - Fail 1) . . . Good for you. Fail 2) . . . GOOD FOR YOU! Fail 3) . . . You are off your rocker Granny, way out into Loony Land. Fail 4) . . . Really? You are a Frakking computer engineer? Gee Whiz Dude, I would have thought someone who engineers computers . . . . wait a minute! Computers already exist, so what exactly are you engineering? Back to the main point. You seem to be very happy to spread a great deal of swampy misinformation, you have not exposed anything except a rampant ignorance. Impossible to take you seriously Dude . . . Epic FAIL on your part.
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  935. I do so know what a computer engineer is or does . . . they put the engine and eer's in computers! Meanwhile your Traitor in chief has returned from the G20 having succeeded in making America weak again, and adding another "D" to the republican party mantra. Republicans . . . the party of Doom, Death and Destruction. Now we can all live in the 3D world.
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  936. amaezed one - My hypocritical tendencies . . as you put it (though I spelled tendencies correctly, you did not mister computer engineer), do lean toward a fascination with war machines. As an added benefit, I've learned a great deal of historical context along the way. So I am standing in stark contrast to you, Mr. Pivot. How do feel after today, when the Traitor Chump is exposed for the treasonous weasel he is? Not only did he trash the USA at the G20 and suck up to his bestest friend Putin, Donald Jr is now in the spotlight red handed. You betcha Daddy knew all about this at the time, so Traitors-are-Trumps exposed for all to see.
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  937. Whoa! The Right side of the lunatic fringe commentators are out in force! Yeeee-Haw! They must be nervous because the left is closing the voter gap in red districts, in spite of all the republican cheating (whoops, I meant treachery and treason against lawful citizens of the United States of America).
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  938. +Sam Sadowitz - Well Said, Bravo!!!
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  939. Its really all about one choice, the corporate owned politician. I'm eagerly anticipating the spontaneous formation of a third party, meanwhile I've gone Justice Democrat.
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  940. NyYankees1985 - As one of the "pussy fart babyboomer generation", I am certainly not in favor of keeping the current Dem Party on life support! I know . . . . there are still too many of us that are.
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  941. NyYankees1985 - Yup, and I took part on the dem side of that . . . . until I decided to make a serious research effort to answer seemingly unrelated questions. Doing some digging opens eyes, mine have been. Just kinda disgusted now, knowing so many others are soaking up life as usual without a glimmer into what has happened to us over 35 years. BTW, those clinton psuedo-liberals are Corporate Democrats from now on, a wing of the democratic party that needs to fade into history.
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  942. The beginning of this report has a loud version of "Glad to be an American" and the next line is "'cause at least I know I'm free". Are you sure about that having freedom part? If only these poor deluded souls knew how much of their freedom has been sacrificed and deleted by their dear GOP. Alas, "no child left behind" has done its work very well indeed, these republicans really lack critical thinking skills.
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  943. +Adam Kir - Nothing shows that you are really winning or that the opposition is really scared than when they try to kill the messenger. Or in this case spew out a bunch of hate. I just spent a lot of time going through right wing YouTube videos,and the comments here are a stunning reflection of the comments I found there. No one would actually debate with me on the merits of any subject, but there was a lot of trash talk. Don't feel annoyed at them, all this hate stuff is a sure sign that the real opposition to Bernie is profoundly WORRIED!
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  944. For corporate capitalism to thrive, democracy must be put into chains. The Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon has just put the chains on democracy. We have to decide if corporate and billionaire capitalism success is more important than our democracy.
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  945. henry dicarlo - One of the recurring events in the comments section of YouTube are those who are trying to normalize the abnormal, like the idea our friend "Curry Munch" is trying to plant with comments like these: "henry dicarlo Honestly, make investments into private education for poor people more attractive by eliminating public education. Maybe replace it with vouchers and you get schools competing with each other for students. Never heard a better alternative." It would not surprise me in the least that "Curry Munch" is either another russian troll or a american troll paid by the Betsy Devos family. Curry Munch - the better alternative is to fully fund public education for all students. Americans of the future were warned in the Federalists Papers about the dangers of those who would get ingratiate themselves to the American voter and then betray the American voter. You are advocating for the betrayal of all Americans, whose payroll are you on?
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  946. + Hammond Think - Agreed!
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  947. TheTalkWatcher - Hear-hear! What you have described is the virus-cancer of neoliberalism which will consume every aspiring Conservative office seeker upon entering government "service". Conservatism is the host body for neoliberalism creating the SOCIOPATHS in our government.
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  948. cwnash71 - Thank you for your comment. It was uplifting. I'm pretty sure you have it more difficult than I do here in California, but I've encountered the same kind of reaction. The ignorance around us is simply frightful, and about those many who are unwilling to learn new stuff, they do act like my head is spinning around on my neck. Nice to know I'm not alone feeling like that. Thanks.
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  949. +Trixiegirl88 - Thank you for the FHA MIP insight. Working and saving for a home is a given, to be sure. I'm set to understand conservative republicans are always concerned about the taxpayer costs and the federal debt. Since I have researched this arena quite a lot, I am not as concerned for many reasons of which I will give only two, in the interests of time and space. 1). The discretionary budget for the federal government is overloaded with military costs, eating up 55% of the one trillion dollar discretionary budget. As a U.S. military researcher specializing in WW2 and after, I can assure you we have no need for that much military spending and even less need for a 55 billion dollar expansion to the military budget. We simply put, do not have a threat level to this country's homeland that justifies that level of expense. 2). As a home owner you are probably familiar with debt to earnings ratios. The U.S. annual federal debt is about 4% of GDP and total deficit at about 104% of GDP. The entire population is under taxed when compared the period between 1945 and 1980, yet even with this total deficit the United States is not debt burdened anywhere close to where we have been in the past. The federal government can handle helping first time buyers with FHA MIP, it should not fall on the sellers shoulders because that is a transferred "tax" you have no need to bear. Now about the howls and screams coming from the left, I'm afraid I have to admit that comes from the less well informed left. For myself and others I know, we like to deal in verifiable facts. For that I rely on Robert Reich, Dr Richard Wolff, Noam Chomsky, and news sources not in the corporate media realm. These people always give sources and demand that people do their due diligence with verification. There is a verifiable threat right now to the Constitution and (dare I say it) a long running assault on the American people using the economy as a weapon. Luckily the perpetrators of this assault do not have all their pieces set on the board. All the screaming and marching is mostly being done by those that can feel the assault but do not understand it. The riots I believe are a tool, instigated by masked persons whose affiliation is unknown at this time. The goal of the economic assault on the American people is as old as mankind, some people believe they have the god-given right to rule. They seek to return us to the Lord/serf and Master/slave regime, except this will be the modern version with modern tools and technology. Two of many simple indicators are these: 1). The American worker has not had a raise in pay commensurate with the GDP and inflation for over 35 years, yet the GDP has doubled in that time period. Ask yourself, where did all the money go? 2). The top tax bracket has enjoyed a 55% reduction in income taxes during this same time period. Now combine the two and you get a top 1% that has absorbed all of the proceeds from a doubling of GDP and they also got a 55% tax break. Care to guess where the economic assault on the American people is coming from? These are the factual events powering up the left wing of the U.S. political system. If these events are allowed to continue unchecked it will cause the demise of the U.S. Constitution and our democratic republic. A new country will arise with only two classes of people, the tiny upper class with all the rights, voting privileges, power and wealth, and the massive under class with no rights, voting privileges, power or wealth.
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  950. yzeew w - gee whiz I laughed out loud when I read your comment, and then I thought only the poor right wing would run out of money because their oligarch masters really won't care about them once their purpose has been fulfilled.
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  951. Oh boy, another deluded tRumpophile, she drank too much of the kool-aid. My Dear Lady, I am sorry for your suffering.
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  952. Anti Liberal writes: "Yeah. Everything that doesn't go your way is racist. Got it." Ohh that is rich, coming from a republican. Your ideology and political party are pure racist nowadays. It is a damn shame too, because Abraham Lincoln the first republican president worked for freedom from slavery and especially black slavery. Look at the mockery you have made of our American heritage as you support the suppression of minority voters. I wonder if you can feel the shame.
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  953. The fastest way to enact campaign finance reform is that we the people do it. I was registered American Independent, then I heard about the Justice Democrats website and I read their platform. They are fielding candidates for office that take an oath to accept no corporate or PAC money. Personally, I would expand the list of banned donors but it is a start. The idea is to take over the democratic party from the inside by fielding grass roots funded candidates. It will take awhile to take root, but I think this can take root a hell-of-a-lot-faster . . . . than we can ever get legislation on campaign finance reform. I don't trust that campaign finance reform will ever happen because the corporations and billionaires block it. We can do it ourselves.
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  954. Anti Liberal Idiot - you just love not paying attention and pretending "Nobody is stopping you from voting". No matter . . . . The democrats are closing the voting gap even in the red zones and in spite of republican cheating. There will come a time when your stupid, heartless, illiterate, pansy-assed excuses for human beings will be in a liberal headlock, and then we of the actually intelligent human types are going to make sure you don't get any more chances to cheat your way into office. So laugh it up pansy man and enjoy your victory . . . . because just like Hitler after the Battle of Britain, its gonna be long downhill slide for your kind from here on out.
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  955. BTW White Defiler of the Constitution: Trump will fail to produce jobs in WI, MI, OH and PA and will also lose the presidency. If not well before 2020, he will certainly not win re-election. It is not in his best interests to be concerned with jobs or the economy. He and his cabinet have one thing in mind, hollow out the American economy completely and line their own pockets. dOnald tRump, the big jobs dealmaker: You know how tRump bragged that he personally negotiated with Ford Motor Company, who was going to build an assembly plant in Mexico, to build the Ford Focus for U.S. consumers, But tRump convinced Ford not to build that plant in Mexico? You know, your hero Prez- tRump was making a deal saving American jobs? Guess what you frakked up Moron - Ford is building that plant in China instead. You know, no American jobs saved or gained? You know China, where tRump and daughter just got a bucket full of Chinese trademarks for their businesses? You know China, where tRump will never say a bad word about Ford's new plant there, because he and Prez Xi Jinping are best buds now? Since your president has lied to you hundreds of verifiable times and you seem not to care, takes actions as president that go directly against his campaign promises and you don't seem to care, fills his cabinet with billionaires and corporate criminals like Goldman-Sachs alumni who are out to loot the country, and you don't seem to care, his cabinet and his executive orders will lead to a severe crash of the American economy, and you don't seem to care, you know . . . that tweeting Robber Baron who seeks only to line his own pockets using the Office of the President of the United States of America, and you don't seem to care? That makes you part of the problem and a supporter to a verifiable self dealing traitor to the country. Doesn't that make you a traitor as well? Lets see what everyone else thinks in 2018.
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  956. TheLawDemon - The debate with you is no debate. Ignoring Greg Palast's report in this video and no doubt his follow up reports as well, you are no more complex than a trained attack dog. It seems to me the only motivation for your continued posts is to attack. There was no reasoning behind your original assertion and no reasonable debate since.
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  957. That was the highest tax bracket, and the rich can afford to be thusly raped if that is what you want to call it. The lowest tax brackets during that time period were 20% to 22.2%, nowhere near rape taxes. Besides, it's not as if the rich really earn their money, especially if their income arrives in the form of dividends or capital gains from investments in the stock market. Taxes for people who actually toil or work for their earnings today are truly "rape" taxes, compared to how much tax is charged on the "unearned income" of the wealthy in this country.
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  958. Your family is suffering from neoliberal policies that originated in our government well before Obama. Your ire should be more properly focused on the real culprit. Not focused what you perceive as burdensome taxes, but rather on the fact that wages have not kept pace with worker productivity since 1973. Back in the days after WW2 and up to 1973, workers received 70% of the yearly GDP increase in the form of higher wages. Since 1973 with wages adjusted for inflation, workers have received 0% in wage increases even though GDP has more than doubled. Where did all the profits go to then if not the workers? It went into the pockets of the 1%, the very same people who have been funding this idea that smaller government is better for all of us. You . . . my friend, have been shafted by the ultra-rich. It is not higher taxes that are your enemy, higher taxes are the enemy of the rich and they have fooled you into thinking the same applies to you. If the minimum wage has kept up with GDP since 1973, in most area of the country it would be above $18/hour. Conservatives have a fit when an $15/hour minimum wage is proposed, and it is not because it would be bad for business . . . simply that part of their profits would evaporate to pay what they should have been paying all along. I really doubt the ultra-rich work that hard for what they have. They have pocketed all the profits from GDP since 1973, and their taxes have been cut by more than 30% in the top bracket since then. Cutting government or further cutting of taxes will not solve your family's burden.
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  959. just aburner - You just fried your argument in your own afterburner. Everyone gets sick or injured and needs medical attention. Healthcare is and should be part of the commons, like schools, police, roads, and so on. We all pay taxes for the commons, but greed has taken over the health care system ever since it was privatized. We all pay an exceedingly high cost now and for no other reason than to fatten the wallets of those who really need or deserve more of our money. So who is really the idiot in this conversation, hmmmm? Sounds like you are my friend. One more idiot whose vote the rest of us have to override.
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  960. hurkamur1-Hear hear!!
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  961. Want to blow your mind? Financial assets gained $13.277 trillion in 2021. That sum is equal to 66.98% of our entire GDP.
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  962.  @Echo81Rumple83  - I will NOT take that bet!
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  963. Bring back the tax brackets that worked . . . .and put a hard cap on accumulated wealth. $10 million wealth cap should do it.
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  964.  @fusion353  - You hit the bullseye with your description of our reality. My version of what really needs to be done can be found in the title of this video: Should wealth be capped? The answer is a resounding YES! Wealth grows faster than the economy and all debts combined through artificial design, no system can sustain such energy leakage.
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  965. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  966.  @davidvernon3119  - Just for the sake of reference, about four years ago I started a project researching the economy, I wanted to know what in the hell was going on. Of course, I had no idea what I had bitten into and the research project carried on in the years since. One thing I have learned for certain, politics creates the economy. The economy is shaped by political decisions, so when I read or hear that there is nothing that can be done about the economy, I scoff at the suggestion. P.S. Our ages are not too far apart, I'll turn 60 at the end of the summer. What we are witnessing now is so different than what I was taught to believe growing up, you know . . . hard work, bootstraps and all that crap.
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  967. Matt cash420 - Coward. What you just wrote is what all cowards do when they are cornered.
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  968. Whenever we hear about the economy (and it does not matter which mainstream media source), the reporting is always about stocks, the stock market and GDP. Not once have I heard about the $90 trillion plus in privately held financial assets earning over 5%, nor have I heard how that pile of wealth earns so much from a relatively puny $21.5 trillion annual economy. The numbers don't add up. However, with those numbers I now understand why there have been such massive bailouts from the federal government, because without the bailouts these "earnings" are simply not possible. The entire "IRA, 401k and pension fund investments" have been a scheme, a hustle, a con of the American people, a way for the wealthy to make accomplices of the American people as they fleece the wealth from us and our country.
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  969. Keknology - Kremlin stooge.
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  970.  @georgefurman4371  - Your experience in 1980 informs the future. All that Mexican political strength in numbers just faded away, most likely under pressure from the wealthy. We need to counter their foundations, think tanks and society's with those of our own this time, unions and political parties are too vulnerable without support. You have a very good way of looking at things, it is much appreciated.
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  971. Peter Nachtwey - Capitalism is corruption you Moron. Get it through your thick head, they are one and the same in the cancer stage of capitalism.
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  972.  @doggycat9397  - Macron and Merkel did not allow Covid-19 to rampage through their respective country's unchecked. Trump did, and that is the point. Trump and his enablers are murderers by lawful definition. A person is guilty of murder if he or she intentionally or knowingly causes the death of another human being, engages in conduct that manifests a depraved indifference to the value of human life and causes death, or intentionally or knowingly causes another human being to commit suicide by the use of force, duress, or deception. We know Trump was aware of the danger of Covid-19 back in February of 2020, his subsequent actions are public record and prove his negligence, actions which were not engaged in by either Macron or Merkel. Your argument is nullified.
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  973. This is only the tip of the ice burg. My fellow Americans please read the Powell Memo written in 1971 by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. It gives line by line instructions for business and corporations to take over the American economy and political system: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/ That memo was the starting gun in the race to enrich oligarchy and hollow out the population of the USA. Everything Powell blamed on the communists, socialists and civil rights movement for the decline in the USA has come to pass . . . resulting directly from the actual Powell Memo implementation and NOT from the fears Powell expressed.
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  974.  @valeriab9735  - Your replies say otherwise: "Why would you blame it on capitalism", "take your money and go to a smaller City", "This is the outcome of abortion not capitalism", and here is a doosy: "I agree it is not the government's job to provide housing for me but it is their job to get rid of these hindrances". All of these quotes are derived or come whole cloth from oligarch propaganda. They are using you to divide yourself from others so you will not focus on the bigger picture. Protect property, not people. Also, I notice that you shy away from facts but you will reply to idealogues.
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  975.  @KGRICK1  - Agreed. "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins.
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  976. John Semper - Are you people incapable of doing research? John, the only thing you have done is prove that you are another know-nothing who is completely out of touch and projecting your propaganda filled mindset onto Bernie and AOC. You don't know how federal funding works and you don't know what a fascist is. You want to know what is going wrong in this country? It is the strongly ignorant pretending that oligarch propaganda is really wisdom, you and "thelinedrive" are ignorant pod people.
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  977. Hello Roman. I liked Dr. Wolff's video and appreciate the notion of "Labor Day" for what it represents, but as someone who has dropped out of the American labor force to concentrate on my own notion of what life should be . . . . this day to me is just another useless federal holiday that has lost its meaning for myself and a majority of American workers.
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  978. You want capitalism? Fine. Put a hard cap on accumulated wealth of $10 million per adult individual. That much, no more. This one move will solve so many problems, including the the end of neoliberalism. Wealth must be limited by law just to keep the 1% from taking over world government. Failure to recognize this will mean the end of mankind, as the current leaders will do nothing as long as the 1/10th of 1% control all politics.
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  979. Chase Musqkwanto - Ok, that is fine. However that will not solve our greater, recurring problem. Hillary is the same as trump, money equals power. Unfortunately I did not discover that for myself until after the 2016 election. Some perspective is in order. I am 57 and a machinist by trade. All I ever wanted a secure job so I could support my family and pay my bills. That has never materialized in my entire lifetime, and like so many Americans I blamed myself. Now I don't work in the trades, been attempting the self employment route for over a decade. Patterns and processes are my life's work and it was clear something outside of my control was exerting influence over my personal economy. So I researched for two solid years and found the monkey wrench in the machinery. It is this: too much money equals the power to meddle in other peoples lives. If we as a society don't fix the problem, there will be more hillary's and more trump's to come. If we all sit around and saying what about isms . . . the problems we all face will never be solved. We must address the root cause, and that is not trump alone or hillary alone. We are required to look into the recent past and then yes . . . into the deeper past and compare to the present day. If we fail this, we all continue to suffer. That is fact. So instead of focusing all our attention on the idiot in chief, we must address the root causes and deal with that. I'll bring this to anyone's attention as I have time, but I lament that short sightedness seems to be the currency of our realm.
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  980. Chase Musqkwanto - I'm in agreement with your reasoning and intent. We will take care of this, either through our institutions or with our vote. This 2018 vote may be the last one we have if the republicans retain the House, however I feel the people of the USA have been jolted into awareness similar to yours. This is a good thing, let us take care of the business at hand. What happens after, the same thing again by another name? If we are to permanently solve the problem, we must take care of the present and also realize history cannot be ignored. No where do I see an awareness of this by our electorate, as illustrated by the majority of comments after the original post. I was not aware of the OP's history lesson and I will add it to the list. However your response to the OP is more dangerous than you realize, what happens in our yester years is of VITAL importance. By shrugging it off, you imperil all of us.
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  981. Fastestinthewest - We shall see good buddy, we shall see. If you call that idiot a winner, you are not as smart as you think.
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  982. The democrats are bound to fail if they put up a centrist candidate for president. They are already projecting that a centrist will be their choice, that is why they are giving up on Ohio. To the horror of my wife, I told her that if we get a centrist democrat like Joe Bidon or Kamalla Harris on the 2020 Democratic Presidential ticket . . . . I would be voting third party. She is rightfully horrified that a split vote will bring us another four years of Trump. However, there is no lessor of two evils . . . there is only evil unless we can get a progressive on the democratic ticket for president. It is time to hold our ground. Sanders 2020.
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  983. Eve Kohley - Exactly spot on.
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  984. Wealth should not just be taxed, it must be capped. Here are some facts for you, taken straight from the Federal Reserve. Ever since the final business quarter of 1980, the sum total of financial assets (from which IRA's and 401k's are derived), has been greater than our GDP. This happened because Congress gutted company funded pensions in 1974. At the end of 1980, the sum total financial assets was half a trillion more than our GDP. By 1990 that gap was enlarged to $6.9 trillion. By the year 2000 the gap had widened further to $21.2 trillion. Today that gap is $93.684 trillion or 4.8 times the size of our GDP. Today the gap has widened so far that extraction from the population is simply not enough to fuel a 12% annual growth rate, so the government is now being looted. The money to grow IRA's and 401k's is stolen, not earned. What gives anyone the right to take money they have not earned?
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  985. Sacred Fire - You seem to be missing an essential point about NATO in your comment, those countries whom you are criticizing are the bulwark that protects the USA from involvement in another all encompassing world war. So what if they are not contributing as much money, the USA is the richest country in the world and therefor should contribute the bulk in payment for global peace/defense.
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  986. John Kimble - Does not dare? What a wonderful and highly intellectual retort from a person who discusses nothing . . . and furthermore has nothing to say except for moribund declarations of ineptitude.
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  987. James Gray - Yes, what you write is true . . . which is why the sleeping giant is now finally stirring and awakening. The Japanese Admiral Yamamoto warned his Emperor and the Imperial Cabinet about kicking the sleeping giant which is the USA prior to the onset of World War Two, and now that same giant is slowly awakening and will pulverize corporations and the right wing of this country for what has been done over the past forty years. That giant is us, and we have been asleep for far to long. Awaken my Fellow Americans, the time is nigh to take back our country and restore the republic!
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  988. hermenutic - Your ideas are some of the best ones expressed here. When the wealth is distributed, new makers and creators of goods and services are enabled . . . instead of being sidelined and disabled by crippling debts owed to those who own but do not earn. Bravo to you for being willing to put in the effort to explain your ideas in depth. Think about what I wrote earlier. With an earning and wealth cap, all the excess flows through the government and back to the people. Such a well funded government could also have plenty for defense, border security, and above all, be able to take an active posture fighting corruption the world over. With income and wealth caps in place, it will be easy to identify threats in the world . . . they will be the ones hoarding wealth. Yet no matter how much wealth and power they may hoard, it will pale in comparison to the might of what then would truly be the richest and most powerful country in the world. First, the stranglehold of the corporations over our government has to be broken, That is already being started, the people are speaking with their vote and representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who take no corporate money to run their campaigns are the future of the United States Federal Government.
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  989. alaskanmes - Are you not paying attention? The days of a top percentage of earners (thieves) are over!
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  990. hermenutic - What I see as the real problem here is the ability of a very few to accumulate so much wealth to the point where power becomes a means to an end. Some people use wealth accumulation in positive manners. The examples I like the best are the billionaires who are using their wealth to engineer rocket systems which are recoverable. Yet those are few and far between, most of the billionaires are using their wealth to buy governments . . . that ability must be eliminated. The potential rocket engineers and space explorers can do their work through government funding, using a well funded government as their resource. The class stratification of today would not be possible with annual income and wealth caps in place. Yes, there would be some stratification depending on where the caps were set, yet it would be so greatly diminished that it would represent only a fraction of the problem that class stratification is today. The main issue at hand is this: we must remove the ownership tools used to dismantle societal reforms. Those tools are all wealth related. Leaving wealth in the hands of those who would seek to dismantle what the greater society has accomplished is much more dangerous than class stratification.
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  991. When you have so much wealth that you can alter how people vote, that is too much. No system, natural or artificial can keep on growing like wealth does and that one exception causes more suffering than anything else I can think of. Time to take an individual wealth cap seriously.
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  992. Peter Nachtwey - You are the biggest lair posting comments here. There is nothing in the world that specifies humans must be capitalists to survive. We are not simply bred to be workers or capitalist . . . but we do have a right not to starve or be made homeless by the economy. Don't like it . . . tough shit. Stop lying to make yourself feel better because we are not buying it. Your solution to everything is to "Fuck off and die" . . .your words. You are putting people out of their jobs and homes, you are stealing their pensions and their savings with your automation technology. I told you in the past that if you keep this up it will only make the masses angry . . . the torches and pitchforks are coming out and you will be of great interest to the masses when their tolerance can no longer be contained.
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  993. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "Socialism is about forcing people to do what society wants.." WRONG! Gee whiz Peter, I thought you were a SMART guy! Now you have no credibility at all.
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  994. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "The truth is that you all simply want to take from those that can. You don't really want to be able to the same yourselves." Nice the way you distort reality, then twist it all into a lie. Your mother taught you well.
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  995. Zoe Phin - You Wrote: "For some reason, Socialists believe that Laborers are entitled to the whole thing. Where do they get their sense of self-entitlement?" For some reason, yours is a distorted understanding of what socialism is . . . meaning that what you have written is entirely incorrect. Is this willful distortion or are you simply uninformed?
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  996. Zoe Phin - You really are a shallow person . . . capable of thinking only in two dimensions. Why don't you crack open a book and learn something?
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  997. Zoe Phin - Hmmm, you wrote: "coolmodelguy Are you upset my modeling work payed more than yours?" Perhaps, because your modeling work is not actually work. At least when I build a model for sale, all of the processes involve actual labor . . . unlike that prostitution that you call work. You are just taking money that other people earn, you are not actually doing any labor . . . enjoy it while you can Baby, your looks will not last.
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  998. Zoe Phin - Hahaha . . . stings when you're so stupid you slap yourself in the face, what a hoot!
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  999. Bloomberg wants people to stay ignorant so he and Trump can rule the world. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  1000. The point that all of you are missing is the Wi-Fi access available at the places they eat. Both have homework, and they will be harassed endlessly trying to find a place on the streets to cook with an available hot spot for wi-fi.
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  1001. I am 57 years old and have voted republican, independent and democrat in my life. Two years ago I started earnest research into our economy to find out for myself what the hell is going on. My conclusion: caps on both wealth and income are necessary. Too much of either leads to wholesale corruption of both the economy and politics, ending with the citizens paying the bill. Enough already. Humanity cannot afford the rich and powerful any longer, because they have no regard for the long term ability of human kind to even survive. To survive, we must decapitate the oligarchs and corporations.
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  1002. Also agreed.
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  1003. Exactly. If the economy is sooooo good, why then has the Federal Reserve cut interest rates so much? When the economy is good, interest rates are supposed to go up, not down. In addition, if the economy was so good, why has there been an ongoing REPO operation going on since late September? Why is there such a liquidity problem with the banks? Additionally, what is this garbage about the economic gains made by the poor? Rents are going up more than 5% per year, health care costs continue to rise, yet we are getting no greater value from these cost increases. There is so much more about this economy that is faltering or failing, but I don't want to strain the poor republican brains too much.
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  1004. And yet, Nancy Pelosi gave a standing ovation to regime change in Venezuela, after Trump lied about who is the legitimate president of that country. She is a war monger, no different than Trump himself. This is just a game to the elites, and her performance was just that, a performance. Just 20% of the world population controls 94.5% of the worlds wealth, she is Speaker of the House only because she wants to keep the game going for the wealthy elites. Just remember that when you are cheering for her, she does not stand for or represent YOU.
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  1005. The economy is already ruined. If you are at all familiar with what happened to "Toys-R-Us", then just apply that on a national level to the U.S. economy. We have been hollowed out and saddled with debt by those who already had wealth and power from as far back as the the 1950's and 1960's, who did a hostile takeover of all American systems in a manner similar to a giant hedge fund. Just read "The Powell Memo" from 1971, its all there, the entire roadmap. Powell claimed to be saving the USA from socialism and communism, but really now, almost 50 years out, the truth of the demise of the USA was always about hollowing out the country until nothing but a dried out husk remained.
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  1006. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just said on TYT "the republicans are afraid I will send their kids to college". Priceless!! I certainly wish we had a JD win out here in California, but I'm so happy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her district.
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  1007. @coocoolefool - Wait a minute. I thought all right wingers thought people act independently for their own best interests, thus would always seek out the highest paying job? Now people will do as little as necessary? Make up your mind already, which is it?
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  1008. Louise Millar - Ouch! Says the person who is so intelligent, represented by the dumbest avatar ever!!!
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  1009. Thyalwaysseek - Yup. Just like the Fox Fake News viewers only hate socialism because one of the biggest welfare queens ever known, Rupert Murdoch, tells them to. What a bunch of lemmings.
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  1010. PnP6408 _ Let me see if I understand you correctly. Your great leader, the Orange Mango Man, got himself a free golf course from the citizens on New York. He then charges the citizens of New York to use that golf course, which they paid to build. Socialism for one is ok, but not for the many. Oh wait . . . I see what you are saying, Mango Man got something for free in exchange for his freedom! Then why is he not in prison already? Ohhh wait! You are saying that if you get something for free you are giving up your freedom! Nooo, Mango Man is still walking free, so I guess what is really happening here is you are just very confused about what socialism actually is. Poor thing.
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  1011.  @bluewater454  - As opposed to listening to all the advertisements for financial services we are bombarded with 24/7. Since the stock markets are a ponzi sceme and professors are idiots, who should we be listening to for retirement financial planning?
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  1012. Some baby boomers are in the same headlock as the young folk, locked out of the jobs market and the asset ladder because we arrived a wee bit late. This means there are boomers who are just as fucked and for those few who have figured out what is going on, we are as fucking angry as the generations that came after us. Bernie Sanders 2020!
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  1013. Not only do we need a wealth tax, we really need a wealth CAP. You want to get money out of politics? CAP WEALTH.
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  1014. Lorita Alonzo - You are being rather impudent aren't you? Are you claiming you never had a moment of deja-vu? Don't be so hasty to declare those whom you have deemed "delusional" are just seeking attention. Some people can hold their experiences within, other feel the need to speak of them. You have had the very same experiences, which to you must be so disturbing that you suppress them . . . and then you project that suppression onto others. What "the Everyday Liberal Show" has expressed is not unique at all, it is a shared human experience. Do you ever wonder where all the cruelty in the world originates? It is the physical representation of the same suppression you are expressing when you scoff at others for something you yourself have experienced. Cruel people are trying in a very simplistic way to "exorcise" what they consider "demons" . . . by using physical force against their fellow human beings or animals. Some of us have no need for the "attention", because we know quite well what we are experiencing are not "delusions". People such as myself are very scientifically minded, which actually help guide us through the unknown. Science is hypothesis and experimentation, not an explanation. You would do much better if you can accept that you cannot "know" everything.
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  1015. Yasmine Steinbauer - You seem to be confusing "science" with "knowledge". As others have been advised, you would do much better if you began to understand that you nor I can "know" everything. I cannot "see" the thought in your mind, so does that mean they do not exist? No, it does not. Don't be so hasty to condemn, for hundreds of years proof of the atom's existence was beyond our ability, yet Democritus was able to discern the existence of the atom 2500 years ago.
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  1016. Oners82 - Democritus, when he used subjective reasoning to hypothesize about the existence of the atom 2500 years ago, probably appeared to be an idiot to his peers. Turns out he was correct. Today's idiot is potentially tomorrow's genius . . . just an FYI. If you read "The Everyday Liberal Show" carefully, he never once asserted that what he experienced was a "speculative hypothesis", those are your words. He went out of his way several times to state that no one was under any obligation to believe him. His explanations of his experiences is what he documented. It seems to me that you were quite hasty in your condemnation, so using the two of you as samples, who really comes off looking like an idiot?
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  1017. Yasmine Steinbauer - You are making declarative statements without an inkling more insight into "what is true or not" than anyone else posting here. What is "objective reality" anyway? Can it possibly be composed of though as well as matter? Can "objective reality" exist in places we cannot yet, or may never be capable of perceiving? To claim thus: "that doesn't mean that you should just fill in the gaps with something made up", is the height of intellectual arrogance and hubris.
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  1018. Lorita Alonzo - As opposed to the original poster who started this conversation, you are making inconclusive yet declarative statements as fact. Personally I am surprised it is a pair of women here making such authoritative statements for which there is no definitive proof one way or the other. How can you possibly know "the brain is hallucinating your experiences, including your delusional ones"?
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  1019. Yasmine Steinbauer - What you are calling scientific principles is horribly short sighted. If you know what the scientific method is and how it works, then you know it is a methodology, not a repository of knowledge. A computer's operation is based upon the laws of science, established physical fact. The way you are approaching the subject matter at hand (which is not yet in the realm of scientific principles or established laws of science) is based on how you feel about the subject matter . . . which is very close minded and not at all how a true scientist would approach the subject. Phenomenology may be based on thought experiments . . . . well, what do you think Albert Einstein did when he postulated the Theory of Relativity? When you say "only thought experiments", you are degrading the well established scientific method at its root stage. To your p.s., Yasmine is a girl's name of Arabic origin meaning "jasmine flower". Lorita: gender-feminine, usage-Italian. Just a little bit of basic deduction. If either one of you is male, I suggest talking to your parents about their reasons for choosing your names.
    2
  1020. Yasmine Steinbauer - Where did you learn your reading comprehension skills? I clicked on the video you recommended. 30 seconds was all it took for me to understand where you are coming from. I stand by my remark, you demonstrate a particularly nasty case of close-mindedness. For those interested in the video title: How America Got Divorced from Reality: Christian Utopias, Anti-Elitism, Media Circus | Kurt Andersen
    2
  1021. Lorita Alonzo - Soooo . . . no central nervous system, no nerves connected to our skin for touch, no hearing, so sight . . . . Ah, got it! Our brains live in isolated jell-packets! Thanks, that clarifies everything.
    2
  1022. Yasmine Steinbauer - You seem to be deliberately missing the point, and also deliberately trying to be denigrating. I'll go back to Democritus and Albert Einstein to make my point, again. It took 2500 years before Democritus could be proven correct, but only four years for the Theory of Relativity to be proven correct. The first tests of the Theory of Relativity failed to prove its validity, so that is enough already to refute your "a single failed test" conclusion. Democritus had to wait a very long time until Einstein came along, however he was proven correct. Soooo, by your reckoning his postulations about the atom were a fantasy only? This goes directly against the "scientific principles" you espouse to follow, because what "The Everyday Liberal Show" has offered is an axiom. In case we are no clear about this I submit the following:An axiom or postulate is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments.
    2
  1023. Lorita Alonzo - Well then, this brain's best guess is that conversing further with you is rather useless. Thank you for the entertainment!
    2
  1024. The Everyday Liberal Show - Welcome back! It has been quite the extravaganza since you departed 15 hours ago! :-)
    2
  1025. Lorita Alonzo - (Spoken in the voice of Jack Sparrow) . . . Yes, I concede. You have built quite a strongbox for your brain . . . nigh well impregnable. It is indeed useless for me to continue to contend otherwise.
    2
  1026. The Everyday Liberal Show - I think what we have here is a couple of petulant teenage boys, masquerading with the names of beautiful women.
    2
  1027. The Everyday Liberal Show - Well, at least I am happy with my delusions! Closer to the original topic, I have had déjà vécu experiences which I can trace to the origin point in my past. They were not noteworthy for their content, just for the fact that could clearly remember the then current and past experiences with the accompanying accounting for the difference in dates. As I've gotten older and immersed in the routine experiences of life, they do not occur any longer. This leads me to speculate that the younger mind has a greater elasticity, which may be a requirement for repeat performances. Further speculation has me wondering about branching universes and if the minds of our selves inhabiting those universes may be able at times to communicate. In any case, it seems to be a localized phenomenon, for instance I have never visualized myself suddenly appearing in orbit around the earth of outside of the galaxy looking in.
    2
  1028. Lorita Alonzo - Yeah, whatever you have to tell yourself . . . . it is after all, your solitary confinement brainbox!
    2
  1029. The Everyday Liberal Show - Yup, I noticed. She gets to make up her own brain-box reality however, so I am not surprised. She also does not seem to get satirical sarcasm, I guess it "floats" beyond her comprehension!
    2
  1030. Jo John - Wrong. Health care for all with have the government in one position only, administration. Not diagnosis, not treatment, nor will the government be involved in any medical decision which is not elective in nature. The government will not get between you and your doctor the way insurance companies do, plus the cost will go way down because there is no profit motive, insurance company CEO pay, stock dividends, or other fee sucking devices normally employed by for profit insurance companies.
    2
  1031.  @JB-kx9bx  - Interesting, the way you phrase these important issues. "Most people have a job, most people aren't sick". True, yet you used that sentence to underscore that most people don't care about these things. Most people are part of families that have young children, who need healthcare not because they are sick, but because healthcare is required for school attendance. Most people are not secure in their jobs, so they care a great deal about unemployment. With regards to anti-oligarch candidates, it is not sad that Bernie got half the votes that Biden did. That Bernie got half the votes Biden did is an outstanding achievement showing that times are changing. We are all well aware that Biden was selected during the primaries, not elected. We are all well aware that the oligarch backed DNC pulled the rug out from under Bernie, again. I've seen your posts which are very forward thinking, you must resist despondency as we all must, you are not a socialist for thinking that some portion of GDP be spent on free advanced education, anyone who says so is under the sway of oligarch funded propaganda.
    2
  1032.  @TheRatsintheWalls  - Good post about the right-wing media ecosystem. People will come around, however the complex issues do need to be distilled into simpler forms for most people to digest.
    2
  1033.  @anavaderduo7548  - What happened to personal responsibility? The media is doing their job alright, filling everyone's ears with oligarchy and plutocracy propaganda. I've taken a deep dive into research on our economy over the past four years and learned that our media of all stripes is not in the business of reporting facts, except when there is breaking news about a shooting down the street or something similar. The same people who own our politicians also control the media. With the economic "hamster wheel" shackles most people are bound to just to stay alive, you cannot sell lack of personal responsibility as the reason why people act and vote the way they do.
    2
  1034. Professor Reich - Please talk about the latest figures released by Oxfam. Globally 54% of all wealth is owned by the 1% and also globally, the top 20% own 94.5% of all wealth. With the bottom 80% holding only 5.5% of all global wealth, stagnation is either already here or will set in for all global economies. The wealthy elites are well aware of the situation, yet will do nothing to change their behavior. My belief is that we need a global hard cap on the wealth an individual or business can accumulate. Your thoughts on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
    2
  1035. Here in California, during the winter we pay over $800 per month to heat parts of the house with electric heaters, simply because we have no gas furnace. The utility company will not give us a break because our electric heaters are not "integral" to the house itself, in other words, they are not built in. My wife is on disability and I had to stop looking for a job because we were backsliding into debt no matter what job I held. Here are the latest figures released by Oxfam. Globally 54% of all wealth is owned by the 1% and also globally, the top 20% own 94.5% of all wealth. With the bottom 80% holding only 5.5% of all global wealth, stagnation is either already here or will set in for all global economies. The wealthy elites are well aware of the situation, yet will do nothing to change their behavior. My belief is that we need a global hard cap on the wealth an individual or business can accumulate.
    2
  1036.  Feng  - Not an ignorant statement. There is an unspoken reason why a majority of our citizens do not understand what is happening to them, which is the very people these pundits are fawning all over themselves for are sucking us dry like parasites. Overall, the value of financial assets grew by $13.68 trillion in 2021, an 11.58% increase over 2020. That value increase is just over 66% of GDP for the year. When financial assets increase in value, it is not because of savvy investment planning. That increase represents a vacuum cleaner that is sucking wealth straight out of the paychecks, wallets, purses and bank accounts of the bottom 90% of households in the USA.
    2
  1037.  Feng  - Wow, brainwashed much? No, it is not me, it is you believing billionaire propaganda, and those billionaire parasites.
    2
  1038. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
    2
  1039.  @norsefalconer  - I am on the left, and I agree with your statement. When the 1% of the USA gets paid only 2% interest on their $30 trillion in accumulated wealth, that alone consumed all of 2018's GDP growth plus a little more. Last time I checked, S&P 500 index funds have averaged over 9% sine 1994. If the 1% are even getting 5% interest, that is $1.5 trillion . . . so that money is being taken directly out of your pocket and mine. We need to do away with banks creating money out of thin air, because every bit of that funny money devalues the dollar and make our costs go up. We must re-nationalize our entire economy, including putting the dollar back on the gold standard . . . unless the 1% has stolen all the gold . . . .
    2
  1040.  @norsefalconer  - Great! As for intelligent exchange, you started it . . . Kudos! Seriously though, this fiat dollar is killing all of us. There is a lot we can accomplish once we get past the "divide and conquer" propaganda. Bummer though, I've got no gold!
    2
  1041. No, because all the rest of us will die from radiation poisoning once the moron in chief does something that stupid.
    2
  1042. Nothing! The so-called conservatives along with so-called democrats set us up to be taken over by the un-elected kings of finance.
    2
  1043. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
    2
  1044.  @dancerjim  - No, they won't send all the work to China. or automate completely. They still need a consumer base in the USA. The corporations are held here by the Reserve Currency dollar and by our rigged regulatory structure, they cannot get that kind of concentrated power in any other place.
    2
  1045.  @DL-ke1io  - The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
    2
  1046. Matt cash420 - ERRRRRRor! You are incorrect. Try again.
    2
  1047. Matt cash420 - You wrote this: "socialism is bad because not only does it end in mass starvation and genocide but implies no individual value... its also fundamentally flawed..." Ok, it is official. You don't know what you are talking about . . . you have been regurgitating gobilygook. Here I thought maybe you might come up with some interesting arguments for your positions but . . . .not going to happen.
    2
  1048.  @alaskansummertime  - I am voting(already voted for him in CAL primary) for Sanders, and here is why. Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1049.  @alaskansummertime  - Your definition of conservative matches perfectly with my own. We run our household using conservative guidelines and ideology. Same thing for our tiny home based business, bootstraps and no handouts. We live in California and have already cast our ballots for the primary, my wife and I both voted for Bernie.
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  1050. Republicans and Russians are Allies at last. MAGA!
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  1051. Untruthful republican talking points. Don't you have anything better to do? You people are bending yourselves into pretzels to defend a criminal president who has done NOTHING for the American people since he took the oath of office.
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  1052. Succinctly expressed. Cannot say I can disagree with any portion of your analysis. Took me a very long time to arrive at a similar description, had some very thick propaganda programming to peel away first.
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  1053. The reason the idiot right fights the left is that they cannot stand the idea of everyone being . . . . ordinary.
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  1054. We will never have real democracy until we take away the ability to gain limitless wealth. Never.
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  1055. When I was a child growing up in California college was free, but by the time I became an adult this was no longer the case. We have Reagan to thank for that, along with the closing of all the mental hospitals. Combine those two and it accounts for a majority of the explosion of homeless people in our state.
    2
  1056.  @greyhoundTex  - That tipping point of printing money only happens when there is a lack of resources. This is the danger posed by industrial capitalists moving all factories out of the USA, eventually that was going to turn around and bite us.
    2
  1057. Since 1965, until 2020, our economy grew by 336 percent. During the same period of time, wealth in financial assets grew by 4599 percent. Do you think the wealthy will ever have enough? This is a mental illness folks. Individual wealth needs to be capped for the good of society, high enough for real luxury in life, but never high enough to do what the Kochs, the Mercers and the Murdocks do with their indoctrination networks and political ownership of our government.
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  1058.  BLAIR M Schirmer  - For those who have the slightest interest in saving themselves and this country, you must understand the implications of two words: Financial Assets. The amount of financial assets out there is staggering.Try to wrap you head around this. Take a sample size of $100 trillion in financial assets and set aside just the interest gained over one year in a separate account. The interest gained over one year on that smaller account would be 3.3 times larger than all of the economic gains posted in 2019. Even that tiny sample is hollowing out whatever economy there is, so just think about what that larger $100 trillion account is doing. The wealthy are dependent upon your ignorance of simple math. Their wealth passed critical mass decades ago and even the global economy cannot support their capital gains. That is why these "bailouts" keep happening, the wealthy are parasites. The economy stopped being profitable enough to pay "interest" on their investments long ago. The only solution to this is to stop allowing unlimited wealth accumulation, but as long as people don't look too closely and fail to realize our economy is being hollowed out, the looting will last indefinitely. This is why there will be an all out war against the establishment in this country, if there is any possibility whatsoever of saving the country.
    2
  1059.  @jacobgrover8977  - I have given the answer to The Diamond2009, since he was unable to come up with it on his own.
    2
  1060. What is happening with our economy is actually quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. Capitalism in its current form is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
    2
  1061.  @georgefurman4371  - Agreed. Well stated.
    2
  1062.  @stevenbarton5949  - Oligarchy in the past did not have the capability of destroying the human species, so I'm picking the mob. At least once the oligarch propaganda network goes down, the mob can be educated.
    2
  1063. Things are far worse than what Solana Rice is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). She is correct about the institutional racism, but this situation goes far beyond that because we are all being affected. This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
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  1064. OrionPax09 - This why we have to refocus our energy. Our efforts are wasted when we try to do reforms of any kind, because those reforms will always be dismantled. Instead of changing a myriad of different laws trying to combat undue influence, there are only two simple rules that must be placed into law. First in an Annual Income Cap, the second is an Accumulated Wealth Cap. It is vast wealth in the hands of individuals which is the root cause of all our woes and the dysfunction of wealth inequality in our worldwide collective societies. Vast wealth is the toolkit used to dismantle all reforms put into law, and the one glaring example I will put forward is FDR's New Deal. In the decades since the New Deal, the wielders of vast wealth have been dismantling the New Deal piece by piece. Now the New Deal is gone, destroyed. This happens to every law, every reform ever put in place to protect the majority. There is a simple guide as to what the caps should be. By all means, earn your millions until you have enough for you and your family to live in the utmost of luxury for a lifetime. Beyond that point, return everything you earn back to the society that helped you create the wealth in the first place. No one makes millions in a vacuum, everyone who does so has the help of the entire society of human beings . . . every millionaire made is a joint venture with society. I'm 57 years old and my eldest daughter is 30 years old. Between us we have the life experiences of our generations. We did a "thought experiment" to ascertain what the income and wealth limits should be. Her ideas encompassed more than my own, so we generally went with her numbers. I would like to see more of us doing such "thought experiments" so we can come up with a consensus that will make an annual income and accumulated wealth cap palatable to the majority. Do these two things and all dark money political contributions evaporate down to a level where the will of the few no longer dominates the will of the many. We already know excessive wealth beyond what is needed to live a life of utmost luxury is mostly then used to exert power over the powerless.
    2
  1065.  @cpc9563  - Thank you for your comments. We here in the USA do not often hear from Chinese citizens directly. It is very clear to some of us that we are being "prepared" to war with China in some form or another. It is not clear to most Americans that we are an imperialist power, the propaganda we are exposed to on a daily basis, paints the picture that we spread "democracy" around the world, which is completely untrue. The USA has never been about "spreading democracy around the world". Our system as it stands now, cannot stand for much longer. Wealth extraction is impoverishing our own people to the point of destitution, just as our imperialism has impoverished the very countries we claim to be bring democracy to. Some of us know we are being severely misled about our country and yours, and we will continue to reach out to those of our countrymen who do not yet know.
    2
  1066. Not so funny fact, our police kill 37 U.S. citizens for every U.S. citizen killed by jihadist terrorists in the USA.
    2
  1067. Bob Leroy - Please read the original comment by Stanton Bentley again . . . . me thinks you missed something in the last part about his real meaning . . . . .
    2
  1068. The only way to stop this is to put a hard limit on wealth accumulation. The wealthy ARE the problem, lets get rid of them by making them ordinary.
    2
  1069. Solution: Wealth cap at $10 million per person and 100% inheritance tax. Study that idea and the effects it will have on the economy . . . no more speculation bubbles and corporations will be forced to share profits among workers. That is just for starters.
    2
  1070. If you think republicans are so great, then you must also think the workers are doing wonderfully under republican policies, yes? Question then: WHY has the value of workers median wages been cut by over half in the past three decades under republican policies? Read the question and suss out its meaning before you answer. Charts will tell you that median wages are stagnant or have risen somewhat over three decades. So here is another question for you: Do you know HOW the value of workers median wages has been cut by over half in the past three decades? Lets see if you republican snowflakes can actually put your money where your mouth is.
    2
  1071. Oh come on now . . . the inference is crystal clear. I find it interesting that you chose that response . . . . rather than responding to my questions. Telling sign, that is.
    2
  1072.  @scottgrohs5940  - I think the idea of "making a whole lotta influential people’s wallets lighter", is exactly the direction we should go. After all, when exactly did any of these influential people make decisions that were in the best interest of this country or it's people? The only way we get out of this mess is when we realize the wealthy suck at running society. As a matter of fact, since 1947 wealth has grown 1% faster than the economy year over year, so if we don't like being kneecapped then we are going to have to do something about capping personal wealth at some level where that small group of people no longer hold political power.
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  1073. According to my own research, median wages today buy less than half of what median wages bought 30 years ago. At about the 2:18 mark, Professor Wolff stated that wages now bought approximately the same as they did 30 to 40 years ago. Can someone please look into this, so we can get an accurate picture?
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  1074. Leo Volont - You and I have a similar story. My father had six children, bought four houses that I know of, we always had at least two cars, plus a camper and expandable tent trailer for outdoor adventuring. We went on vacations and many fishing expeditions. This was all on a single income, my stepmother never was employed once she married my father. My father was a machinist, and I followed in his footsteps. In my case, I have never been able to buy a house or keep more than one car at a time. After having two children, it was very clear to me that I could never afford to have more. Now my children are adults and there is no hope for them to have children of their own (and they both know that). As for my economic research, I started that last year and quickly realized that everything I had believed in was not the truth (both about the economy and our country, the U.S.A.). Fast on the heels of that realization was the stunning fact that our politicians and our news media have been both A) lying to us, and B) keeping vitally important information from the American people.
    2
  1075. John Stewart - Median household income has gone up 236% over the past 30 years. Median income for men has gone up 1.05%, and median income for women has gone up 151% over the past 30 years. Professor Wolff was referring to the combined median incomes for everyone, averaged into a single number. But if you look at the combined numbers for men's and women's median incomes, that figure is only 152.05%, falling 83.95% short of the new median household income number. What this means is that there is a third and forth earner in each household. When three to four people have to combine incomes to run a household, that is really bad news. However it becomes catastrophic when you look at the basic costs for staying alive, which have grown at the same rate as the GDP per capita . . . up 300% over the past 30 years. Households finances are sliding backwards. None of these figures I have cited includes the rapidly expanding cost of medial care, which has gone up a whopping 601% over the past 30 years.
    2
  1076. Thank you for bringing up Yang's plan to use thorium. The one major concern you did not address at all is the cooling water requirements for thorium reactors. To replace carbon fuels using uranium it would take a minimum of 10,000 reactors, so the question is how many thorium reactors would be necessary to offer the same replacement capability and how much of the fresh water supply would be required to cool these thorium reactors? We cannot have radioactive contamination of our fresh water supplies, especially if we must move north and to higher ground. The essential water supplies are going to be tapped to the max in order to move to higher ground, so the water needs of power generating reactors of any kind must be answered.
    2
  1077. Andrew, it does not matter. No one looks at economics in the same manner as one looks at cosmology. The mass of "wealth" has always been larger and grown faster than the economy. On this day, the mass of wealth is larger than it has ever been, over five times the size of our economy. That wealth will simply roll over anything in its path, leaving destruction in its wake. Always been this way and always will be, until we decide to control that mass.
    2
  1078. Bobby Honey - The level of ignorance you display is astonishing. You claim to do research, yet you display for everyone to see that you do no such thing on your own. You are the personification of the puppet, allowing others to pull your strings. You yourself are being controlled by those whose only reason for being is money and power, spreading their propaganda as if it is your own idea or manna from heaven. Get real man, you are the idiot here . . . your first three sentences prove that beyond doubt.
    2
  1079. Mike, I hope you are not abandoning YouTube. Some of us cannot afford to pay for anything, so even with the problems of YouTube, this is where we get our information.
    2
  1080. @Scott Sanders - Take it a little farther, no individual should be allowed to accumulate more than $10 million, period. Reason? You said it best, "No company should be allowed to have too much money because it seems it leads to them wanting to take everything over", same thing goes for individuals.
    2
  1081.  @joelgarcia5326  - Hi Joel. That comment was my attempt to distill our economic reality into two sentences. Here are the basics. In the USA alone, there is over $150 trillion in financial assets (2014 Wikipedia says over $190 trillion). Interest on those financial assets ranges from 1% to over 9% rate of return. Lets take and average of 5% interest on just $100 trillion of those financial assets, so $5 trillion in interest. How is a $22 trillion economy (2019- $21.427 trillion) growing at 3% annually supposed to pay $5 trillion in interest? Investments, according to our lore (propaganda), are made to create businesses and jobs, thus the productivity involved produces profits, from which investors are paid dividends. Except, that is not how it goes. Wealth long ago passes that critical mass where, with compounded interest, the dividends paid outgrew the productive economy. This in turn lead to financialized capitalism, which is supposed to make money . . . from money. Basically, the productive economy cannot sustain the need for profit, so finance capitalism (the FIRE Sector of the economy) started simply extracting all of OUR wealth. That is why housing and health care, to name two of many things we need to live, go up in cost so dramatically every year. The wealthy are extracting, or stealing, all of our money. Hence the schoolyard bully.
    2
  1082. I just changed my registration to democrat, only to support changing the party from within (Justice Democrats). In addition, I'm not buying that old story of "voting third party is a wasted vote" anymore . . . since forty years of voting experience has shown that choosing either major party has been a waste of my vote. The USA is nowhere close to what I expected as a young adult and is undergoing an extraction economy instead of a rising tide economy, that is proof enough for me that the established parties have to go.
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  1083. I am a Californian, a renter, looking for a new place because our landlords want to sell. We are trying our best not to be pushed out of the state, but the outlook is bleak. The problem is, "housing units" are considered "capital assets", that means that anyone can buy them. This is not going to change any time in the near future.
    2
  1084.  @robzombieshot  - I think you are correct about the corporate entities, but ever since the Supreme Court declared that corporations are people, they have expanded far beyond money equals speech for politics. Our entire system runs by expanding share holder value, and that share holder value has now expanded so far, that this years growth equals half of our GDP. This will not end until we outlaw corporations altogether.
    2
  1085.  @RWJames  - Well now, there are a whole lot of lazy turds who don't do any real work, yet they live off of checks full time. They get loads of free money and pay virtually no taxes. People who never lift a finger to earn money, yet they seem to think they know how to run everyone else's lives. 60% of all wealth is inherited and the other 40% do a fraction of the work an ordinary laborer does in a week. Wealthy people. The turds are in charge.
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  1086. Rodney Pratt - You are right on point Sir!
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  1087.  @Shadowcruise99  - You have it all wrong. There is no such thing as a "free capitalist society", every capitalist society ends with monopolization, plutocracy and oligarchy. I'm pretty sure what you meant is a "free enterprise society", but even then, unless you put a cap on accumulated wealth, a free enterprise society eventually devolves into financial capitalism which in turn devolves into monopolization, plutocracy and oligarchy.
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  1088. Enk Ryzov - What I am doing is neither ignoring or defending the actions of Antifa in the present, I am tolerating them. This is in the main because the right wing neo-liberal conservative right wing zealot politician has been wielding the political decision and legislative pen bestowed upon them by the people . . . . as weapons of mass destruction instead of using them to represent the people who elected them. When our representatives in government no longer represent "the general welfare" of the people who elected them into office and indeed turn against those very people, and when nefarious practices become embedded to the degree they cannot be dislodged because of the the powerfully wealthy holding them in corrupted servitude to corporations and predatory capitalism run amok . . . . . the reemergence of Antifa is the least of my worries and therefore something I will tolerate.
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  1089. loki the jokester - I am relieved that you misread, for a bit there I could not fathom why you were on the discrimination tack. I am appalled at the racism in this country, I really thought we had moved beyond that . . . my mistake. Racism is really a misnomer, we are all one race called Homo Sapiens. The fact that people are attacked due to their ethnicity is very juvenile, the people who engage in such tripe need to be marginalized. Whenever I fill out a form which asks about race, I always add a new check box labeled "terran, human, or earthling."
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  1090. Innocent people, especially a president of the USA, should welcome investigations that will clear their names. Only guilty people rant against investigations and call them "witch hunts" . Sure are turning up an awful lot of guilty witches!
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  1091. Whenever we hear about the economy (and it does not matter which mainstream media source), the reporting is always about stocks, the stock market and GDP. Not once have I heard about the $90 trillion plus in privately held financial assets earning over 5%, nor have I heard how that pile of wealth earns so much from a relatively puny $21.5 trillion annual economy. The numbers don't add up. However, with those numbers I now understand why there have been such massive bailouts from the federal government, because without the bailouts these "earnings" are simply not possible. The entire "IRA, 401k and pension fund investments" have been a scheme, a hustle, a con of the American people, a way for the wealthy to make accomplices of the American people as they fleece the wealth from us and our country.
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  1092.  @theflyingpotato5601  - Recommended that you read Michael Hudson's paper (link in previous post), in it he talks about credit/investments for land/agriculture and for the merchant class. You have part of the picture, what you need now is a more fully formed picture. There really is no escape in the modern age, credit is tied to wealth and debt, both of which grow faster than the economy. Therein lies the problem, in our current system we all go broke and one person ends up owning the earth, but before that happens we will be driven extinct as a byproduct of wealth generation.
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  1093.  nicki wilson  - I agree with your premise, "investment" is like gambling. There is absolutely no productive value being added to society. The problem is, this gambling is five times larger than our present economy and the government treasury has bailed out the gamblers three times in 20 years. The question, "how are you going to pay for it?", has lost all meaning, because we have recently seen how easily government trillions are coughed up to pay the gamblers winnings (first tax cuts then stimulus). This is how I know that we are close to, or over the line economically, which means that our economic system and government is teetering on the edge of losing legitimacy.
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  1094. True statement. Accumulated wealth is harmful to the economy, which can be proven using simple math. Using the figures for 2019 shows the harm, confirming your statement. Privately held financial assets (wealth) exceeded $90 trillion, with a average growth rate of 5% to 7% annually. The GDP for the USA was $21.5 trillion with a growth rate over 2018 of 4.1% for the year. The pile of wealth grew by $4.5 trillion (using 5% figure), while the GDP grew by $848.8 billion. If only 18.8% of the wealth growth was converted top capital gains. that would wipe out all the GDP growth for 2019. Accumulated wealth is cannibalizing our economy, eating us alive, and for no better reason than for the wealthy to have bragging rights. Enough is enough.
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  1095. Being well off is not a bad thing, but how much wealth do people actually need? Once one person surpasses earnings or wealth that puts them and their family beyond the need to work for a living, that is quite enough. It has been shown time and time again that people who pursue wealth beyond their actual needs and beyond a luxury lifestyle, those people are in pursuit of power. This has proven to be extremely bad for society and humanity at large. It is time for us as a society to put stringent limits on how much in earnings and wealth a single person or family can accumulate, because our history has shown wealth beyond that point has detrimental effects on society as a whole. Same thing for large businesses and corporations. It is against the best interests of society to let a company or corporation grow so large, that it starts to devour (as in buy up) other companies. Such behavior needs to be strictly limited or eliminated, for the common good of society. People who have talent and/or good ideas should be rewarded handsomely for their contributions to society. Those same people need to be trained that beyond their handsome rewards, their contribution to society also needs to include the excess wealth generated going back into society . . . to help fund other very smart people in bringing their contributions to society. This should be a civic duty, rather than being looked at as it is now . . . as theft of what a person has "rightfully earned". Besides, when you have so much money that it sits in investment accounts earning interest . . . can that money really be considered as something they have really and truly earned? The rate on return for billionaire investors is more than the GDP growth of entire countries. How is this helpful when those investment accounts help to periodically crash the economy?
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  1096. BattleshipAgincourt - Seconded!
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  1097. bluewater454 - Define poverty. Ok then, how is this. If My Lady and I suffer any single financial incident that costs $100 over our normal monthly household budget, we will not have any grocery money for the month. If we suffer any unanticipated cost over our normal monthly household budget of $500 or more . . . we will become homeless with no chance of regaining our footing. That kind of poverty is visual to us everywhere we look within our neighborhood, it is not just us. Screw your definitions, you are not helping to fix the problem with your equivocations. e·quiv·o·ca·tioniˌkwivəˈkāSH(ə)n/nounplural noun: equivocationsthe use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself; prevarication.
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  1098. bluewater454 - Does where we live have something to do with the economic plan you have yet to unveil? By the way, my own extensive research mirrors what BloodMoneyLLC has written in his latest comment. There is a failure to "come to grips" in the USA which I believe is purposeful and scripted, the entire country is being sold a "bill of goods" regarding capitalism and the economy. So if you don't like the socialist "utopia" plans for the economy, then get on with upchucking your own plan so we can see it.
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  1099. bluewater454 - Soooo . . . . you have no plan. What you have written in your latest comment was extremely un-helpful or in other words, useless. I was so looking forward to reading all about your solutions.
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  1100. bluewater454 - Your guess is incorrect. Within your guessing, you have made too many assumptions. The pattern of your assumptions are skewed by ideology, the imprint of which is obvious. You are also making assumptions about "dispelling myths before you can get to the truth". My world is engineering. I see social problems and economies in that context. The facts are pretty obvious to me, the current machinery involved has issues. Those issues can be mapped out, then they can be dealt with and repaired if the people involved act in a rational manner. Since people are highly irrational, engineers can deal with that element in their designs also. So far, you have contributed one item to my base of knowledge. For that I am grateful. However, you are being frustratingly obtuse when it comes to engineering a social/economic system that works for a majority of people. Relying on the mindless capitalism driven market forces has already provided more than enough evidence that it will not fit the aforementioned criteria. To say that such a system cannot be accomplished is simply rubbish. If you really step back and look at us humans closely, you can see the signs that some of humanity is trying to cast off technological adolescence and take the next steps in our evolution. The humans entrenched in our existing adolescence are fighting to keep us there. Clearly the more evolved humans will have to carry their backwards looking brethren unwilling into our shared future. That takes planning, and to ignore this imperative is to allow humanity to commit suicide. So you got it wrong. I'm not looking for a utopia, I'm looking to engineer a future society in which we survive and prosper. I have ideas based on engineering concepts that can work even with a disruptive adolescent segment fighting change . . . but lets not forget that I asked for you to put forward ideas. Please think outside "Wealth creation is a behavioral discipline" because that was not what I asked you about. You are the one stuck in that static time loop, it seems to be the only solution you have to offer. Break out of those limited confines and contribute something useful.
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  1101. bluewater454 - Please explain: "if you are interested in hearing about economic theories that eliminate the need for freedom and personal choices," This smacks again of predisposition, the inferred point is that obvious. Humans will always need freedom and personal choice, these are essentials built into any machinery applied to our future. I continue to belabor the same theme and it is tedious. What is your plan, what is your construct, what is your framework for a human society designed suitable to insure "the general welfare" and "insure domestic tranquility" of the majority of its citizens? The free market is a myth. Markets are essential within the machinery, yet none exist in a free floating self governing form. Unregulated businesses are harmful to society, every flavor of disrepute and greed is possible and inevitable. Therefor the "free market" does not truly exist nor will it ever exist. Markets are part of the machinery of human society, they need to be interpreted as such and no more. Same for business, private enterprise and commerce in general. Humanity is on the verge of doing the great things which are now possible, yet it cannot and will not do so with the current economic machinery. Time to evolve the machinery so that we can do those greater things. So here is another question for you: Is everyone in your family on the same behavioral discipline wavelength as you are? Or do you help out Aunt May and Uncle Ernie for the sake of family, because maybe they are not that disciplined? Is that not the purest form of "socialism"? You do help your family . . . yes? I would go so far as to say we are all very "socialist" at the bottom line. Seems to me that there is a wide variety of knowledge and disciplines within humanity, and only a few are solidly into wealth creation behavioral discipline. Of those who are, I have noticed a disturbing trend to not question how the wealth creation is actually taking place . . . it takes a great deal of "behavioral discipline" to ignore the negative externality cost issues which arise from "wealth creation" as a way of life. For most people, the social connections are far more important than wealth creation . . . rightfully so because we are social creatures. The "free market" and "wealth creation" aspects of our lives are actually an artificially constructed way of life, being forced upon society by those few who benefit. So what is your plan? I get the feeling you really don't really have one.
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  1102. bluewater454 - Try "Manifold Economy". So how about you stop diverting and instead answer my question, it was simple enough to comprehend after all.
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  1103.  Gunsandrosalina Padtwo  - Agreed. My main concern is that the propaganda has set about to get certain civilians with guns so riled up, that these civilians will be willing to initiate a "civil war" involving indiscriminate killing. This way the military can be sent in to "keep the peace" and in defacto fashion set up marshal law. By doing things in this manner, the military is coerced into willingly doing the oligarch's dirty work for them and those "working class men and women" of the military will feel they are doing the honerable thing.
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  1104.  Captain Deplorable  - From the contents of your comment, looks like you have betrayed your oath and do not know the meaning of the section of you oath that reads "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic".
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  1105.  @ronpage101  - No state will offer an escape, it is too late for that. I hope you understand that eliminating state taxes is a tasty bait, meant to lure and hook an unwary public. What happens after a state has reduced their income? It cuts funding and allows private interest to take over government run assets. Long and short, the tax bill for the state will be borne by paying higher costs to private corporations, for any number of previous government functions. This makes asset owners wealthy. Just this year, the value of asset ownership has increased by $9.9 trillion, in great part since government functions are being turned over to the "private sector". By the way, $9.9 trillion is more than 2/3's of our nations entire economic output for the year so far, all going into the pockets of already wealthy people. Are you are worried about what the democrats are doing in California? Worry instead about what all politicians are doing, because they don't work for us anymore. Just ask yourself, how is it possible that "profits" on asset values this year, is greater than 60% of our entire economic output? We were all set up, in a game where wealth grows faster than the economy. It is a rigged game, and also a house of cards.
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  1106. Force is already being applied by the wealthy to crush the rest of us. Accumulated wealth is harmful to the economy, which can be proven using simple math. Using the figures for 2019 shows the harm, contradicting your claims. Privately held financial assets (wealth) exceeded $90 trillion, with a average growth rate of 5% to 7% annually. The GDP for the USA was $21.5 trillion with a growth rate over 2018 of 4.1% for the year. The pile of wealth grew by $4.5 trillion (using 5% figure), while the GDP grew by $848.8 billion. If only 18.8% of the wealth growth was converted top capital gains. that would wipe out all the GDP growth for 2019. Accumulated wealth is cannibalizing our economy, eating us alive, and for no better reason than for the wealthy to have bragging rights. Enough is enough.
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  1107. Jay Rocket - Not endorsing Jill Stein kept Bernie inside the DNC infrastructure. Once again I will admit to something distasteful, I switched from I-Independent to D-Democrat on my voter registration. That was a tactical decision on my part, by adding my "mass" to the left direction of movement within the democratic party . . . the party infrastructure may be co-opted thus giving a great strategic advantage to the social democracy left. Even if this move were to fail, the failure itself will lead to something that in legal terms is described as "irreconcilable differences". Both outcomes are strategic victories for the left. By staying inside the DNC infrastructure, Bernie is doing the same thing that I am doing. Imagine the legitimacy that will come with the left democrats taking over the Democratic Party, or if the party splits Bernie would become the legitimate leader of the stronger splinter party (which I would join). That imperative is much stronger than any that would have emerged by supporting Jill Stein.
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  1108. Jay Rocket - When World War 2 leadership is studied, certain styles of leadership start to distill. Bernie Sanders is not a General Sherman type of leader and thus does not make his tactical or strategic decisions like Sherman would. Bernie Sanders strikes me as a General Eisenhower type of leadership person, one who can balance the distasteful necessities of dealing with a bad situation or people, with the strategic and tactical imperatives of furthering ones agenda. I've watched Bernie make mistakes in messaging or give answers to questions that seemed to me to be tactically weak. However that is not unusual for any dedicated representative, and I believe in Bernie's dedication to the general welfare of the people of the USA. His actions in supporting Hillary during the 2016 election were indeed distasteful, but at the time there no tactical advantage whatsoever in any other course of action. Indeed history is on Bernie's side, because the full story of what Hillary and the DNC perpetrated has come out into broad daylight. Now Bernie is free to maneuver without the encumbrances that might have attached to him if he had made any other decision . . . and he gets a boost in credibility in addition to his enhanced popularity. His actions during the 2016 election show true leadership genius and genuine courage, that is the type of person I want leading the USA as president.
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  1109. Tamila - It is apparent that you are both ignorant . . . and arrogant. Neither of those qualities add to your credibility . . . which at this point is negligible.
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  1110. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  1111. @Amy Mendez - How can Bernie win, when the American people let him down? Right now, you have 23 comments. Not a single one of these comments mentions anything important, because the American people have become stupid, can't focus, can't do simple math, therefore the American people force Bernie Sanders to dumb down his messages just so he can communicate with us. What is wrong with you people? Here is the whole problem we have in a nutshell: The 1% are consuming more than the economy can grow, they are our cancer and we ignore the treatment. Can't you people do basic math? We have a $20 trillion national GDP growing at 2.5% per year. The 1% have over $30 trillion in wealth, money demanding interest payments. Last time I checked, the milk toast S&P 500 index funds has averaged 9% since 1994. Even if we use a very nominal 5% interest rate, the 1% is consuming 7.5% of our ENTIRE national GDP. That is $1.5 trillion in free money going to the 1% every year, not including their huge Trump tax cut. Stupid people are forcing Bernie Sanders to talk about raising the minimum wage, free college, Medicare for All and what not . . . . because we are simply incapable of confronting our real issue. Left unchanged and unchallenged, the 1% will consume everything within 15 years. You want to do something about climate change? Well, you can't . . . not unless you deal with the 1% first. There is no system, man made or natural, which does not have limits. Without limits, everything blows up or dies another gruesome way. So why can't people get it through their thick heads that there must be a hard limit to wealth? This is the very definition of stupidity, when we cannot deal with the obvious and this is why Bernie Sanders cannot win.
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  1112. ​ @iceman1833  - Your Republican Senate has already turned this country into Venezuela and is the biggest supporter of socialism in history.
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  1113. Norman Keena - "We" have already started the work. In our district for the 2018 election, we voted out the corrupt republican and installed a representative who took no corporate campaign money. This is our way of prying Wall Street's tentacles off our Congress. We were not the first, the district next to us voted in their own anti-corporate representative in 2016. This movement will spread, because we now see how well corporate government "self-regulates". Worker productivity has risen 321% since Reagan, so why has workers income risen less than 10% in the same time? When basic living costs are X3 or X4 or even X5 times higher since Reagan . . . we now know that trickle down is really Hoover Up, and the scam is revealed for what it is. Regular folk cannot even make ends meet by carrying massive debt, and more people are realizing they have been economically conned due to the mountain of evidence displayed in their monthly bills. So yes, we are going to eventually shut down Wall Street. They are now an overgrown parasite on the real economy. Did you know in 1984 incomes from rents and dividends exceeded incomes from all wages . . . plus the "capital gains" of the 1% have now outpaced the profits from all companies and corporations combined . . . so Wall Street is cannibalizing the real economy to feed itself. So Wall Street is already extinct but simply does not know it yet. Amazon cannot deliver us from this corporate dystopia, but a New Congress can.
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  1114. Simple and elegant solution: Hard cap on individual wealth. Set the cap high enough to provide incentive, yet low enough to eliminate the power of the employer class.
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  1115.  @dove6069  - What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb.
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  1116. I think we just need to cap how much wealth any individual can accumulate. Reward those who do well or invent something cool, but never let them accumulate so much that they can over ride our individual votes or the common good for society.
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  1117. Thom hit the nail on the head two days ago with this summary: Worker productivity since Reagan has gone up 321%, while worker wages have risen only 1/10 of 1%. Meanwhile, the simple costs of living such as housing and energy have tripled and our Federal Treasury has been raided by private interests for trillions of dollars. We, as in you, I and the ordinary people of the USA must fight back. It is time for a Maximum Annual Income . . . . and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. That is the only way to fight what is happening, open ended profits are killing us. Personally, I think the wealthy oligarchy is taking revenge on us for the FDR New Deal . . . even though the wealthy never really suffered under the New Deal. Any reforms we get will be dismantled until we the people take away the tools used to dismantle reforms. Than means capping wealth and income, no two ways about it.
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  1118.  @MrHigherplane  - What you are spouting is oligarch propaganda. They have you by the nuts boy.
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  1119.  @reddoggie554  - In all sincerity I reply. Your last question answers how you feel about the first question, you feel that you control "your" assets. Depending on the status of your home ownership, whether you have a mortgage or not, how far along you are in your mortgage, depending on where you are within the home ownership realm/racket, lies the answer about if the oligarchy controls your home. My guess is that the oligarchy does control your home more than you do. As for the IRA, pension and bank account, the only control that you have is a perceived control. We all have seen what happens during financial duress, you lose control of those assets and their value, yet the oligarchs emerge from such crisis untouched or wealthier. This means the oligarchs control what you perceive as your wholly owned assets. Your mention of "state control" is a dead give away, a story marker in a mythology pushed upon you by the oligarchy as a means of control. Propaganda. Here is a truth, socialism and indeed communism is possible without state control of resources or the means of production. The role of the state in such a society is to provide a legal framework for commerce and ownership, not to exercise control.
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  1120.  @reddoggie554  - Thank you for the dialog, this is a good thing. I don't base my outlook on hope, I base my outlook on research. There is ample evidence to back up my statements in communities all over the world, you can also find this out if you look into the roots of our own economy in depth (which is where I started my research). I'm not compiling research for any purpose except my own illumination, not so much to educate others. However I feel the need to point out results that the research has made obvious, especially when attempts to muddy the waters are clouding our collective good judgement. Best regards to you sir.
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  1121. Kyle has this all wrong. Trump is doing exactly what Putin wants . . . this treaty covered intermediate range missiles, the ones that threaten Europe. Trump will turn a blind eye now to Putin as he threatens Europe, our allies, with the new generation of Russian nukes. Putin does not care, when Trump claims that Russia never honored the agreement, because anything to get the treaty gone is ok with Putin. The USA will not be in a New Cold War with Russia, the USA will sit on the sidelines as Russian plans to subvert democracy in Europe solidify. The plutocrats of the United States are very happy to have Putin take over Europe, meaning the USA is now Europe's enemy.
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  1122. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  1123. IronskullGM - I looked into your claim that the unions are against the Green New Deal. After reading several articles on the subject, I cannot say that you are lying . . . but you are being disingenuous. There was a letter written by two committee heads in the AFL-CIO, directed to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ed Markey, D-Mass. This letter was raising concerns, however this is not as you claim, "US trade unions just rejected the green new deal". The facts are these: The Green New Deal is not yet written legislation and it is highly improbable that unions would be left out in the cold during the actual crafting of the legislation. This is a knee-jerk reaction from two union representatives, not an outright rejection of the Green New Deal. The AFL-CIO energy committee heads Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, and Lonnie Stephenson, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers . . . are hardly qualified nor are they informed enough to back up their joint statement that "We will not accept proposals that could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families," . . . . . especially because their concern is premature. Furthermore, your response to Rodolfo Ferreita is full of propaganda bullshit and out right lies. If you don't stop presenting Fox Fake News propaganda as facts here . . . you are going to lose all credibility.
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  1124.  @jamesfournier9450  - Getting back to the gold standard is a good measure to take, the news I have been reading on the subject indicates that gold will need to reach a price point in the area of $20,000 to $30,000 per ounce in order to back currency in circulation. There is something else to consider that no one really seems to recognize, that all systems, including economic systems, have limits. We treat our capitalist system as if there are no operational limits, which seemed to work in the past just fine. However, with the advent of the modern technological age, we have surpassed or exceeded the capabilities of capitalism, which is now causing enough issues for the system to start malfunctioning. Don't get me wrong here, capitalism is a meaningful system which is still capable, but like any system it has limits. The limits being exceeded on on both ends, or on the bottom and the top. On the bottom end people do not have the capital to buy or rent enough. On the top end the exponential gains in wealth are both sucking wealth from the main body at all levels, akin to a virus that is killing the host. To fix capitalism, limits need to be installed at both the bottom and top end of the wealth spectrum, as well as fixing currency to gold, or to a basket of commodities. If capitalism is allowed to rev up continually from the point we are currently at, it will collapse.
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  1125.  @whysocurious7366  - One of the ways we ( regular people ) have been fooled over the past several decades is the lack of inflation applied to certain consumer goods. While the cost of housing, healthcare and education have skyrocketed, basic costs of bread, wine and home electronics have been relatively price stable. When considering your question, the first thought that occurred to me was the "gold hammer" and "gold toilet seat". When the government pays for something, the cost is possibly inflated to ridiculous levels, more than if the item was bought directly by consumers. This would lead to greater corporate corruption in my view. I keep harping on the grievous error in how the economy as a system is currently understood. No functional system has an open bottom end and open top end, yet we allow our economy to operate with both. As an example of a useful system, what happens if your car's engine RPM drops too low or revs too high? On the low RMP end, the engine dies. On the high RPM side the engine will burn up and die. Every system has upper and lower limits, but not our economy? Why? The answer is that an open ended economic system is built for the wealthy, and it always crashes (which serves the wealthy). People drop out of the bottom because the system cannot support them. The open top allows the very wealthy top drain resources from everyone else. The subsidizing of the 1% owner class companies is a direct result of the open top end, because there are no limits to wealth accumulation. However, it is a mistake to focus on the means of production as the problem source when the real debilitating root problem is the "money for nothing" "investment" scheme we have. The term "investment" is being deliberately misused, because real investment involves "risk and reward", while what our present system is simply "reward" (and exponential reward at that). If we are to solve the pressing problems of our age, then we must close off the open ends of our economy. Put a floor under everyone (M4A, UBI, Housing Guarantee, Free College, etc) and put a hard cap ceiling on individual wealth accumulation. If you were to look at the cause and effect of a wealth cap in detail, the ramifications of a wealth cap would be the solving of a great many societal issues and the ushering in of a new "golden age" for humanity.
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  1126.  @whysocurious7366  - I am totally in favor of workers owning and running the means of production. As in most things where critical decisions must be made in order to change the way we do business or politics, we must figure out which comes first . . . the horse or the cart. In the case of worker owned enterprises, those who own businesses now will never let go, so we are going to have to force the issue. There is one central focal point to all of our problems, which is that "wealth" prevents us from moving forward. This means we must take out the power arrayed against us, which means taking out wealth. Only when we eliminate the power of wealth will we get worker owned enterprises, nationalized health care, internet access as a utility, housing as a right instead of as an "investment", banking for the common good, the end of warfare generating profit and so on. We must focus on the real problem, which is "wealth buys power". I want individual wealth to be hard capped at perhaps $3 million, that number is high enough to live a life of luxury but not high enough to buy political power, which will prevent those akin to the former Koch Brothers from using excess wealth to alter our political and economic landscape.
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  1127.  @christinemusselman5499  - I have voted for Bernie in the California primary. Mayor Pete is just more of the same con job, because he stands for the same thing Bloomberg stands for: Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1128.  @vg7985  - Capitalism is already dead. Techno-Feudalism has arrived.
    2
  1129. Savage Jesus - If Trump were to try that, he would die in short order. Not all U.S. soldiers are trumptards and there are not enough of them to enforce any kind of military takeover of the country.
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  1130. The NTSB call this an accident, and the casualties were all on the garbage truck that was hit by the train. I think the republicans need to pay more attention to infrastructure without the public/private scams . . . and less attention to lining their pockets.
    2
  1131.    Agreed. Pelosi might as well be a republican, she and McConnell have proven that a "representative republic" no longer exists in the USA. We may not be the "United" States of America for much longer.
    2
  1132. This was never about illegal immigration. What the entire immigration narrative is about is this: Changing the subject from the wealthy squeezing 900 billion dollars out of the bottom 50% over the past 30 years. Immigration is a distraction tactic, nothing more.
    2
  1133.  @erickolb8581  - Wow, big man! Really now, you think I'm going out of my way to get in your way? Such bravado! You must really impress the ladies!
    2
  1134.  May Day  - There are simple facts that escape most peoples attention, even a majority of peoples attention, when a discussion or comment contains the words communism or socialism. Lets begin with this, except for scholars and an extraordinary few people who study these countries in depth, people here in the USA simply do not know what communism, socialism or capitalism actually are. Here in the USA, people are exposed to a great deal of propaganda regarding all three. This one is good, that one is bad. We have socialism here, existing side by side with capitalism. In recent decades, the meaning of socialism has evolved to mean something different than it did historically. So has the meaning of capitalism and free enterprise, but again, a majority of people simply don't know this. We have major media sources pumping propaganda, socialism and communism bad, capitalism good. The facts are that capitalism has killed equal or greater numbers of people in its history, but that is not generally known due to media manipulation. The facts are that capitalism has failed and since the government is run by capitalists, it has morphed into "subsidism" or "too big to fail", with the government guaranteeing growing profits even though these corporations should be dead. Money printing has replaced good budgeting, the velocity of capital is near zero, the economy is shrinking (the real economy, not the puffed up GDP numbers), and the wealthiest 0.01% will own all wealth in 35 years. What you, "May Day" are responding to with your comment, is outrage built up by propaganda, not facts, because that is what the wealthy want you to believe. Finally, a majority of people do no actual research, they just believe everything the media talking heads say, not understanding that they are being manipulated.
    2
  1135.  @baroneleve1196  - Are you blind? No tent cities in Texas? Wow, dude, you have really fallen for the scam. "Texas is doing amazingly well." Yes, we have all seen how "amazingly well" Texas has been doing. Here is yet another prime example of a brainwashed American. This guy has been soaking up oligarch propaganda for decades and this is the result. People in Texas have paid billions more for energy over the past several decades, all in the name of FREEDOM!, then massive failures because you fell for a line of bullshit about self sufficiency and deregulation. Apparently, "baron eleve" is not aware of the hustle, the big con, that he has been recruited to defend, the $47 trillion transfer of wealth to the 1% from all of us, over four decades. Part of the hustle has been to erode critical thinking skills to the point where millions would willingly give over their free will and property to defend the fortunes of billionaires, an erosion that "baron eleve" clearly demonstrates.
    2
  1136.  @redtra236  - There were at least four officers in the video. If officers do not resort to violence, they could easily control the scene.
    2
  1137.  @kennethdunbar1042  - Once again, there were no attacks on the officers. An attack is "an aggressive and violent action against a person or place". No attacks by students appeared on this video. None. All of the students behavior was reaction to police attacks, not the other way around. What troubles me is people like yourself, who do not see the officers behavior as egregious. If you think this is a positive or necessary way to handle children, then there is something wrong with you.
    2
  1138.  @wesleyhoulch1887  - Right back at you. " I can't help you if you don't recognize the possibility that you're wrong". Have you considered that your own bias is hindering your judgement? These kids know nothing about case law or police training, you can quote it at them all day after the fact, and it will not change the circumstances. With regards to the girl who spit at an officer, I don't condone what she did and I doubt if she was even aware the law considers that to be an act of aggression. She probably found out for the first time, after her arrest. I supervised my children's education all the way through high school, at no time was there any class or even after school program that covered how police are trained or what may or may not be against the law. Look, I am a parent. My children are grown, past college and have lives of their own. We never had issues like these, which are popping up all over the country right now. What has changed? Well perhaps it has something to do with the bleak outlook for these kids and their futures, if you think they are unaware of this, you would be wrong. Perhaps it has something to do with politicians who blatantly lie all the time, and get away with it. Perhaps it has something to do with the ever more sharply focused fact that we have a two tiered justice system, where the wealthy break whatever laws they please and get away with it, while the poor get put away for years for minor infractions. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact as this video starkly proves, the black student gets pepper sprayed and tazed, while all that happens to the white student who repeatedly gets into the officers faces is a stout shove back. The latter alone is clearly racist, these students were not being treated with an equal hand. What I am saying to you, is your close involvement with the establishment, such as it is, could be clouding your own judgement. "The normal reaction to OC is to shut your eyes and to cover your face. It isn't to rush forward in the direction of police." Why? Is that the only acceptable reasoning? I cannot say how I would react, but I can say that what that kid in the white hoodie did was not unusual when under attack. When you go through police training, assuming it is voluntary, you already have an outcome bias. The police get away with far too much violence these days and the judicial system seems to set things up to allow the police to continue using violence without accountability. I have seen how police shooting and killing citizens gets handled in our country, frankly it is sickening. Since 2014, there have been over 7000 of our citizens killed by police, you can combine the next half dozen countries by their own high rate of police killing and not match the number killed here in the USA. I am just getting sick and tired of this attitude toward violence being accepted, and I will not stop speaking out against it. If that means you feel you cannot then talk to me, so be it, but that kind of attitude solves nothing.
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  1139. santosamike - Too risky? So the events as they have unfolded over the past 30-40 years with the Feinstein's and the Clinton's were not risky enough? Wages stagnating and losing half their value on top . . . that was not too risky? Bailout and banking policy that extracts wealth from U.S. citizens like vampires . . . that is not too risky? Tax cuts that shifted the tax load from business and wealthy to the poor, that was what . . . sound policy? We need progressives like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, not corporate sellouts like Feinstein and Clinton.
    2
  1140.  @HermenusMora  - Trump directly profits from golfing, that should concern you also. Trump has played golf at least double the number of times Obama played golf, plus Obama NEVER played golf at resorts he owns, thus was never pocketing taxpayer money directly as a result of playing golf. Trump has cost taxpayers well over $120 million just for playing golf, pocketing at least half of that amount himself. I guess you just love corruption.
    2
  1141. No one died in this attack against Saudi oil refineries, because it was a SELF INFLICTED WOUND! No one goes to the expense of launching a missile attack without explosive warheads, which would have in the least . . . opened up those refinery towers like bananas, and more likely would have FLATTENED many of those tower and container structures. This attack was self inflicted by short range artillery rounds and the recovered missile parts were taken out of storage to show to a war hungry corporate media.
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  1142. What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day.
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  1143. Along with the break up of these companies, we need to put a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. This much and no more. Unless we cap wealth, the Monopoly Game rolls on and on.
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  1144.  @Jan_YTview  - Discretionary spending has nearly come to a full stop in the areas I deal in. I survey the classified ads in hobby related websites consistently year over year looking for trends. The overwhelming trend that I have seen over the past six months is that only the rarest and most valuable items are selling and all of those are selling at deep discounts. The classifieds are full of page after page of unsold items, even after the items are reposted with new lower prices. The recession is already here.
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  1145. No reforms or justifiable tax increases will be lasting until wealth itself is capped. The fulcrum around which all this evil rotates is Excessive Accumulated Wealth. The only purpose such excessive wealth is used for is the exertion of power, most notably to dismantle all reforms which restrain accumulated wealth. Once you have accumulated enough to maintain a luxury lifestyle for a lifetime, that is enough. It is not enough to raise taxes on the wealthy, we have been through this cycle many times already. We the People must cap wealth for everyone, it is necessary for our safety as a society.
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  1146. In your wet dreams, better hope you never wake up to reality!
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  1147. If the economy is sooooo good, why then has the Federal Reserve cut interest rates so much? When the economy is good, interest rates are supposed to go up, not down. In addition, if the economy was so good, why has there been an ongoing REPO operation going on since late September? Why is there such a liquidity problem with the banks? Additionally, what is this garbage about the economic gains made by the poor? Rents are going up more than 5% per year, health care costs continue to rise, yet we are getting no greater value from these cost increases. There is so much more about this economy that is faltering or failing, but I don't want to strain the poor republican brains too much.
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  1148. What a load of BS.
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  1149. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  1150. Want to blow your mind? Financial assets gained $13.277 trillion in 2021. That sum is equal to 66.98% of our entire GDP.
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  1151.  @AaronMinerRunicfire  - Your have the closest answer, so I am going to give you the credit for cracking this one. The simplified answer is: Over Accumulated Wealth. From that simplified answer, everything else springs. Look at this people: The economy is a system. Too much power breaks every system. Accumulated wealth equals power. Too much power in the hands of very few, over time undermines everything done for the benefit of the many. Every engine has a limit to its power. In the early days of steam, engines kept blowing up because they generated too much power or the boilers over-pressurized and blew up. To stop this, a limiter, called a governor was applied to the steam engine. A pressure relief valve was added to boilers. Both devices performed the same function, they put limits in place. No more explosions. So what is it that keeps blowing up our economic system? Too much power in the hands of very few. Wealth equals power. If we are ever going to have a better society, such as college education for everyone and the means of production put into the hands of the workers . . . then we must place a limit on accumulated wealth. To have never done this one simple thing, is the reason why "reforms" are always eroded. What we need to do if any reforms are going to hold is this: Pass a law that places a cap on wealth and ownership. This is the one thing that is necessary in order to make lasting change.
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  1152.  @boggisthecat  - How about if we get rid of the "elite" by putting a wealth and ownership cap in place? It is lunacy to have no limit on accumulated wealth. Look at Jeff Bezos. Currently he has $137.8 billion, slightly depleted after his divorce. If he buys several mansions, a fleet of expensive sports cars, a couple of business jets and sets aside the appropriate maintenance fund to support those purchases . . . he still has $137 billion. He cannot spend that amount in ten lifetimes . . . so of what use is all that wealth? Power. Bezos has an exaggerated power over all of us because of that wealth, not to mention the damage that wealth does to our economy through the mechanism of "rate of return". His wealth is so great that it sits in an account somewhere getting a rate of return. That one function of accumulated wealth is a danger to all of us because the productive economy is tapped out due to the demand for a rate of return on wealth. The only way the demand for rate of return can be met is through the hollowing out of the bottom 90% on the economic scale. Since 1989, the top 1% has gotten $16 trillion in new wealth, while the bottom 50% has lost $900 billion dollars. That $900 billion dollar loss is directly attributable to those with wealth accumulation demanding a rate of return on their wealth. This fact is well obscured, no one ever talks about it.
    2
  1153.  @JavierRamirez-lx4ev  - Both of those systems have been eroded, which is the path to elimination. I have three words for you: Glass Steagall Act, completely undone through the efforts of accumulated wealth. Look at what that one event did to us, brought us the Great Recession of 2008, from which we have never recovered. Oh. the top1% recovered . . . not the rest of us.
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  1154.  @traekas7228  - Your welcome. Use the knowledge . . . we must put accumulated wealth limits into law.
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  1155.  @aidenwhiting5131  - Bernie has never mentioned a wealth cap . . . that I know of. People might call us "commies" (I doubt those people really know what a commie is), however there is nothing about a wealth cap that is remotely "commie". My personal assessment is that a wealth cap should be in the $50 million range. That is plenty of money to live a complete lifetime in the utmost luxury, yet not so much as to allow people to gain power over more votes than the one they are legally entitled to. There is a plethora of positive cause and effect relationships that will result from a wealth cap, yet they have not been explored because most people never think about the problems created by accumulated wealth.
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  1156.  Jimmy Jazz  - We are agreed. There is no system in the universe of engineering that does not have a limit built in . . . so why do we not have a limit on wealth accumulation? We can all see the damage being done by accumulated wealth within our economy. That should be our focus point, everything else that we as progressives want done can be permanently built once a wealth cap is in place. Going after medicare for all, free college and $15/hr minimum wage first . . . is actually putting the cart before the horse.
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  1157.  @boggisthecat  - According to your example, Bezos could not have built his empire without the accumulated wealth of the existing elite. This still puts accumulated wealth at the top of the pile of destructive forces in our economy and society. Imagine a world where you simply could not accumulate more than $50 million in wealth, can you invision what kind of potential that could unleash for society at large? Large corporations would be required under such limits to place the entire company into the hands of its workers, and that is just one cause-effect relationship.
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  1158.  @AaronMinerRunicfire  - I see what you are saying, but you have to dig deeper. Those power asymmetries baked into our system . . . each and every one of them is defeated by a wealth cap. The root cause of those "asymmetries baked into our system", has has the over accumulation of wealth at its root. You are assuming that those with greater wealth under a wealth cap "will exert outsized influence on the political process and twist it to their own ends". Well then, put the cap low enough so that cannot happen. If you need further limits on the system, I am fully open to that. How low must we go with a wealth cap to eliminate the asymmetries baked into our system? I don't know, but the lower the wealth cap is, the more symmetry will overcome the asymmetries because we are looking at a distribution manifold. Once wealth hits the cap limits for one person, it has to spread out. That one physical property of the wealth cap will extinguish the capitalist and his power.
    2
  1159.  @imaseeker100  - Oh? I have done extensive research on our economy and not seen anything that resembles a wealth cap. Please . . . enlighten us.
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  1160.  @AaronMinerRunicfire  - Excellent comment! Well thought out and very much in line with aspects of my own thinking. I am sensing a bit of Professor Wolff's teachings in your presentation, at least I have learned what I know about worker co-ops by watching his videos. I'm sorry . . . but I am at the end of my day. I'll be eager to pick up your line of reasoning once I get some kip.
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  1161.  @boggisthecat  - You have a very astute point there, took me awhile for me to grasp onto your concept. As I told Aaron, I'm at the end of my day but I will gladly explore your line of reasoning after getting some sleep. Just could not help myself, had to check my computer before I turned in and found you two left some very interesting info. Very intriguing observations.
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  1162.  @AaronMinerRunicfire  - I wholeheartedly agree that excess accumulation of wealth arises from the rules we establish regarding property, which is why the wealth and ownership cap must be in front, rather than behind property ownership reforms. First off, I want to establish that private ownership is essential to our society if we want to maintain personal freedoms. Each person must have the lawfully established right to own their home, their car, their clothes, their tools. Everything that is personally used on an everyday basis and is held to be important to each individual person, is an item of individual private property ownership that needs to be protected by law. This lawfully established right of personal property ownership must not however, extend to property which involves the community and society. Here is a commonly accepted example, this aspect of property rights is already well established with respect to roads, with very few exceptions. This is because we communally use the roads, therefor we communally own the roads through our states. There are however private property rights which do hold sway over many aspects of communally used property, the use of which is arranged in such a manner as to disproportionately represent the interests of the owner over the community and society. The workplace is a prime example of a privately owned property which is essential to the community, it is also a prime example of lawfully established private property rights which disproportionately favors the individual over the community and therefor is is a rule that must be altered to favor the community over the individual. The problem that I have been forced to face head on is one of messaging. "boggisthecat" has an excellent point when referring to peoples beliefs. People believe in capitalism, not because it works in their favor but because they believe in the mythology that has been deliberately built up to surround capitalism in a protective shell. I am in complete agreement with most of what you have written, and I particularly enjoyed your snippet on the Mutualist "occupancy and use" rule . . . for which I am in full accord. The real problem we face when trying to change property ownership rules or the many other battle arenas such as "Fight for $15", "Medicare for All", "Climate Change", "Free College" and "Worker Co-ops" . . . is that although each one is important in its own right, the myriad of battle banners has the effect of diluting any effective central messaging and is subject to erosion attacks from the mass of accumulated private wealth and it attendant mythos, which are expertly wielded by legions of lobbyists as weapons against these needed policy changes. Therefor, if we are going to institute and maintain effective reforms to private property laws, we must have an extremely simple and very effective propaganda weapon of our own, something which is a vanguard behind which all other reforms form up to support the hardened tip of the spear . . . a propaganda weapon easily understood and able to be wielded by the masses. This is why I have chosen to focus my attention on the toxicity of hoarded wealth and the need to do something to eliminate it. Every line of inquiry I have made has its own unique path but they all arrive at the same destination, the over accumulation of wealth for the sake of power. A wealth cap and ownership cap is not the sole answer to the problems, instead it is the foundation and anchor point for the rule and law changes which must be made in order to save humanity. We must face the reality of our situation, unlimited wealth accumulation has lead us down the most dangerous path in our history . . . the end of organized intelligent life upon the earth. People need a banner and a war cry to rally behind . . . everything else comes after. That is why we must focus our attention on a wealth and ownership cap, it is simple and easy for the common person to believe in.
    2
  1163. True statement. Accumulated wealth is harmful to the economy, which can be proven using simple math. Using the figures for 2019 shows the harm, confirming your statement. Privately held financial assets (wealth) exceeded $90 trillion, with a average growth rate of 5% to 7% annually. The GDP for the USA was $21.5 trillion with a growth rate over 2018 of 4.1% for the year. The pile of wealth grew by $4.5 trillion (using 5% figure), while the GDP grew by $848.8 billion. If only 18.8% of the wealth growth was converted top capital gains. that would wipe out all the GDP growth for 2019. Accumulated wealth is cannibalizing our economy, eating us alive, and for no better reason than for the wealthy to have bragging rights. Enough is enough.
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  1164. Iran has done nothing but to respond in a proportionate manner to the aggression of the USA and Trump. This is all Trumps fault. Trump pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump put crippling sanctions on Iran for no good reason. Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's top general. zIran has done nothing to hurt the USA. There is no evidence that Iran has taken any hostile action toward the USA. Iran has a one million man army, while the USA has a few thousand troops in the area. This is their part of the world, which the USA is mucking around in. Graham is an idiot. Trump is a moron. Pompeo is a buffoon. These half wits are going to get us into a war that we cannot win, and all this is a diversion by Trump to get us to look away from his crimes in and out of office. Anything that Iran does is directly the fault of Trump and those who support him.
    2
  1165. Conservatives are only out to screw us. Worker productivity since Reagan has gone up 321%, while worker wages have risen only 1/10 of 1%. Meanwhile, the simple costs of living such as housing and energy have tripled and our Federal Treasury has been raided by private interests for trillions of dollars. We, as in you, I and the ordinary people of the USA must fight back. It is time for a Maximum Annual Income . . . . and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. That is the only way to fight what is happening, open ended profits are killing us. Personally, I think the wealthy oligarchy is taking revenge on us for the FDR New Deal . . . even though the wealthy never really suffered under the New Deal. Any reforms we get will be dismantled until we the people take away the tools used to dismantle reforms. Than means capping wealth and income, no two ways about it.
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  1166.  Dennis Walker  - Sorry Bud, its too late for you, you have ingested so much oligarch propaganda that your brain has been permanently damaged. Too bad you will never understand that oligarch's from the USA interfered so much in Latin American countries that it created a refugee crisis that drove those folk to seek refuge, yes even illegally, in a safer country. But go right ahead, keep accepting the lies they feed you, knowing the entire time that your enemies are right here with their boot on your neck.
    2
  1167.  @tapptom  - What do you mean when? They have already gone after us all, taking everything by increasing housing, health care and so many other costs just to satiate their greed.
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  1168. Tomato Pa - You are correct in virtually every assertion you make. Except you are also virtually incorrect in every assertion you make. On face value using your comments, it would seem that we voters just have to pack up our bags and go home, why bother attempting to change anything? It simply cannot be done. Yet we are seeing political evolution happening before our very eyes. The republican party has moved farther to the right over the decades. The democratic party has also red-shifted so far they have become republican. This creates a vacuum and you know nature abhors a vacuum, a vacuum that progressives are filling and will eventually make into a solid political party. Today's politics and economy in the USA converted to "gas powered aircraft engine parlance" . . . . The carburetor has been leaned out so much that the engine is stalling while the airplane is attempting to climb. Stalling and falling is the next step, no more flying until recovery. Political history tells the story of many turning points. We have been in a status-quo for decades and progressives are now putting a lot of pressure on the far right leaning establishment of both parties. The Powell Memo is still holding sway over the establishment duo, and the democrats are too afraid to change. The turning point is accelerating toward us, now unstoppable. Something will give way, I think it will be the democratic party. Now I'm switching metaphors into the physics realm. Light is both a particle and a wave. Metaphorically, humanity is both a particle and a wave. We have been stuck as a particle for a very long time, now our survival depends on transitioning to a wave. The approaching turning point allows us to make a choice, stay a particle or become a wave. If we stay a particle, the is a solid wall called mass global extinction in our path and we cannot avoid it. If we become a wave, we may still hit the wall and die . . . or we might reflect off the wall. If our chances are slim or nothing . . . I'll take slim every time. No more time for heads in the sand. I have lots of engineering and physics metaphors to describe our historical path, our economy and life in general. Right now we need a "manifold" change-out simultaneously for the economy and our politics. That means thinking outside the "double slit experiment" box. Now, are you going to help me with this new "manifold" design or are we going to keep playing ping-pong?
    2
  1169.  @lolk6331  - The problem is, having a respectful conversation will not change how these regular people vote. They cannot bring themselves to vote for a democrat, and they are convinced that republican politicians would never hurt them. Then there are the folks that vote republican because their family always have voted republican, nothing I can say to them will change their minds. There are also the folks that will simply not permit any discussion at all. While these folks themselves are not putting me in immediate danger, their attitudes and votes are putting all of us in danger.
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  1170.  Johnny Askari  - Every time you right wing idiots post about socialism having never worked in any country, you are proving absolutely that you are the illiterate idiots who believe the propaganda the oligarchs feed you.
    2
  1171.  @carolryan2419  - Oh my! Clutch your pearls a little tighter and hug that double standard.
    2
  1172. We need the Green New Deal. We are going to pay anyway, there is no avoiding that reality. Do what we do now and just pay for cleanup, Hurricane Harvey and Irma are costing U.S. taxpayers at least 250 billion, just for those two storms. That money brings us back to zero, makes us whole but does nothing whatsoever to counter the next hurricane. This amounts to knocking .07 percent out of the economy, just for the cleanup. This is not accounting for other effects, like loss of business. Those two storms cost us the equivalent of one third of our annual military budget, and that is just accounting for two hurricanes . . . not the fires or the flooding. We can easily afford two trillion dollars to make long term capital investment in the Green New Deal. Not to do so is short sighted and frankly . . . stupid.
    2
  1173. America First - More like America Last. Tell me something America First, why has the value of median wages dropped by over half in the past three decades for American workers? Is it because of the "stupid dems"? Lets see if you can actually answer my question. Same goes for all of the rest of you moronic republicans, can you answer that simple question? I'll tell you something, if you cannot answer the question, then none of you should ever vote again.
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  1174. artie lusk - In your dreams crybaby idiot, in your dreams. TurtleRump will be wearing orange prison garb for the remainder of his sad, sad life.
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  1175. artie lusk - Man you are an idiot. Here you are railing against the democrats, and to be fair they have done considerable damage to this country. But the republicans . . . they are all traitors who sold us out decades ago. Now they are allies with the Russians? The towering pile of ignorance on this comment page is astonishing. You people have no idea what has been done to the USA by the very people you support. What a bunch of lemmings.
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  1176. Mikes Glove - Says the traitor himself. Obviously you have no idea what a traitor is, otherwise you would send yourself away to save the rest of us. F-ing ignorant moron.
    2
  1177. TheGateKeeper2012 - And yet here you are proving that you are the greater Moron still. Sad . . . so sad.
    2
  1178. If you think republicans are so great, then you must also think the workers are doing wonderfully under republican policies, yes? Question then: WHY has the value of workers median wages been cut by over half in the past three decades under republican policies? Read the question and suss out its meaning before you answer. Charts will tell you that median wages are stagnant or have risen somewhat over three decades. So here is another question for you: Do you know HOW the value of workers median wages has been cut by over half in the past three decades? Everybody please feel free to chip in on these two questions. Lets see if you republican snowflakes can actually put your money where your mouth is.
    2
  1179. Whenever we hear about the economy (and it does not matter which mainstream media source), the reporting is always about stocks, the stock market and GDP. Not once have I heard about the $90 trillion plus in privately held financial assets earning over 5%, nor have I heard how that pile of wealth earns so much from a relatively puny $21.5 trillion annual economy. The numbers don't add up. However, with those numbers I now understand why there have been such massive bailouts from the federal government, because without the bailouts these "earnings" are simply not possible. The entire "IRA, 401k and pension fund investments" have been a scheme, a hustle, a con of the American people, a way for the wealthy to make accomplices of the American people as they fleece the wealth from us and our country.
    2
  1180. @Michael Kings - How can Bernie win, when the American people let him down? Right now, you have 45 comments. Not a single one of these comments mentions anything important, because the American people have become stupid, can't focus, can't do simple math, therefore the American people force Bernie Sanders to dumb down his messages just so he can communicate with us. What is wrong with you people? Here is the whole problem we have in a nutshell: The 1% are consuming more than the economy can grow, they are our cancer and we ignore the treatment. Can't you people do basic math? We have a $20 trillion national GDP growing at 2.5% per year. The 1% have over $30 trillion in wealth, money demanding interest payments. Last time I checked, the milk toast S&P 500 index funds has averaged 9% since 1994. Even if we use a very nominal 5% interest rate, the 1% is consuming 7.5% of our ENTIRE national GDP. That is $1.5 trillion in free money going to the 1% every year, not including their huge Trump tax cut. Stupid people are forcing Bernie Sanders to talk about raising the minimum wage, free college, Medicare for All and what not . . . . because we are simply incapable of confronting our real issue. Left unchanged and unchallenged, the 1% will consume everything within 15 years. You want to do something about climate change? Well, you can't . . . not unless you deal with the 1% first. There is no system, man made or natural, which does not have limits. Without limits, everything blows up or dies another gruesome way. So why can't people get it through their thick heads that there must be a hard limit to wealth? This is the very definition of stupidity, when we cannot deal with the obvious and this is why Bernie Sanders cannot win.
    2
  1181. All the problems in the USA are linked to accumulated wealth. We need to stop whining about what billionaires and corporations get away with, the only real solution is to place a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. No system, natural or artificial is capable of infinite growth, therefor we must recognize that wealth accumulation itself must have limits.
    2
  1182.  @WickedRibbon  - Very few do. I only found out because I decided to research about what was happening to our economy. Unless you dig, the truth remains hidden from us.
    2
  1183. Zoe Phin - Yours was a completely meaningless statement without context. Care to elaborate?
    2
  1184. Zoe Phin - Hahaha Really? Then you have not class at all baby!
    2
  1185. Coleen Spence - If these issues are not kept in the forefront by progressives. . . they will get paved over by the corporate media.
    2
  1186. Rent will always go up faster than wages, because housing is categorized as a CAPITAL ASSET.
    2
  1187. Not just a maximum wage, we need a wealth cap and an ownership cap. Private ownership and private property is fine up to a point, but to use Thom's example of Rupert Murdoch, the ownership of media outlets must be restricted. The only reason Rupert Murdoch is able to own so many media outlets and put them under the umbrella of Fox News is because he is a billionaire. Putting a wealth cap of $50 million in place eliminates the ability of the Murdoch's of the world to own so may media outlets. Furthermore, a corporation like iHeartMedia (formerly Clearwater Communications) must be restricted to owning no more then five radio stations, instead of the 855 radio stations it currently owns. This is a time when we must destroy corporations and make it explicit in the law that only real persons can own property and there must be a limit on what or how much can be owned by any individual or group.
    2
  1188. We have a minimum wage, now it is time to put a maximum cap on individual and family accumulation of wealth. I'm not talking about taking away all of our "embarrassed millionaires" right to earn those millions . . . but come on now, be realistic! How many of us has ever seen five million in earnings over a lifetime of working? If you earn $50,000 annually . . . the most wealth you could possibly accumulate over a working life of 30 years is 1.5 million dollars and that is only if you saved every penny and paid no taxes! If the rest of you folks are like me, I have no problem capping all family wealth accumulation for a lifetime at $50 million dollars with a 95% inheritance tax to avoid dynastic wealth accumulation. That comes out roughly at $1.75 million earned after taxes annually. Virtually every single problem facing us as a human society has its roots embedded in those very few of us who are morbidly wealthy. With the exception of asteroid strikes and possibly earthquakes and volcanoes, every single problem we have stems from accumulated wealth in the hands of very few human beings. Eliminate that morbid excess that with a simple wealth and earnings cap, then most of our problems will disappear and many others will find logical solutions that were being stifled by wealthy individuals who wielded power far in excess of the ONE VOTE they are legally entitled to.
    2
  1189. MidScream1 - Why are you pivoting? How many businesses I have started and my experience with payroll, taxes and regulations are not part of the discussion are they? Are you having a difficult time coming up with real information, so you are resorting to comebacks? By the way, of the one question you did respond to . . . your answer about housing and energy cost increases was incorrect. Labor costs have not gone up, wages are stagnant. Government regulations have decreased, not increased over the past 30 years . . . so duh, try again. You really don't know what mechanics are behind wealth creation, do you? So far, your answers and comebacks paint you out to be a fraud. Prove me wrong son, try harder.
    2
  1190. MidScream1 - Oh, you're talking about the Republican Tax Scam Law now. Also, what you really mean by "licensed CPA working in public accounting", is that you are a troll working for a right wing think tank. All your comments here and elsewhere show you doing your masters bidding, good job.
    2
  1191. Anthony D - Well . . . by Fox viewers standards . . . yes.
    2
  1192.  @donnawheeler2195  - You were the one who bought up the words "stupid" and "president" in one sentence, the inference was implied.
    2
  1193.  @madbro4803  - We (the USA) have been attacking Iran since 1953. All the Iranians have done is respond to our aggression. Learn your history.
    2
  1194. This math will blow your mind. Financial assets gained $13.277 trillion in 2021. That sum is equal to 66.98% of our entire GDP.
    2
  1195. Yeah. America loves Trump and family about as much as we love a face full of porcupine quills.
    2
  1196. FrankDrebinPoliceSquad - No, you idiot. Bernie uses the mechanisms that currently exist to sell his book. You morons seem to think because we discuss alternatives, that those alternatives already exist in usable form. If that were the case shit-for-brains, we would not be talking about these alternate systems, we would be using them.
    2
  1197. What astonishes me is the following: The top 20% because they have wealth, have gotten $2.75 trillion in free money in 2019. That is over 13% of the entire GDP. This mode of financial capitalism is unsustainable, not only is it creating record poverty here in the USA, it is literally poisoning our life giving planet. I'm currently 58 years old, born in 1961 and I have never been able to make it out of poverty regardless of my education and skill set. This economic model must end, capitalism can continue but only if a wealth cap plugs the gusher that makes so few people well off.
    2
  1198.  Jay McDanieL  - We will be incapable of solving most problems society faces, from homelessness to climate change, until we cap wealth accumulation. Maximum wage is a step in the correct direction, but like all reforms it would be undone by those with wealth over time.
    2
  1199. Metal Coasters - If you were to watch videos about the history of WW2 like "Battlefield: Season 2 Episode 2 - The Battle for Russia", then you can get a glimpse into Stalin. I've seen and read a great deal about Stalin, he was an absolute authoritarian dictator who executed every one he suspected may be a risk to his power. Yet at the same time he used the communist version of socialism to bring his nations forward in technological and economic progress at a pace capitalism could not match during his era. Eventually those systems broke down and produced to oligarchy Russia is today, I would attribute that setback to the failure of centralized government planning for the economy of the Soviet Union.
    2
  1200. Marco Rubio said it was not about the donors viewpoints, the donors were buying into his viewpoints. Well now, there is a pretty shiny coat of swamp slime all over Marco Rubio tonight. I'm pretty sure he enjoys having blood on his hands, he was the one who inserted the rider that derailed the risk corridors for the ACA. Who knows how many Americans have lost their lives due to this "principled" donor bait doing what he believes in. Please Florida, get rid of this slimeball. We here in California are taking care of voting out Devon Nunes, please get rid of your own nutter.
    2
  1201.  @FakingANerve  - The better question is: Why do we need the wealthy? They will always screw things up for the majority, history shows this to be true without exception. This time, if we even have a chance to make changes, we must bring the wealthy down to our level, thus eliminating the most destructive "class" of human beings. If we do not or cannot, they will cause our species extinction.
    2
  1202. Dan G - Pay no more mind to this AslapOF Reality . . . . he is a troll with an empty profile. When you get someone like him doing the kind of rhetoric shown here, be suspicious that you are being trolled.
    2
  1203. We in the USA cannot avoid fascism unless and until we recognize what is causing this phenomenon in the modern age. The lead up to fascism is the real story behind this "winning" economy, which never gets told. Here I will tell the story in parable. Its really simple, a 500 pound man is sitting on the head of a 200 pound man. While the 200 pound man goes to work every day, the 500 pound man does nothing but sit on the 200 pound man's head. The 200 pound man works hard and gets a 2.5% pay raise for the year. At the end of the year, the 500 pound man demands 10% of the 200 pound man's gross pay and all the raises in pay. The 200 pound man pays the demand every year without question. The cycle continues without end. In this story, the 500 pound man is the financial assets of the top 20% in the USA. The 200 pound man is the U.S. economy. The top 20% skim at least $2.5 trillion from the U.S. economy every year without lifting a finger to actually earn that money. They call it "investing" in the economy, but taking all GDP gains plus 10% of the total GDP by calling it "interest", or "rate of return", well I've got another name for it. It's a racket. This is why we have Trump and the fascist MAGA crowds at his rallies. Until we are willing to recognize this, we are doomed.
    2
  1204. We need to take back our government by not voting for republican or corporate democrat candidates for office, period. If you take campaign money from lobbyists, you are done. If you take campaign money from corporations, you are done. If you take campaign money from billionaires or wealthy interests, you are done. No more donor class, vote for campaigners who run on small donations from individual voters. We have to look past all the expensive media ad commercials and concentrate the candidate who is not being heard, we can find out who they are in our local area via the Registrar of Voters offices.
    2
  1205. Agreed. Greece did not have debt until the oligarch's in the central banks targeted Greece for lending that was not needed. This is what happens when hoarded cash seeking a rate of return cannot get needed rates of return from investment in production, the banks turn to cannibalism to provide returns. The USA has been under a wealth extraction model to create rates of return for morbid wealth holders ever since Reagan, with wealth creation by dispossession following as a close second.
    2
  1206.  @glennv6804  - Yes, we are free to become even more exploited at our next job. That line, "you are free to find another job", is a propaganda holdover from the 1960's. The least you can do is update your gas-lighting attempts, you know, like, make them more contemporary.
    2
  1207. Given what we just learned about Trump cleaning out the White House and State Department of people who would not "play ball" in the Ukraine Biden "investigation" scheme, it would not surprise me if same pattern will develop in every arena attached to Trump and his schemes. We will know for sure when Fox News continues to clean house.
    2
  1208. MAGA = Mueller Ain't Going Anywhere! Get over it republican maggots!!
    2
  1209. I don't know why Americans go completely silent when I bring up the following: Forget about the tax cuts. If the 1% were to be paid just 2% on the accumulated $30 trillion they have but are not spending, that interest payment would completely overwhelm the entire 2018 GDP gains of $560 billion. 2% interest is nowhere near the actual amount of interest (free money) the 1% are piling up at the expense of our national economy, because S&P500 index funds have been paying over 9% since 1994. We simply cannot have $30 trillion chasing a "rate of return" in a $20 trillion annual economy without depressing wages or increasing cost on housing and health care (just to name two). Where is the outrage?
    2
  1210.  @gustavgnoettgen  - What? As in they cannot do math? Cannot comprehend the enormity of it all? Even the Treasury has released numbers in August of 2019 that show all wealth will be in the hands of the top 10% in 33 years. What is so difficult to understand about this?
    2
  1211.  @maidenthe80sla  - Nice comment, very observant! Too many people actually fall for these "divide and conquer" tactics, not even realizing that they are not the ones winning from these tactics. Strikes me that most people have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . do people enjoy being used like toilet paper? Blue or red, makes no difference, they all have the same masters, which put a lot of money and effort into confusing people. I don't agree that the rich are complacent, they are the ones funding these media narratives, which means they are focused and driven to accomplish their goals. We need to stop fighting and hating each other and look at who is paying the bills for these kind of narratives, because they are the true architects of our discomfort and there must be a reason why (a reason that is not good for all of us, which is why they want to redirect our attention).
    2
  1212.  @miastrong151  - Funny, I thought the name of this country was the "United States of America". Have you ever given thought to why so much effort is spent trying to divide us? Hmmm?
    2
  1213.  @miastrong151  - You should really examine your statement in detail. There is not a single fact supporting your statement, however there is busloads of propaganda telling you that what you wrote is true. Do you remember what happened to Germany from 1943 to 1945? The ruin of that country was brought on by people listening to, and believing in, the propaganda generated by madmen. The same is true here in the United States today. United we stand, divided we fall.
    2
  1214.  @miastrong151  - Why are you diverting to another subject? You are very Strong indeed. Three comments, lots of sideways insults, not once directly addressing why this division is being sown. That takes dome deliberate thinking and decision making. Why not turn that brainpower toward seeking common ground with your own countrymen?
    2
  1215. The architect of our current system was a Supreme Court Justice, Lewis Powell. In 1971 he submitted the now infamous "Powell Memo" to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce . . . both the republicans and the democrats have been using the Powell Memo ever since as a blueprint for the corporate and business takeover of the U.S. government. The Powell Memo: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/ Read it if you want to understand what is happening here. Lewis Powell used fear of socialism and communism to galvanize businesses into taking over our government. The Powell Memo has done more harm to us than socialism ever could.
    2
  1216.  @sensible1163  - Too many people actually fall for these "divide and conquer" tactics, not even realizing that they are not the ones winning from these tactics. Strikes me that most people have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . do people enjoy being used like toilet paper? Blue or red, makes no difference, they all have the same masters, which put a lot of money and effort into confusing people. I don't agree that the rich are complacent, they are the ones funding these media narratives, which means they are focused and driven to accomplish their goals. We need to stop fighting and hating each other and look at who is paying the bills for these kind of narratives, because they are the true architects of our discomfort and there must be a reason why (a reason that is not good for all of us, which is why they want to redirect our attention).
    2
  1217.  @elainejohnson6955  - There were three Koch brothers, now they are two.
    2
  1218.  @elainejohnson6955  - Hey, you decided to get picky and prickly about the details, instead of supporting accuracy and truth in the OP's statement. Koch, the Mercer's and all of that ilk are the true radicals when measuring against the general population. Why are you so interested in changing the subject?
    2
  1219. @Mrs Poulter - You are one of those people who have been successfully programed to believe something false. The1% do not create jobs. Look it up.
    2
  1220.  @ThomasStuart  - No one needs $100 billion. When someone does have that kind of capital, it gives them the power to use propaganda and money to change our politics, giving them far more than the one vote they are legally entitled to. We need a hard cap on individual wealth to protect our rights and our one vote.
    2
  1221. Trump is setting the stage for civil unrest so he can declare martial law and disband the Congress. This is the dictator playbook going way back, for anyone who studied the history of wars the pattern is obvious because it has been done many times in the past.
    2
  1222.  @gfarrell80  - I'll look them up. Meanwhile in the same vein, John Perkins book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" outlines the post WW2 conquest of 3rd world countries for the United States Empire, the CIA and State Department working with the IMF and American corporations, to subjugate and subordinate smaller countries with resources to the USA.
    2
  1223.  @gfarrell80  - Now if only the people of this country had heeded Eisenhower's words. However, the wealthy were hard at work, creating fear of the communists and other divisive distractions. The job has been done well, Americans are divided and fighting each other, while the wealthy pay little mind except for the periodic self satisfaction seeing their plans working so nicely.
    2
  1224. Pro Libertate - The U.S. healthcare system as an industry is nothing but unbridled capitalism. Why is that hilarious?
    2
  1225. Pro Libertate - Regulations written by conservative republican lobbyists for the U.S. healthcare industry, for the purposes of benefiting the U.S. healthcare industry. Oh yes, that is a real imposition. Other regulations are written by liberal democrats for health and safety reasons to protect citizens, because without those regulations the U.S. healthcare industry would gladly put citizens lives at risk for more profit. So yeah . . . it is unbridled, as in out of control capitalism.
    2
  1226. Pro Libertate - Looks like you are just plain old wrong, about everything. Time to rethink your life's choices! un·bri·dledˌənˈbrīdld/adjectiveadjective: unbridleduncontrolled; unconstrained."a moment of unbridled ambition"synonyms:unrestrained, unconstrained, uncontrolled, uninhibited, unrestricted, unchecked, unmufflered, uncurbed, rampant, runaway, irrepressible, unstoppable, intemperate, immoderate
    2
  1227. What I have seen so far, suggests that the George Floyd murder and the subsequent property damage during the Minneapolis protest over the following days, was a coordinated effort by white suprematism movements embedded in the Minneapolis police department and the White House. Trump needs a diversion from his abject failure of a presidency, and a way to kill more black, brown and poor people by state sponsored violence, and through more infections with the Covid-19 virus. The provocative killing of George Floyd was done on purpose, in order to provoke a response from minorities and the poor people who are suffering economic devastation because of the federal governments failure to help the population, and to divert our attention from the aggressive Wall Street and corporate looting of the federal treasury that just took place, using the CARES Act as cover. The final goal is to upset the 2020 election so that Trump can maintain his freedom, because when he loses the election, he, his family and his entire Cabinet will be going to prison.
    2
  1228. Rusty Hill - Ignorant and stupid I see. You are correct that Americans are not as stupid as some might think . . . but that certainly does not include you! If you love the Liar in chief so much, you can be his next wife. You already lick his boots and he really digs that!
    2
  1229.  Frederic Bastiat  - "owm me noney"?????? Yup, sounds like a moron!
    2
  1230. He did mention Ed Schultz's death in his radio show today.
    2
  1231.  @smokerx893  - The Great Red Brabgus is still trying to dig his way out of mountains worth truths you dumped on him. Kudos man, good job.
    2
  1232. Well stated. After the 1971 Powell Memo, business leaders sought to take over all establishments in the United States, education, government and media, to save us from socialism and communism. Look at how they have ruined the economy for the majority over the past forty years, and with Covid-19 they have shown us with stark clarity that the market will never prepare for anything that does not involve a profit.
    2
  1233.  @geogeo4139  - You have been conned. Get a brain will ya!
    2
  1234.  @macgeek2004  - For those who have the slightest interest in saving themselves and this country, you must understand the implications of two words: Financial Assets. The amount of financial assets out there is staggering.Try to wrap you head around this. Take a sample size of $100 trillion in financial assets and set aside just the interest gained over one year in a separate account. The interest gained over one year on that smaller account would be 3.3 times larger than all of the economic gains posted in 2019. Even that tiny sample is hollowing out whatever economy there is, so just think about what that larger $100 trillion account is doing. The wealthy are dependent upon your ignorance of simple math. Their wealth passed critical mass decades ago and even the global economy cannot support their capital gains. That is why these "bailouts" keep happening, the wealthy are parasites. The economy stopped being profitable enough to pay "interest" on their investments long ago. The only solution to this is to stop allowing unlimited wealth accumulation, but as long as people don't look too closely and fail to realize our economy is being hollowed out, the looting will last indefinitely. This is why there will be an all out war against the establishment in this country, if there is any possibility whatsoever of saving the country.
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  1235.  @javieremoya  - I also appreciate civil discussion, and I do appreciate your candor. I am 58 years old and until I was 55, I thought I was up to date on national, international, and economic events. Turns out, I was not. For the past three years I have been doing some pretty deep research, at first it was just into the economy of the present, but the research took me back decade by decade until I was into a time period around the first world war. Just so you know, the Great depression was a direct result of both industrial and financial deregulation brought on by the three republican presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. In addition to deregulation (which brought on rampant speculation in the latter half of the 1920's, leading to the crash), Hoover tried to help the economy through tariffs (sound familiar?), which failed with disastrous results. Right after FDR was elected, he had to choose from three alternatives. 1) a workers revolt, which could cause the USA to go the direction of Russia, 2) allow the USA to follow a fascist path by melding the government into business interests, or 3) try the new Keynesian economic model where the government became the employer if business was unwilling or unable to employ the population. The corporate and wealthy interests were so unhappy with FDR's choice, they tried to overthrow the government (The Butler Rebellion of 1933) and assassinate FDR. The attempted coup d’état participants included the DuPont's and the father and grandfather of our Bush presidents, Prescott Sheldon Bush. I am going to differ with you over being in a desperate time. Right now, the top 20% of the global population owns 94.5% of all wealth. There is no room now to grow, because the bottom 80% has no money to spend in order to grow the economy. Furthermore, in the USA the top 20% hold so much in financial assets, just the interest paid to them is over 13% of GDP, which is far greater than GDP growth. To put it another way, the top 20% are stripping wealth from the bottom 80% just in order to get "free money". Just to illustrate how unsustainable our present course is, take one penny at 5% interest from the time of Jesus Christ to the year 1750, the result would be 150 earth size globes of solid gold. What we are doing now with the economy will ruin us all. With regards to guns, you must look carefully at the wording of the 2nd Amendment. It says nothing about firearms . . . . and what it does say are the words "well regulated". The founders had never seen a repeating rifle, nor a cartridge or even a bullet, because those things had not yet been invented. They had muzzle loading muskets and pistols back then, one shot per barrel and the projectiles were balls, that is where the word "rounds" came from. The 2nd Amendment has been bent out of shape, mainly because by doing so, it diverts attention away from other, more important issues. As a gun owner, I want well regulated ownership laws, including passing a mandatory safety exam and I want gun owners to be licensed, just like how we are licensed to drive a car. None of that is unreasonable, and all of it will cut down on the one million who die every 25 years in the USA from guns.
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  1236. Whenever we hear about the economy (and it does not matter which mainstream media source), the reporting is always about stocks, the stock market and GDP. Not once have I heard about the $90 trillion plus in privately held financial assets earning over 5%, nor have I heard how that pile of wealth earns so much from a relatively puny $21.5 trillion annual economy. The numbers don't add up. However, with those numbers I now understand why there have been such massive bailouts from the federal government, because without the bailouts these "earnings" are simply not possible. The entire "IRA, 401k and pension fund investments" have been a scheme, a hustle, a con of the American people, a way for the wealthy to make accomplices of the American people as they fleece the wealth from us and our country.
    2
  1237. War is a racket indeed. As regular Americans, we have a real emergency on our hands. The 1% have over $30 trillion and using the most conservative interest payment of 5%, the 1%'s interest payments are 3 times greater than 2018's total GDP growth . . . . this is an urgent freaking emergency no one talks about. 2018's GDP increase was $560 billion, but just the interest alone on the 1%'s wealth was over $1,500 billion. That extra $1000 billion (1 trillion) is coming directly out of the 99%'s pockets in the form of increased costs for basic living needs. Every time the corporations raise prices an ANYTHING, it is to provide a rate of return on the 1%'s wealth. Wealth accumulation of this magnitude has only one outcome . . . the end of democracy. Get you priorities straightened out, we need to put a freaking hard cap on wealth accumulation or kiss our democracy goodbye.
    2
  1238. I only clicked on this video to read some of the comments. What I see here is massive projection. Virtually everything the left is accused of here, is exactly what the right does every day, out in the open. Nice to see that the right is so flexible, you have twisted yourselves into pretzels in order to agree with this blatant propaganda. This is all about wealth folks, and the means used by those who have it, to continue growing it exponentially. They use you folks as their protectors, their guardians. Yet nothing grows forever. Either wealth will have legal limits one day or humanity will go extinct. Those with the wealth use it to take power over our politics, and therein is the rub. Going extinct is intolerable, so those with wealth will smear anyone who finds unlimited wealth growth intolerable, and you folks buy directly into the smears. This video is not about tolerance or intolerance, it is a recruitment tool to get good little soldiers to protect the "right" of the wealthy to keep growing their wealth by extracting it from everyone else. Period.
    2
  1239.  @Repdem  - How? Good question. It will be a multi stage effort, beginning with us regular citizens being able to recognize the problem. The first issue involves the math of finance. I'll set the stage with the following set of facts: Our economy has grown at an average pace of 2.56% annually over the past thirty years. Economist's like Mark Blyth have said that unless "investments" pay more than 5%, you might as well burn you money in the back yard, so we can use that 5% as a baseline for "rate of return". Wealth takes many forms, so I am going to focus on "financial assets". In 2019, privately held financial assets exceeded $90 trillion. The economy of 2019, by comparison is much smaller at $21.5 trillion. Investments are supposed to earn their rate of returns from the real economy, so the question is this, how does a huge pile of wealth ($90 trillion) make 5% interest from a much smaller economy ($21.5 trillion) that only grows by 2.56%? Here are the real numbers. In 2019, the economy grew by $848.8 billion. Financial assets grew by $4.5 trillion. If only 19% of the value growth in financial assets we cashed in as capital gains, it would wipe out ALL economic gains for the year. The "real economy" cannot pay these huge economic gains, this is why we have had three huge banking "bailouts" from the federal government over the past twenty years. Our economy has been rigged like a huge Monopoly game, at this rate it will only take 12 to 15 years before all wealth is owned by the top 10%. Understanding this fact is the first step. Unless we want to become serfs in a new feudal system, we must understand how our current finance system is set up and we must tell all our friends and neighbors. The next stage involves our vote. We cannot keep voting for the person with the most campaign money. In the primaries, I vote for the person who raise the least amount of campaign money, if they have a decent campaign platform. We must all do this, or wealth will always select our politicians. There is more, but these are the first two stages. We ordinary people must understand the finance trap, or we are doomed.
    2
  1240. Jennings644 - Wow, you really are brainwashed. Too much Fox news my friend!
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  1241. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1242.  @adamt1828  - The first step in what you describe is awareness of the tax code. I shepherded my daughters through their education through college, and nowhere in the curriculum was there any mandatory courses which concerned themselves with the tax code. This is not a mistake or an oversight, which means that the wealthy want an ignorant population. Furthermore, modern "asset investment" is a Ponzi scheme which relies on theft of wages and wealth in order to grow. To participate in "accumulating more wealth" is to steal from your fellow citizens, why do you think homelessness and property crimes has become such an issue? Really now, what you are really saying while trying to be educational, is that you support a system designed by the wealthy, that is the sole cause of so many of our current social ills. Still feel good about it?
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  1243.  @adamt1828  - How can I take you seriously when the first thing you write is that "the government" wants to keep people poor? That is an oligarch talking point, pure distilled propaganda. The federal; government at the level of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Executive branch, all of the Cabinet posts and all the agencies that report to the executive are owned by the wealthy. Case in point: Biden was selected, not elected, because the elites could not allow Bernie Sanders to become President (they made a winner out of a clear loser). Our local District 10 representative's campaign was paid for by maximum individual donations, i.e., the top 1%. No one else could get close because of the campaign money gap. This recipe is repeated through every district and with very few exceptions, the moneyed candidate always wins. Every Senator with the exception of Sanders and Whitehouse are bought and paid for by moneyed interests, not selected democratically. As for my "unsound theory", it is born out by research. Our economic system is akin to religion, having little to do with any sound scientific principles. Case in point: name one thing in the natural world, living or not, that is capable of infinite growth without entropy. Just one. The free market is a myth. Rugged individualism is a myth. Just because you bought a bill of goods, that greed is good and theft is the order of the day, does not mean that rational people must also believe that garbage. Freedom is a myth. You my friend, are fully indoctrinated, doctrine being the key word here (noun: a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a Church, political party, or other group).
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  1244. Cue 1st Amend - Please feel free to copy and paste my comment on other sites, I originally wrote my comment for another video comment section but after seeing this video of Thom Hartman . . . I felt it was critical to post it here. Please spread this issue as far and wide as possible, it is critical for Americans to know this. I was originally made aware of this situation on the Stephanie Miller Show with guest Malcolm Nance when they mentioned this case. I looked it up and found the article from The Atlantic, the link to which I posted with my original comment. After reading the article, I was very alarmed . . . especially with the involvement of Orin Hatch. These republicans are working very hard to destroy the Constitution, their motives are outside of my structure of morality but I can only attribute their motives to a callous disregard for the lives of their fellow human beings. Here is the link to the Stephanie Miller Show segment I references with Malcolm Nance:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWMh2Txkq3s
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  1245.  @lesliestenta3084  - Thank you, that was the most intelligent reply I've read here today. Most people never look and are unaware that the 1% are looting the country and have the money to buy propaganda that sets us against each other. Antifa/BLM, Marxism and pallets of bricks, the reek of propaganda is thick here. Thankfully there are people like yourself who understand what is really happening to us.
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  1246.  @adamt1828  - I can applaud your decisions and efforts. However, your financial literacy is faltering when you claim that investing is not a ponzi scheme. Do you know the difference between industrial capitalism and financialized capitalism? The former is a necessary for a productive economy, while the latter is a ponzi scheme. You did not entirely "earn" that 100k in net assets, a portion of it was stolen from renters and workers all across this country. That is the way the financialized economy works, by "investing" you have become an accomplice to wage and wealth theft.
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  1247.  @adamt1828  - Care to reconsider your answer? Why only the back woods and Alaska wilderness? Wandering freely denotes not being restricted to back woods or the wilderness of a detached state. You have not actually answered my question, because it had two parts. "Is it possible in this day and age for an American to wander freely, go where one will and live off the land as our ancestors did?" "Or, do we rely on a human built economy to survive?"
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  1248.  @adamt1828  - They have a choice? Really? Your examples are false. How many workers today have the "choice" to own a home over renting? Really now, how many? And of those who cannot own a home, why not? Do people really have a choice to work for a company or to work for themselves? No. Because what you are expressing is a "right" to rent or own, not a choice. What you are expressing is a "right" to work for a company or to start their own. There are no such rights, therefor that "choice" you are talking about does not really exist. Care to rethink your reply?
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  1249.  @adamt1828  - So, if I can live anywhere and live off the land . . . poppycock. The land is partitioned into private parcels, so I can't live just anywhere while gaining sustenance and shelter from the land. This entire country is parceled up, so if half of the population wanted to live off the land, could they? After all, that is their choice, right?
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  1250.  @Mrbfgray  - Is there a reading comprehension problem here? You did not answer the questions, but you did offer "smart and tough enough". What about someone with asthma? Or a child? There are people who are homeless now and that is considered a problem by most, but they are living off the land and in most places that is illegal. Why? And how about answering my questions in good faith: "Tell me something. Is it possible in this day and age for an American to wander freely, go where one will and live off the land as our ancestors did? Or, do we rely on a human built economy to survive?"
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  1251.  @adamt1828  - The point is being missed by a wide margin, perhaps intentionally. The answer is no. It is not possible in this day and age for an American to wander freely, go where one will and live off the land as our ancestors did. To wander freely. This is not possible due to partitioning. Wandering freely will bring an American into direct conflict with private property owners. The second answer is yes, we rely on a human built economy to survive. The problem with both partitioning and the need for a human built economy for survival, lies in how both the partitioning and the economy are organized. Mr. McGillacutty brought up compounding, which is a mathematical process, not an economic process. All economic processes grow, then level off, then taper down. By imposing an unnatural formula to our economy, one of infinite growth through compounding, most people will be bound into debt peonage. Both yourself and Mr. McGillacutty have chosen to ignore this detail, however math does not lie. The sum total of financial assets are growing exponentially, at a faster pace than our GDP, and currently have five times the mass of our GDP. The inevitable result is fewer and fewer people owning all capital assets. Everyone else gets lifelong debt. Just because a few people escape this does not change the aggregated result. This is not an economy that can support a society, the numbers don't lie. Financial asset gains equaled 49% of GDP on 2020, and 66% of GDP in 2021. It will be 88% of GDP in 2022. Once the annual growth of financial assets reaches over 100% of GDP, everything you claim is possible now, will be impossible from that point forward.
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  1252. Pete - Good! Keep paying attention! Really, I do understand the cynicism because the way things have played out it is natural to feel that way. In another comment thread I and two others are trying to construct a path to a money-less society. Anyone interested in this type of intellectual endeavor?
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  1253. MC - Cool! and Thank you for the links. After I look them over I'll be back to comment on what I absorbed. Meanwhile, could not agree more with you about the food production capability, the waste inherent in the market capitalism distribution system, and that lack of concern for human health. When I listened to Paul Ryan address the questions of a catholic nun about caring for the poor, his answer to her just reeked of everything you mentioned concerning the lack efficiency with the monetary system . . . and the corrupt nature of it as well. That nice life free of deprivation IS doable right now, hope to discuss more about that.
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  1254.  @jonathanmcentire970  - Working from the present to the past, just off the top of my head. Over the past year almost half a million died of Covid-19 when most could have been prevented, except that capitalism's demands on the economy over rode prevention. One million preventable gun deaths every 25 years. One million, six hundred thousand preventable deaths over the past forty years due to our for profit health care system. Half a million deaths in the past decade due to opiod use, pushed by pharma corporations. That is just a sampling. Just doing a simple Google search yields many articles and research papers on the subject. Here is a summary: By summing these deaths, it can be concluded that capitalism kills approximately 14 million people per year. Why is capitalism the culprit here? All of humanity’s resources have been divided amongst one percent of the world’s population. These people hoard more than 50 percent of the world’s wealth. Because of this massive inequality, the one percent are able to control the means of production, value, and distribution of goods. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&q=capitalsim+death+toll
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  1255.  @JorgeGonzalez-gu7ve  - Just to be very clear about this, capitalism is not going anywhere. You seem to be inferring that socialism starves people to death, that is not any different than capitalism. It can be shown that capitalism kills approximately 14 million people per year, not because of a lack of resources. The top 1% hoard more than 50% of global wealth, they also control the means of production and distribution of goods. *If the top 5 wealthiest business people gave only 10 percent of their net worth to ending world hunger, or only 3 percent to provide clean water everywhere on the planet, then these issues would be more than eradicated. *However, there is no profit for them in doing this. Therefore, they don’t fix these issues, and never will. Millions more will die because the wealthiest people on our planet do not care about humanity. The wealthiest people on our planet care only about amassing more power, no matter the human cost. Wealth in the capitalist system means power. You just might get your wish. Just this year, the capitalist economic system reached its breaking point. There will be home grown insurgents in the streets soon, disrupting supply chains. This means we have a better than even chance that in the next ten years, starvation will be a reality for most people. Don't want that to happen? Then you had better start accepting that capitalism needs some urgent modification, and a little bit of socialism will not hurt you. * http://horizons-newspaper.com/index.php/2020/02/27/tallying-capitalisms-death-toll/
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  1256. Peter - By now you must know I will not be satisfying the perverse pleasure you get by posting comments in a place where you intend no good to come of it. Experience has shown you are not interested in dialog or in solving problems. Your writing does however provide the perfect platform in which to illustrate the entrenched and destructive ideology within our society which must be overcome. There is something wrong in your mind, and it is a malady shared by enough humans that you pose a clear and present danger to society. Please continue to post your comments so that they can be a learning tool for the sane and rational people who come to learn from Professor Wolff, for we will observe you and extract what we need to know from you.
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  1257. Peter - You start out with a lie: "No one forces you to work without agreeing on a wage." Work or die, that is a threat and actual use of force if ever there was one. This has not been the case since I started working, you want work . . . here is how much you will get paid. Never has there been negotiation. Force has always been used on the worker by the employer and the capitalist market based system for as long as I can remember. Since you start by lying, everything else you say is suspect and not to be trusted. This is the way capitalist criminals think, rationalizing away the cruelty you inflict upon others. Trying to humanize yourself by saying you had a mother and a coach does not forgive the death and destruction you inflict upon your fellow human beings when you force them out of their jobs in favor of your automated robots.
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  1258. Peter - You took lessons from Joseph Goebbels, correct? Lots and lots of propaganda, entertainment for the masses . . . yes? You wrote: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" "Who decides how much to take from those with ability? Who decides what peoples needs are? I decide. Plus you, my daughters, and the couple next door decide, but not a centralized government. I and every other citizen decide together how to allocate resources. You keep trying to spin Marxism into a "government controls everything" . . . bad communist! BAD IDEA!! Yet Marxism is very capable of integrating into a decentralized society where individuals make the pertinent decisions about how to run society. Society can function fully and much more capably when resources are not concentrated, but instead spread out so that all citizens may have the opportunity to contribute their talent. That does not mean you cannot live in the lap of luxury if you are capable and choose to do so, by all means live it up. What it does mean is that at some point . . . you have more than enough to live in the lap of luxury. Any more than that is simply wasted on you . . . and could have the effect of giving you a mental illness that could kill all of humanity you don't get treatment. The treatment of course is to never allow any single human to control so much wealth that they become . . . POWER HUNGRY. Preventive medicine here is the key. When you have enough, you should feel no regret, no jealousy, that the excess you have generated goes back into the society from whence it came. As the excess flows back to society it powers the minds and imaginations of other citizens by supporting them in their endeavors. Society enforces the behavior of "giving up your excess", yes indeed . . . because society has learned to its detriment the folly of allowing concentrated wealth in the hands of a very few individual human beings. Now you might say, yes but I resent that those freeloaders are getting my money which you took by force. Some of them will do nothing except be lazy. Yeah, so what. I resent that you kill peoples jobs thus probably some of their lives as well . . . and you feel good about that. The thing you are missing here is this: a significantly greater number of people thus supported by society will contribute useful or even great ideas and products . . . things that make society better as a whole. The frequency of those wonderful things happening will be far greater than could ever happen within the "free market" because the enforced penalty extraction drag of capitalism would be removed. This type of success will never be possible in the dog eat dog, clawing in the dirt to survive, capitalist world you have created and love so much. Continuing to do things your way dooms humanity to extinction as our worst instincts make the planet unlivable for all but the cockroaches. Yours is just one way of looking at things Peter. It is the wrong way, as proven by the past forty years. I'm not putting up with it any longer than necessary. Capitalism may yet survive because it is a very useful tool, but not in the form that you advocate and support.
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  1259. Peter - Let me make this simple for you. Your kind is reckless, irresponsible, and untrustworthy. You have done and will continue to do great crimes against humanity and against the world itself. What you think you have earned is in fact stolen property, and we will have it back.  In order to protect ourselves, the planet and all its inhabitants . . . your way of life will be brought to a close. It will become a chapter of history, where it belongs. The only thing you have to decide, is how to accept this inevitability.
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  1260. Peter - OMG . . . what a scam video. Starting out with Steve Jobs and then a bogus example of forced government redistribution wealth as plunder? What do you think just happened with the trumped up tax scam law? The megacorps just received direct government assistance to plunder the wealth of the American people. You people are corrupted criminals, plain and simple. If we had a closed national economy, some of what that bogus professor said might actually apply. However when the laborers (Chinese) will never benefit from their efforts and enjoy the use of an iPhone, then Apple charges $1000 each to customers in the USA who had nothing to do with the making . . . that is plunder. This is extraction of wealth without the economic return to the country of having the jobs which produce the product. Peter, this is why you are so evil. You are trying to pull the wool over our eyes on purpose. You know that you are being dishonest, yet you do it anyway.
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  1261. Peter - One more comment on your behavior. What you do is just like the parent who confines and abuses their children, or the sexual predator who preys on their victims. You are a deliberate abuser, someone who gets joy and happiness from causing deliberate harm to others. I know that you understand the data on median income I have presented perfectly well, and you know that I am correct. You simply "get off" by heaping abuse on victims, victims that you helped to create. You are a very sick human being.
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  1262.  Michael ARMIJO  - Me stupid? No, I just checked your profile. You don't know how to spell or punctuate and you seem to have gathered a great deal of stupid in a big pile. No need then to consider seriously what you have to say.
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  1263. Listen up republicans. The only reason you are being spoon fed hatred of the immigrant is because those people who have $10 million in financial assets are getting half a million in free money every year and they don't want you to know that. So to divert your attention from the fact that your health care goes up every year to finance their free money grab, they feed you hate stories about how everything is the immigrants fault. Wise up, or you are personally going to sink the United States.
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  1264. c. j. macq - You are singing my song! I have been voicing a similar opinion except I did not have a redistribution of profits plank in my platform. I will be adopting that immediately. You are spot on when you wrote: "would go back to the society that helped produce those profits". Thank you for writing that, it helps to validate the absolute need for economic change. We have been indoctrinated to believe all profits emerge from the actions of the "risk takers", when the reality is that all of us in society contribute to the success of every business. My main plank has been this: too much concentrated wealth dilutes and undermines democracy, since the wealthy have always over time erode or eliminate every political and economic reform that actually benefits the majority of society. We have to stop this undeserved influence, it is part of a repeating cycle that serves no beneficial purpose.
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  1265. RAZOR'S EDGE VLOG - The glacier melt is just the signal. There are vast areas of frozen tundra which store methane in frozen form, which is now being released. However the real danger is the methane-hydrates that are dormant in the Arctic Ocean. Once the polar ice caps melt and ships start traversing the area stirring up those shallow seas . . . the resulting methane "burp" will be a planetary life killer. Look up the "Permian Extinction" if you are at all curious . . . .
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  1266. Wyo Dragon - What piqued my interest is two videos: 1) All the missile parts laid out for a news conference, apparent "malfunctioning" cruise missiles that crashed in the desert. These caught my eye because I have built, flown and crashed fiberglass composite r/c aircraft and these missiles looked more like they were torn apart and smashed by hand tools rather than crashed. In addition, one of the missiles had "cobwebs" inside the open spaces between the fin and the sheet metal braces . . . not something that would have survived flight at several hundred MPH. 2) The towers in the oil refineries were not hit by missiles. All missiles pack warheads that explode, blowing all metal structures they hit into shards. These towers were hit by short range artillery rounds, not missiles. This means the Saudis did this to themselves and all this is a set up. Even the parts shown in this video where whole panels with holes, square holes, panels that should have been greatly disfigured due to catastrophic explosive force . . . even the smallest missiles with a 50 pound warhead would do greater damage than that which was shown. This whole thing stinks of collusion between the Saudis and Trump to cause a war with Iran . . . .my fellow citizens of the USA, beware.
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  1267.  @sarathompson2035  - I just finished rereading Michael Hudson's paper named "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four-Thousand Year Overview Part II". In this paper, Michael gives example after example of how "usury", can never be satiated and how modern economists suffer from a sort of amnesia, about how compounded interest payment will always in some eventual form become larger than the productive economy's ability to pay. I was looking for a favorite passage in the paper to relate to you here, but ended up reading the entire paper again. Here is the section I was after: "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” In his Observations on Reversionary Payments, first published in 1769 and running through six editions by 1803, Price elaborated how the rate of multiplication would be even higher at 6 percent: “A shilling put out at 6% compound interest at our Saviour’s birth would . . . have increased to a greater sum than the whole solar system could hold, supposing it a sphere equal in diameter to the diameter of Saturn’s orbit.”" This section is an active demonstration that compounded interests always lead to destruction, personal destruction, economic destruction and national destruction (The Roman Empire). There are only two ways this financialization problem has ever been solved, a) debt forgiveness, or b) revolution. Michael wonders about how debt forgiveness has been forgotten as a tool to preserve peace, noting that "In antiquity no governments had gone bankrupt, as public debts did not arise until medieval Europe." There are many gems of information in this paper, a bit of a dry read, but illuminating nonetheless. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1268.  @sarathompson2035  - I don't think it is a majority of the National Debt, I'm going from memory here but last time I looked at the numbers the amount of Treasuries China owned was north of a trillion. That would make it around 1/20th of the total. The thing most people don't know about is that China saved the global economy during the 2007-08 market crash by going on a building spree that used more concrete during a five year span than the USA has used in it's entire history. The buying China did during this time kept the world economy afloat, they did not want the USA sinking into depression because of the debt we owe them but also because the USA is a huge market for them. Be careful about what you hear, politicians want to pick on China because they are the rising power in the world and the USA has already had it's day and is declining.
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  1269.  @juniorgod321  - The past two years before our current inflation have seen record money printing, like a fire hose under pressure. All that money went straight into assets, which disproves the idea that money printed out of thin air has no value. Record asset prices drive inflation, not money printing, otherwise inflation would have arrived in 2018.
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  1270.  @_derpderp  - Honest answer: UBI and price controls will not work for housing under present economic conditions. Both must be combined with a significant number of other components to become useful and relevant economic policy. UBI and price controls are parts of a system, they cannot work alone or separate without all the other parts working in assembly. UBI is being experimented with, but universal UBI could not work without wealth capping programs and potentially utilizing several other "limiter" policies. The real problem is the exponential growth of "asset" classes, that growth creates a vacuum which is only partially filled by extraction of present and future wealth. These assets are an unrecognized threat, artificial constructs that harm society because they grow faster than any productive economy, if they were biological I would call them fatal viruses. But if you look at any media, stock watching and buying stock in part or "slices" is mainstream business, because the 1% need us to buy into "wealth growth" (stocks used to mean something, now it is a scam). UBI might lower the crime rate, people are getting desperate out there because whether they realize it or not, "assets" are strangling everyone except the 1% asset owners. I'm not holding my breath though, too many people are hoodwinked and I was one not that long ago. The wealthy will fight any UBI and they will win until enough people get wise to this game. Bottom line: the economy is tiny compared to the mountain of "asset" wealth, and the mountain grows faster every year. In a few years, the growth rate of the wealth mountain will eat our entire GDP and still need more wealth to grow, which will be harvested from the future through borrowing. This system puts us all in bondage, but the prevailing belief is that we are all "free". Unless, and until that prevailing belief changes to a realistic planetary economic system, things will get worse year over year.
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  1271. Got that correct, I don't think any society has survived the excesses of their wealthy elites. They make the worst decisions, get everyone killed and topple whole societies.
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  1272. I'm 57 years old and a lifelong voter. My affiliation started with republican, in my 30's I went to democrat and in my 40's I registered as Independent . . . which I stayed at until the Justice Democrats came along and now I affiliate with democratic JD. When a viable progressive third party emerges, that is where I am going. This new progressive party will have a solid base if it can sprout in the toxic wasteland that is the American political landscape. Two things have to happen if we are to emerge from this nightmare. 1) Corporations must be decapitated and made illegal, so that the free enterprise written about in the Constitution can once again take their place in the economy. The Founders were anti-corporation because they had vast experience dealing with crown sanctioned monopolies like the East India Trading Corporation. 2) There needs to be a minimum income and . . . a maximum income, along with a cap on the accumulation of wealth. All of humanities problems with each other stem from the power hungry wealth hoarders. Face it, we human beings simply do not function in the best interests of all people when we accumulate more than what is needed to live a luxury lifestyle. Hunger for power takes over and we are living in the nightmare that results from 12,000 years of trickle up economics feeding the megalomaniacs. Any excess income and wealth generated by individuals and companies has to flow back into the society which enabled that wealth to be created. Experience has shown that the "free market" makes horrible decisions, far worse than what right wingers accuse the government of making. (Plus if you think government has made horrible decisions you are correct, and if you look deeper you will find in every instance private corporations were behind the scenes pulling the puppet strings. So really, the free market corporations are always responsible for government decisions.)
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  1273.  @jimthompson7402  - I'm glad that you and others are watching this unfold. I want to put a hard cap on accumulated wealth, both individual and corporate. This is a plumbing issue, if there is a pipe in a manifold that is open, all flow will go to the breach. We need to cap it off, then perhaps the economy will function for "we the people" instead of just for the "elites".
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  1274. jeffrey pick - Since the trolls immediately attacked you, the questions you raise deserve focused attention. As of this moment, every republican enabler past and present is complicit in aiding Trump the Russian/Putin Asset. They must face Justice. Look at the number of republican Representatives and Senators plus Executive Branch types who have visited Russia since trump took office. Every single one who voted for or enabled the tax scam law or stripped away regulations in Executive Departments that were meant to protect citizens from harm . . . all of them will face our damning judgement for the rest of their lives . . . even if they escape legal justice they deserve.
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  1275. Why can't we address the real elephant in the room? With all of our intelligence, no one seems to understand that every system has limits and yet we still seem to think that unlimited wealth accumulation is just fine! All you need is basic math skills to understand how dangerous the notion of unlimited wealth is . . . and the source of the danger is compounded interest. Take the nice round number of $30 trillion currently owned by the 1% now and apply a conservative interest rate of 5%, that $30 trillion doubles to $60 trillion in 14.4 years. In 30 years it will be $120 trillion and in 45 years the total will be $240 trillion. At 45 years out, where exactly is that $210 trillion in earned interest supposed to come from? Add to this situation that the wealthy are not investing in the real economy, they are getting their interest payments out of the financialized economy . . . which means they are taking it from us and looting the U.S. Treasury to achieve their rate of returns. The wealthy have been and continue to loot the wealth of all nations. Right now 17 international wealth funds are holding $50 trillion in "investment" capital, in 45 years that sum will be $400 trillion dollars. Where is all that money in interest payments going to come from? Look, it is simple common sense to place limits on systems. Do you have a pressure pot without a steam release valve? No, that would be stupid. Can your car engine achieve unlimited power? No, that would lead to catastrophic engine failure. There is example after example in the natural world and with virtually every human construction that there are limits beyond which disaster is the imminent result. The same is true with wealth accumulation. I don't know how people can reckon that unlimited wealth accumulation is a natural outgrowth of capitalism . . . yeah, it is if you want economic collapse as the intended outcome. Get real folks, we can never achieve even modest political goals or societal stabilization if we are unwilling to place limits on wealth accumulation. Besides, after a certain point . . . it is pointless to keep accumulating more than a person or their family could spend in 1000 lifetimes.
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  1276. barkon34 - Have you no logic? The best time to be left alone to write such a long and brilliant work is when the opposition controls the Congress. Now is the "getting to know you" time for the bill and when the blue wave washes away the republican filth, that will be the time for action.
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  1277. I have called the Parish school board over and over . . they will not answer. I called every board member and only one (Laura LeBeouf 337-643-1844 Email: llebeouf@cox.net) actually answered and talked to me. She is also appalled at what happened and is supporting the teacher. Call the Parish and Board members and voice your outrage! Here is the Parish website: http://www.vpsb.net/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=367113&type=d&pREC_ID=820280
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  1278. Well stated!
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  1279.  @ravagingwolverine  - You nailed it. The last thing we need is for the democrats to become disillusioned due to inaction on the part of our elected representatives and sit out the 2020 election.
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  1280.  @mushroomsteve  - I called our democratic representative's office dozens of times to remind him of why he won the 2018 election in our previously republican district. I'm not happy that it took an attack on one of the democratic "elites" to finally get him to budge, when there were so many egregious deeds deserving of impeachment prior to the Ukraine matter. However, when they finally got off their rock and started moving, I shut up about impeachment and moved my main topic to the economy, which is not working at all for 80% of the country. Not holding my breath over that.
    2
  1281.  @DistrictTribute  - Colorado is a great state, as is Texas and so is California. Strikes me that most people have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . you enjoy being used like toilet paper? Blue or red, makes no difference, they all have the same masters which put a lot of money and effort into confusing people.
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  1282.  @Nine-Signs  - I agree with you that it is the system. It seems that you and I are also students of Professor Richard Wolff, who advocates for democracy in the workplace. I also agree that the rich used their wealth to undo all the reforms that FDR put in place. What we have is a situation where over the entire span of capitalism's reign, the wealthy have proven to be reckless and irresponsible, using their wealth to tear down every single reform put into place to help ordinary people. There is not a single reform that they have not attacked and tried to remove when the purpose of the reformed system is to help citizens. So therein lies the problem, wealthy people believe they should rule over everyone else, but they are the ones who cause virtually every problem mankind has ever known outside of havoc nature itself is capable of. My belief is that no reform will ever hold until we deal with the wealthy themselves, by forcing them to become as ordinary as everyone else. No one should be allowed to hold so much wealth, that they can therefor influence politics though think tanks and non-profit organizations their wealth pays for. That does not mean that everyone is the same or that people cannot be wealthy, just the opposite. In order for reforms like workplace democracy to gain a lasting foothold, in order to end the wars, provide healthcare for all citizens and do the dozens of reforms on progressive agenda's, we must first defeat the stranglehold the wealthy and corporations have on our governments. We cannot do so by fighting dozens of simultaneous battles, thus diluting our power, because that is exactly what the wealthy want us to do. No, we must behead the hydra once and for all by restricting the individuals capability to accumulate morbid wealth in the first place. Only then can we make headway on making life better for all citizens of this planet.
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  1283. My daughter and I did a thought experiment by setting some basic parameters and running the numbers. We concluded that in her area (Missouri) a lifetime wealth cap should be no more than 100 million dollars. When we further extrapolated, we found that this cap would have profound effects altering the price of real estate, increasing local and state tax revenues, the virtual elimination of political bribery, the realigning corporate boards, reorganizing companies into co-ops and fracturing larger companies into smaller ones.
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  1284.  @PoliticalEconomy101  - The problem with that liberal agenda is that with competition, all gains are consolidated to a "winner". This is a short sighted situation with a very narrow view of "freedom". Under socialism, everyone would have basics provided. So what do you think about when all the basics are covered? The answer is, whatever inspires the individual. One could take up gardening for the love and wonder of all things that grow from soil. One could seek out skills that are interesting. One could even set out to gain the skills and experience needed to build and launch a self landing rocket, following a set of determined steps to be awarded access to resources. That is real freedom and with so many freed minds, humanity will thrive.
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  1285.  @kylewatson5133  - Your definitions are sourced directly from the Oligarch's Propaganda Playbook. Sorry Kyle, reality is everything you wrote is part of a scam, to capture your mind and make you into a tool, while simultaneously exploiting you.
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  1286.  @marcrochefort4483  - Remarkable. The lock downs were a corporate idea, so they could fire millions and hire them back for lower wages. So who went along with this corporate idea? Both republicans and democrats. Why? Because both parties are owned, lock, stock and barrel by corporations. Just look at how much money the Federal Reserve created in 2020 and how most of that money made its way into the stock market. That is all corporations buddy. Who do you think is going to benefit from your civil war? Not republicans or democrats, it will be the corporations.
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  1287. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  1288. What I have seen so far, suggests that the George Floyd murder and the subsequent property damage during the Minneapolis protest over the following days, was a coordinated effort by white suprematism movements embedded in the Minneapolis police department and the White House. Trump needs a diversion from his abject failure of a presidency, and a way to kill more black, brown and poor people by state sponsored violence, and through more infections with the Covid-19 virus. The provocative killing of George Floyd was done on purpose, in order to provoke a response from minorities and the poor people who are suffering economic devastation because of the federal governments failure to help the population, and to divert our attention from the aggressive Wall Street and corporate looting of the federal treasury that just took place, using the CARES Act as cover. The final goal is to upset the 2020 election so that Trump can maintain his freedom, because when he loses the election, he, his family and his entire Cabinet will be going to prison.
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  1289. I can't figure out my fellow Americans, are you too scared, or do you just not care? In 30 years, 10% of Americans will OWN ALL WEALTH. Today Donald Hump proposed rounding up homeless in California and putting them into internment camps costing over $700/day/per individual . . . paid for by the Federal Government. Fox News has been drumming up support for this policy idea all week. For the cost of this "internment" plan, all homeless could easily be housed without losing their freedom. More people are on their way to homelessness and it will include people that used to think it would never happen to them. The 1% in this country have $30 trillion in accumulated wealth they are not spending, at a mere 2% interest it would take all the GDP gains for 2018 plus an additional $40 billion to pay. Yet when I look at S&P500 index funds, they have been paying over 9% since 1994. Look at a more moderate 5% rate of return, that comes out to $1.5 trillion which eats all 2018's GDP gain plus 1/20th of the entire economy. Thom reported on the U.S. Treasury report in August 2019 which spelled out in detail that in 33 years, the top 10% will own ALL wealth in the USA. The bottom 90% are all going to end up in internment camps. So what is wrong with all of YOU, that whenever I bring this topic up of the wealthy eating our economy whole . . . I hear nothing but silence? Are you all too scared to react, to horrified to take serious action, or even to think about what must be done? Is fighting a racist agenda more important to you? These wealthy people don't care at all if you are white, black, brown, yellow or purple. They are distracting us on purpose with everything under the sun, do you simply not care that soon you and your children, your entire families will be homeless or worse . . . in internment camps?
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  1290.  @bobl2887  - Sure. So lets let the wealthy take it all from us and none of us will have homes. Thanks for your input.
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  1291. Let us see this so-called PayGo Rule allowing legislation waivers in action . . . then I will believe voting for PayGo Rules was a good idea.
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  1292. Headline translation: Lair and criminal tells more lies to the American people in front of corruption stained White House.
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  1293. Nancy Pelosi is not the Left! She is a corporate stooge. Get real, the GOP Covid-19 Bil wanted to keep their corporate sweetener package a secret for 6 months, how is that better than what the corporate dems are doing?
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  1294.  @erickmilcetic6734  - Stop calling the corporate democrats "the left". They are not the left, both parties are "the right". Neither are doing their job as "public servants", they are just looking out for their political donors, not us.
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  1295.  @Zach-ju5vi  - Here are some facts for you, taken straight from the Federal Reserve. Ever since the final business quarter of 1980, the sum total of financial assets (from which IRA's and 401k's are derived), has been greater than our GDP. This happened because Congress gutted company funded pensions in 1974. At the end of 1980, the sum total financial assets was half a trillion more than our GDP. By 1990 that gap was enlarged to $6.9 trillion. By the year 2000 the gap had widened further to $21.2 trillion. Today that gap is $93.684 trillion or 4.8 times the size of our GDP. Today the gap has widened so far that extraction from the population is simply not enough to fuel a 12% annual growth rate, so the government is now being looted. The money to grow IRA's and 401k's is stolen, not earned. What gives anyone the right to take money they have not earned? The biggest loophole of all time is the concept of compounded interest "earning" money. Wrap your head around these numbers and don't lie about this. How in the first six months of 2021, financial assets gained $8.7 TRILLION while the economy as measured by GDP grew by only $697.4 BILLION? Check my math: Real Gross Domestic Product (GDPC1) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 Households and Nonprofit Organizations; Total Financial Assets, Level (TFAABSHNO) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO
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  1296.  @Zach-ju5vi  - Yup, I understand perfectly well how the stock market generates wealth. One buys stock, then resells that stock for a higher price. Except that does not work any longer. In order to resell stock for a higher price, the company or corporation represented must show a profit. Except that corporations must raise their prices to be profitable and when that does not work they boost their stock price via stock buybacks with borrowed money. Then there are the short and the long buyers and sellers, the predators of the stock market. The facts are black and white here, the productive economy cannot support stocks any longer, so useless paper bonds are sold to allow even more stock buybacks. It is all a scam, which is the same thing as theft. Compounded interest only works when there is money available to keep prices going up. Have you seen the velocity of money charts? They have bottomed out. Have you seen the new money creation charts? They are through the roof. The result is inflation, which is theft from society to pay for bonds that have no actual value. Modern wealth is stolen wealth, stolen by pirates in expensive Italian suits.
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  1297.  @Zach-ju5vi  - Ha! You are a funny guy. Ever since the SCOTUS made corporations into people and money into speech, the wealthy and corporations ARE the government. Those numbers on screens that these rich people own, it took real money to buy them (even if that money was borrowed). When an initial stock offering is made, that is not a company "borrowing" money from share purchasers, stock is purchased, not borrowed. The second amendment is not now, nor has it ever been about "back up". Wow, what a wheeze! Now I know your brain is stuffed with propaganda. The 2nd Amendment was (stressing the "was" here) all about slave patrols, that is why the word "State" is used, instead of the word "Nation". Now the 2nd Amendment is a sham, there are no "militias", and those pretending to be certainly are not "well regulated". These days the wealthy run the government, so if you are saying we should use the 2nd Amendment against corporations and the wealthy, that might be something I can get behind. If you try to use your puny guns against the government, well, they have much larger weapons and lots of armor. Oh, and, I am a registered "unaffiliated" voter, because both of our political parties are corrupt to the core and cannot be trusted.
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  1298.  @Zach-ju5vi  - Holy shit, you are a programmed robot! Your words come straight out of the Koch networks Oligarch Propaganda Manual. What a puppet, does your nose grow too?
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  1299. Agreed. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  1300.  @theAppleWizz  - Well, it looks like I won my wager. I'll tell you a little about myself. When I run my credit report, it says N/A. That is because I pay my bills on time and I do not use credit for anything. Now maybe things were different when I was growing up, seems how I'll be 60 years old on my next birthday, my youth was filled with sound advice. Don't go into debt. Earn and pay your way. Not like today when you need a 650 credit score or higher just to rent a house, regardless of ability to pay. I've watched over the past year as the economy back slid, while the Federal Reserve was pumping massive amounts of liquidity into the banks. The banks needed this liquidity because they transact the funds that go into the market, and the market went up $9.8 trillion (that is trillion with a "t"), an unheard of number to date. Not all of those trillions came from the Federal Reserve printing press or digital keystrokes, a good portion was drained out of good people using credit and just trying to get by. This "market" is not a benign thing. You really should read Michael's paper, the ancient Babylonians knew how to handle debt and wealth. They erased both every so often, so that there would not be the concentrations of economic and political power we suffer from. Oh, by the way, I assume nothing. The Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis (FRED) buts out excellent financial information. Just look at the chart for privately held financial assets, the chart line is an exponential curve. In another 30 years, the top 1% will own all wealth. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO
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  1301. Keep going Kim, thanks for sharing your award with us . . .you got me all teared up also!
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  1302. Really ?????? !!!!! ??????? No . . . .Really? What reports? Just to be crystal clear . . . reports are meaningless. Action speaks volumes. Our government has been bought.
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  1303.  @natas0733  - No excuse.
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  1304.  @jstpsgthru  - How old is too old? I am 61 with asthma and a propensity to lose too much weight every time I get sick, which means no protest marches for me. So that leaves me manning the keyboard, which can be a very effective activity. Agreed, we need strong leadership and a message that resembles an armor piercing bunker buster, those are some of the parts necessary to build that huge coalition. People need to see the big picture from high altitude, so I have been spending a lot of time trying my best to simplify what our actual situation is. Most of the time when I propose an individual wealth cap, people reject the idea out of hand. This is an uphill battle, winning will require tenacious and logical conviction.
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  1305. OrionPax09 - I agree with you 100%. It is as plain as day what trump is doing, destroying everything the USA has built up and stood for since Roosevelt was in office, both domestically and internationally. However trump is but a symptom of what the republicans and corporate democrats have been doing to our country ever since the Powell Memo was written. In the Powell Memo, Lewis Powell quotes Milton Friedman about a powerful attack under way against the American system. Here is the quote: In a foreword to these lectures, famed Dr. Milton Friedman of Chicago warned: “It (is) crystal clear that the foundations of our free society are under wide-ranging and powerful attack — not by Communist or any other conspiracy but by misguided individuals parroting one another and unwittingly serving ends they would never intentionally promote.” With four and a half decades between then and now, I would put forward that what both Powell and Friedman have wrought with their policies have been far more destructive to the American people than those whom they so feared back then. The republicans and the oligarchs have been fighting against the American people ever since General Smedley Butler thwarted the republican and businessman's attempted coup against the USA in the 1930's. Now they are close to getting what they want, which can be compared to the partitioning of England after the Industrial Revolution. The peasants (that would be us), are getting kicked off the land (out of the economy) . . . where we will have to fend for ourselves (no more democracy) and hopefully starve to death. The Powell Memo: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/
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  1306. John Quest - Venezuela is not socialist, that is a load of crap. The only problem Venezuela is having is the siege warfare of sanctions being carried out by the USA, so that their resources can be looted when the people are starved long enough. Yeah, lets burn all that Venezuelan oil and really heat things up. Get a grip man.
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  1307. "We can't go on like this". I've been studying the problem Jeff Daniels highlights for awhile now. People want simple answers and solutions, which is impossible because of complex inter-relating systems and the history of such systems. This complexity favors the powerful who have access to, and influence over, communications media. Shape the message and you shape the universe. What is behind Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell's actions? The answer is simple . . . wealth and power. Their kind greed and corruption could exist in the world up til now because no amount of greed could endanger the entire existence of mankind . . . until now. That is what our problem is, we can all feel it even if we cannot explain it, there is something going wrong in our world and we can't go on living like this. The pursuit of unlimited wealth has created fortunes of such magnitude and mass that their effect on all of us is that of a economic and political black hole. Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are doing everything they do for wealth and power, so wealth and power is the very problem we need to deal with. I look at things this way. The economy is a system that provides sustenance for us to live on. The way that our economy is run is to demand that it grow by 3 to 4 percent per year. Systems don't work like that, I cannot expect my car engine to deliver 4% more power every year without substantial investment in upgrading plus the needed downtime for the upgrades. Plus at some point there will be an end to what can be done to extract more power, the engine will reach a physical limit. To expect that kind of result out of any system is absurd, yet that is what we expect from our economy and "We the People" have not been sharing in that economic growth for about forty years. So who is sucking up all the gains and raising our rents at the same time for all those decades? Whoever they are, they are seriously mucking up the system we depend on to survive. When we recognize that every system has limits, including our economy, then we can solve the problems that give us the Donald Trump's and Mitch McConnell's. If I were gong to give this system a fast makeover, the first thing I want is no more unlimited wealth accumulation for people and corporations. Put a ceiling on personal wealth, simply don't allow people to become wealthy enough to wield power beyond their their one vote. Same goes for corporations, iHeartMedia (formerly Clearwater Communications) does not need to own 855 radio stations which spread only one brand of political message. Every system needs limits to achieve optimal performance, which means that people can still get wealthy . . . just not too wealthy because that is unhealthy for the rest of us. We have not become aware enough of our own growth in numbers and technology. The way we ran our affairs up til now is toxic and eventually fatal for mankind from this point forward. I think people are starting to feel it even if they cannot come to grips with it or explain it.
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  1308.  @Stillnapie  - Problem is, S&P 500 index funds have averaged over 9% since 1994, my 5% example was extremely conservative.
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  1309.  @ajgo9914  - Yes . . . it was Clinton. And Reagan. And both Bush's. And Obama also. And they all played a part, every one of them. That's not our problem anymore. We have to do something about the now oligarchy they created, that is the real threat here. Blaming past presidents won't help, that is a tactic they have deployed against us. Straight out of the oligarch's propaganda playbook, turn the population against each other by giving them bits of red meat to fight over. Our real enemy is where the money and wealth is. There needs to be a hard cap on accumulated wealth. Every system has limits built in, but they have conned us into thinking that rich is good and richer is better. Unlimited wealth for those who can grab it. Once you understand that this system needs one single limiter, one governor to make sure the machinery of the economy does not rev out of control, that is when "We the People" will actually have real meaning. Ours is the power they fear, which is why they must have us divided . . . because together we can put the governor on the machinery and make them just plain old ordinary. Its a simple thing, but it is their greatest fear. A HARD CAP ON WEALTH. Make it to the cap and still be a millionaire but everything above the cap is taxed at 100%. THAT IS THE SOLUTION.
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  1310.  @troubledsole9104  - Just in case you have not read through all the comments: Yes . . . it was Clinton. And Reagan. And both Bush's. And Obama also. And they all played a part, every one of them. That's not our problem anymore. We have to do something about the now oligarchy they created, that is the real threat here. Blaming past presidents won't help, that is a tactic they have deployed against us. Straight out of the oligarch's propaganda playbook, turn the population against each other by giving them bits of red meat to fight over. Our real enemy is where the money and wealth is. There needs to be a hard cap on accumulated wealth. Every system has limits built in, but they have conned us into thinking that rich is good and richer is better. Unlimited wealth for those who can grab it. Once you understand that this system needs one single limiter, one governor to make sure the machinery of the economy does not rev out of control, that is when "We the People" will actually have real meaning. Ours is the power they fear, which is why they must have us divided . . . because together we can put the governor on the machinery and make them just plain old ordinary. Its a simple thing, but it is their greatest fear. A HARD CAP ON WEALTH. Make it to the cap and still be a millionaire but everything above the cap is taxed at 100%. THAT IS THE SOLUTION.
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  1311. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
    2
  1312. MAGA = Mueller Ain't Going Anywhere! Get over it republican maggots!!
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  1313.  xlioilx  - Disney owns 21st Century FOX. Prior to the sale, Fox News was spun off into FOX Corporation. The Murdoch family still owns FOX Corporation, which in turn still owns FOX News.
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  1314. intelmike181 - After reviewing the comments you have left for others here, there can only be one conclusion. You simply are not knowledgeable enough to make comments. One the one hand, you wrote: "You just have to be smart enough and hard working enough to take advantage of the path out of poverty and into prosperity." On the other hand you wrote: "Walmart will and is currently in the process of automating many of its low skilled workforces. Thus, the automation will just be accelerated, meaning hundreds of thousands will lose their income stream completely." Clearly you have contradicted yourself. If there is a path to prosperity for the mass of workers, how do they find it when automation, outsourcing, and globalization of labor continue to pummel the average worker? There are many other issues besides these few so I will mirror back at you . . . what you wrote to emerald3331: I don't think you know how numbers or the market works.
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  1315. COLUMBIA, Mo. — A Missouri senator on Monday pitched a bill that would allow the use of deadly force against protesters on private property and give immunity to people who run over demonstrators blocking traffic. The police state is appearing right now.
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  1316. In the past month and a half, the Federal Reserve has pumped at least $1.2 trillion of liquidity into the banking system. This has devalued the dollar by several percent (perhaps up to 5%) just in a few months time. If there is any solution, it is to place a cap in individual wealth. To visualize the effect of unlimited wealth accumulation, just blow up an balloon and leave the stem untied. All these bailouts and liquidity injections are trying to replace the escaping air from the open ended economic balloon, so the answer is to tie it off. Cap wealth accumulation at $10 million and a vast majority of these economic problems will abate.
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  1317. No reforms or justifiable tax increases will be lasting until wealth itself is capped. The fulcrum around which all this evil rotates is Excessive Accumulated Wealth. The only purpose such excessive wealth is used for is the exertion of power, most notably to dismantle all reforms which restrain accumulated wealth. Once you have accumulated enough to maintain a luxury lifestyle for a lifetime, that is enough. It is not enough to raise taxes on the wealthy, we have been through this cycle many times already. We the People must cap wealth for everyone, it is necessary for our safety as a society.
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  1318.  @anotherworldviewispossible  - I voted for Sanders in the California primary, and here is why: Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1319.  @jeremyrangel8138  - "The only way that the job can "exploit" somebody is if somebody agrees to do the job..." Tired old talking point that has absolutely no meaning, might have been relevant in the 1960's but is now just a dusty joke.
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  1320. Thom hit the nail on the head two days ago with this summary: Worker productivity since Reagan has gone up 321%, while worker wages have risen only 1/10 of 1%. Meanwhile, the simple costs of living such as housing and energy have tripled and our Federal Treasury has been raided by private interests for trillions of dollars. We, as in you, I and the ordinary people of the USA must fight back. It is time for a Maximum Annual Income . . . . and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. That is the only way to fight what is happening, open ended profits are killing us. Personally, I think the wealthy oligarchy is taking revenge on us for the FDR New Deal . . . even though the wealthy never really suffered under the New Deal. Any reforms we get will be dismantled until we the people take away the tools used to dismantle reforms. Than means capping wealth and income, no two ways about it.
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  1321. Conditions are being maneuvered, crime goes up and a fearful population cries out for authority to handle it. Marshall Law comes shortly after that. They know the game, as old as human history, instinctively carnivorous and cannibalistic. The only question is, are we as a species now mature enough to change the equation by giving human dignity instead of taking it. Our collective survival depends on the choices we make right now.
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  1322. Certainly a lot better dialog and higher quality intellect than anyone representing and defending capitalists these days.
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  1323.  @jerameesikorski7519  - Absolutely correct and well stated.
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  1324.  @jerameesikorski7519  - Regretfully, I am not on any social media at the present time. I've set all of that aside so that my attention can go into researching the very problem that you identified. My initial goal was to identify what was going wrong with our economy. As I learned more, my goals changed. Are you familiar with the Gordian Knot? This is what we are dealing with.
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  1325. Peter Nachtwey - Hi Peter, Back at the same old same old I see. Is this your hobby, picking on Professor Wolff? You wrote: "Wolff goes on and on bitching about everything but never has a solution. " That is BS and you know it. Like most invested capitalists, you have a vested interest in not acknowledging either the solutions Professor Wolff offers or in the inherent problems that market based economics (capitalism) is causing. I bet if you were to participate in the framing of an "advanced technological society with a money less economy" conference and planning for the "conversion economies" necessary to get us from here to there . . . you would constantly claim it can never work. Well of course not . . . when some people insist an wearing their blinders to the planning parties.
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  1326. Peter Nachtwey - Ahhh, so you finally deigned to reply. Good. So why are the cities in so much debt? Why is the USA in so much debt? That is a fact, but can you tell me why? Also, regular households with a mortgage run a debt to earning ratio much higher than the government of the USA, so tell me why the national debt is such a horrible thing when it is considered normal for regular folk to run higher comparative debt.
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  1327. Peter Nachtwey - So if everything you say is true, how do we get an economy that is performing for everyone? Also, why is the federal government in so much debt? I have more questions for you, but lets start with those two. I somehow doubt that you have a handle on how things really work, here is an opportunity for you to prove yourself. You have posture, lets see if you have substance. You are not funny, so do not try to be a comedian. I'm in the trenches and I know what my reality is, you are f***ing out of your mind if you think you can bully me into accepting that my reality is a lie or made up fact. I have also done my research and that research is ongoing, part of the reason why I am here. Your attempts to belittle does not serve your cause, such derision is an attempt to divert attention from questions you do not want to answer. We never had a chance to continue our dialog on the "trusylimbs channel" rendition of Professor Wolff's videos, those had to be taken down. You at least had the decency to reply in that comment section. I hope you can answer my questions here, as this video is unlikely to be taken down.
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  1328. Joseph Inhiding - We are in agreement about virtually everything that you wrote. What I want to get to is the underlying "why is this happening". Using cities is a excellent way to measure localized economic phenomenon, and there are patterns that are in common. There is a lot of "cause and effect" at work, but the question I have for you and Peter is . . . Why is this happening? You wrote: "4. Go to step 1 and enter a death spiral." Yes that is happening and yes that is true. Do we have to sit back and simply watch it happen? There is an old saying: "If you cannot say what you mean, then you cannot mean what you say". It is frustrating the amount of diversion that goes on when I ask questions and receive nonsense or insult in reply. I'm actually researching for my own futures sake, I must understand the "what is going wrong" before I can rebuild economically. I have a corollary question to that old saying: "Can we fix or repair something properly if we do not understand the true causes of failure?"
    2
  1329. Peter Nachtwey - I am reading through you reply and I have questions about your information. You wrote: "The government is far worse off. The debt is $20T+ but the income is $3.7T that roughly a 100*20/3.7=540% debt to earning ratio." I personally know families that with their mortgage are running a 700% debt to "annual gross income" on the mortgage alone. This is not uncommon. The federal government is not in such dire straights when making such a comparison. So why is the federal debt such an issue with you? Next - You wrote: "They spend too much, promise too much and there are too many free loaders." Those are generalizations at best and not so veiled insults at worst. You are a businessman, so I know you can offer better information than that. So I have another question I hope you will answer. Gone are the days when man could live off the land by hunting and gathering. Gone are the days of homesteading when by the strength of ones back and the sweat of ones brow could support a family. Now we are raised in a world where to be alive means to be in debt. I know you do not favor a universal basic income, yet humans are producing more with less effort. So without going into the details of productivity development of which you already know plenty, here is my question: With growing populations around the world and actual human labor becoming less necessary for production, how do the "freeloaders" earn or receive enough income to survive without full employment?
    2
  1330. Joseph Inhiding - Thank you, I will hang in there! Looking forward to the next segment, very interesting.
    2
  1331. Joseph Inhiding - You wrote: "Your asking some personal financial questions there." and "Did you have something more specific in mind with your questions?" You are generally on track with your final question: "Do you want general recommendations for revitalizing the USA?" The last question is most relevant to my interests. Some background here, Peter and I have somewhat discussed the current economy and we differ in opinion. I am 56 with two grown daughters, so I have a lifetime of financial and employment experience. Of your advice, it is good and solid mainstream advice. Up until one year ago I was an average guy buying into the average rhetoric about the economy. Thing is, I am a machinist by trade who has decent skills as a mechanical engineer . . . it is all about logic and numbers. For a long time something in the economy did not add up, and one year ago I started looking into the economy in earnest. I am here because I am seeking an alternative to what is obviously an economic system set on self destruct. My purpose in tackling some one like Peter Nachtwey is to get him to explain in detail why he is virulently defending a system that has truly gotten us humans very far, yet has reached past benefit and gone into a destructive mode of operation. To your final question, yes I do want to have discussions about how and by what means we can revitalize the USA, but I also think we may be past that possibility. My attitude is affected by many pieces of information, including what you so properly brought up on the subject of pensions. I welcome discussion with you about these topics, but I also want to draw out Peter Nachtwey and see if I can engage him also . . . except without all the hissing and spitting. The end result is to dig deep into what makes a person defend the status-quo in the face of overwhelming evidence that something is corrupted in the system. As a machinist when I have worked with CAD/CAM systems and when a file gets corrupted in the system, you can't just let it go. Steps must be taken, including sometimes to reboot the system software. The economy is a system . . . with several fatal glitches.
    2
  1332. Joseph Inhiding - Awesome comment on your final post, I am embarrased to say I did not see the "Read More" until I just finished answering your previous comment. I have some work to do on my youngest daughters project I have to get back to. When I am done, I will review what you have written and respond. Thank you!
    2
  1333. Peter Nachtwey - In regards to your last comment, I have to ask. So I just have to get over it? Meanwhile you will lash out toward those who seek answers or an alternate path, is this like a sport for you? Libtard target practice? As to your last comment: "you haven't done to well on getting your facts straight by saying households have a worse debt to earning ratio than the government." You just made a declarative statement without merit. I have my facts straight out of the horses mouth, they are my friends and family. Are you calling all of us liars? This is your defense of market based capitalism as it exists today, slander? Well now, some of us think that allowing most of the human population to exist in abject poverty is not something we must endure. You say the economy can't perform for everyone . . . I say you have thrown in the towel too soon. Peter . . . why exactly are you here making comments on Professor Wolff's video's if you have already given up on solving the problems with our economy?
    2
  1334. Joseph Inhiding - I just read your first comment of the day that starts with this sentence: "Standing outside, as an observer, of the discussion you two are having I'd have to say you are BOTH RIGHT .. to varying degrees and from your personal viewpoint." I'm sorry I missed that earlier, my Youtube notifications do not work unless you put my name in front of your comment . . . so I missed everything you wrote while not missing what Peter wrote. I am explaining this because I don't want you to think my response to Peter included any opinion about your writing. I am appreciative of the time and effort you are putting forward here. Thank you. Now . . . I will read your comments but must respond later because I only checked in right before I am obligated to turn away from media and do other tasks. I will be back to respond to your comments.
    2
  1335. Joseph Inhiding - I'm afraid that Peter has once again monopolized my time with his outrageous and hideous conjecture. I just skimmed the first paragraph of your new post and I see agreeable points, but I'm afraid I'm not done with Peter yet tonight. What I really want to discuss is with everyone, is how we move from where we are now . . . to a future economy that works for everyone. I believe it to be possible, yet not as s straight line from here to there. As with machinery, to get the job done sometimes requires a converter. Gear reductions units are mechanical converters, to name one example. I believe we can build an economic converter or maybe two, to get us to that goal of an economy that works for everyone. The alternatives are bleak. Peter seems to want to steer us right into that bleakness. Yet his participation as a class representative is essential in order to avoid at least one of those bleak outlooks. That is why I am here. That is my purpose in doing these writings and challenging people like Peter. You have good input, I look forward to carrying on with some discussion about building that economic converter. I'm not here simply to discuss the current economy, but how to build a good and survivable economy for the future.
    2
  1336. Joseph Inhiding - Yes, your idea is understandable and you are very close to barking at and up my tree. What you have described is close to something I am attempting right now, just some of the details differ. You are right on the mark with this comment: "The work need only be marginally beneficial, that is to say, cost less than maintaining an idle class. " Well done, I appreciate your analysis. Hopefully we can pick this up again tomorrow.
    2
  1337. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "In your links it is pensions but I saw other articles about a person bitching that he is on his 4th healthcare plan when Obummer promised we could keep our health care plan and doctor. My company was forced to change plans too. On top of that health care costs are second only to payroll costs." You have nothing to complain about. You had and continue to have health care. I did not for the majority of my working life. Lifelong asthma sufferer, but no diagnosed until 2010 after I had a major episode. Now I have emphysema as well, brought on by the complete failure to gain "access" to medical care I needed.
    2
  1338. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "I am not lying. I have posted links to back my point of view up. You have posted nothing to back up your point of view. You telling typical libtard lies. You are fake news." What is it you want to see? Tax rates over the decades? You can look that up for yourself. Peter, you are advocating for blood in the streets. You put people out of work with automation. Your rhetoric incites conflict. The words you choose and the attitude you demonstrate means we displaced workers won't care about pissing you off if you keep it up, no matter how much you pay in taxes(a pittance).
    2
  1339. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote in response to raising taxes: "This is not a solution. It doesn't create wealth, it discourages the creation of wealth. All you want to do is hold a gun to the head of those that can and forcibly take what isn't yours. You make that clear here." Another distortion. You are leaving out the equation the effect of society at large in the creation of the wealth when you claim I want to "forcibly take what isn't yours". You do not create your income or wealth in a vacuum. Without the society to consume the product you create, you would have no wealth. Therefor your wealth creation depends just as much on the society, as that society depends on adequate taxes. . . . which you claim is forcibly taken and by your inference . . . undeserved. You are being hypocritical in your hyperbole.
    2
  1340. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "For me it isn't about the money but the challenge but I don't like being exploited by idiots". You are claiming that your taxes are akin to theft and your yourself being exploited. That is really rich coming from a guy whose income is derived from putting people out of work. You are crying about your spilled milk, while the economic activities that enrich you are kicking over your neighbors half full glass of milk . . . which is depriving their families completely of sustenance. You are stealing from us. You claim that taxes are in essence robbery by force. Yet you ignore the force being deployed against the workers of the USA by the extraction economy you are promoting and growing. You accuse me of not providing you with proof. I am the proof, and you are calling me a liar. It was force that deprived me of work in my profession and force that compelled me to take a pizza delivery job instead. It was force that propelled me into an under the table taxi driver job that the "owner" used to extract so much money from the "fares" that vehicle maintenance was impossible, much less surviving on the remaining "income". It is force that has compelled me to stop looking for reliable "full time" employment, because there isn't such a thing anymore. It is force that has caused our family to contract all expenses like travel, clothing and food. This is not our choice but something forced upon us. It is force that is compelling me now to create a product to sell at my own expense, in a market I will have to "force" open in order to succeed. There is no natural demand for anything these days except food, clothing and housing. All other markets are artificially created and maintained through "force". You have no business complaining about your taxes being too high given the circumstances you helped to create in the U.S. economy. You are in the business of putting people out of work. Your words are a slap in the face to every honest American worker who has been sold a bill of goods about the economy and the workers place within it. That is why you and your ilk make me so angry I cannot sleep at night. You won't like it when the workers of the USA get angry en masse. We are tired of the lies you tell about being "forced" to pay taxes to support "freeloaders", when you are forcing us out of our jobs. Whose pain is greater? Certainly not yours. Joseph Inhiding - Look up Peters YouTube channel, you can see there what he does for a living. He is part of the problem here, and he has a vested interest in protecting the status-quo. His vocation is to deprive workers of employment by replacing them with machines. He says he could retire but 35 workers depend on him for employment. Could he not then sell his company to his employees so they could form a coop?
    2
  1341. Joseph Inhiding - Look up Peter Nachtwey's YouTube channel, you can see there what he does for a living. He is part of the problem here, and he has a vested interest in protecting the status-quo. His vocation is to deprive workers of employment by replacing them with machines. He says he could retire but 35 workers depend on him for employment. Could he not then sell his company to his employees so they could form a coop?
    2
  1342. Joseph Inhiding - Excellent diplomacy and a good read too. Thank you. By the way, what is your side?
    2
  1343. Peter Nachtwey - You are correct, I do not understand most of your video content. I am a mechanical engineer, not a software engineer. Yet I make use of software tech and I understand how to use it . . . even if I do not know how to make it. Peter . . . how are you at mechanical engineering? I suppose that you do have knowledge in the area. I suspect we have overlap in our respective fields.
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  1344. Joseph Inhiding - Your final paragraph brings up points I would like to explore. As usual at this time of day, I have no time to expound upon my thoughts on the topics you touched on. Your sentence "There is no organization or leadership around a clear cut long term plan for revamping the system.", is of particular interest to me. Let us please talk about that in more detail. Thoughts?
    2
  1345. Joseph Inhiding - Cool. Looking forward to reading about your ideas.
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  1346. Joseph Inhiding - Excellent read. A lot to think about. What you have written is not only about your opinions, but also about making some sense of it all. On your Item 7) "More emphasis on the basics .. reading, writing and math. Only arithmetic is required for basic accounting and basic finance." What has been missing from education for decades is how useful and creative the basics are. Teaching them is not problem, but our education stops after the utility of the basic skill is taught. For instance, the usefulness of basic arithmetic is astonishing and very under appreciated. Just today for a project, I have been making heavy use of basic arithmetic to draw propeller blades for 3D printing. As a model maker and machinist I found basic arithmetic to be essential. Also basic math is used heavily in creative works, amateur astronomy, photography and other hobbies. What infinite things that can be done with the basics . . . is missing in the classroom. My youngest is in college, so I am intimately aware of the modern education experience. Neither of my girls received any awareness of the purposes, or usefulness of what they are were learning up through the 12th grade. College is different, but not that much. I could go on, but that is enough for the moment. Basic math has taken all of my time today. I think with the topic of education, that is enough new material for the time being. I want to go back to the first entry in your numbered list and start my comments from there. You have covered a lot of ground. Very nicely done.
    2
  1347. Joseph Inhiding - and - Peter Nachtwey I'm going to start out with a chart. This chart shows "real compensation per hour" juxtaposed with "real output per hour". The time frame of the chart is from 1947 to 2012, would have preferred one through 2016 but this will do. The source is attributed to Bureau of Labor Statistics and read much the same as numerous similar charts about the same material: https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/middleclasssqueeze-fig11.png Two sections of the chart draw my attention. From 1972 to 1982 is the first schism. From 1982 to 2012 is the second schism. In 1947, no one prepared the populace for the inevitable trouble that dropping tariffs the USA had since national inception would entail. After WW2 tariffs were essentially pushed aside in favor of open trade. The USA had a long history of tariffs to protect indigenous economic production, but the economic devastation in the world and an undamaged industrial infrastructure in the USA gave us an advantage. The advantage ran out in the 1960's when other nations had recovered and had their own industrial capacity. The people in the 1960's were kept in the dark while the economy started to sour, because the industrialists wanted it that way. No one would look favorably on their idea of recovering profitability by moving American industry out of the country, so mum is the word. The first schism on the chart is is resulting in the main from industrialists moving production outside of the USA. The second schism on the chart is is resulting in the main from tax cuts put forth from the Reagan era forward. Those tax cuts benefited the very wealthy who were also moving their companies to offshore production. The tax cut accelerated the capabilities of the industrialists, and thus accelerated their plans to offshore American jobs. The chart with a history of tax rates in the USA is near the bottom of the next linked page. The Reagan tax cuts fit quite nicely into the second schism on the first chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States This also correlates with the uncontrolled growth of the federal deficit since the 1970's. Compare the era of tax cuts from 1982 onward for the federal top tax bracket, to the annual federal deficit as shown in this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Public_debt_percent_of_GDP.pdf To summarize, there is a direct correlation between actions taken by business and the government . . . to the decline of the U.S. economy. This is a purposeful endeavor with no nationalism involved, therefore no patriotism nor honor toward country. You cannot just excuse this under the pretense that market based economics are at play and this is what we get, if that were the case why not just be bold and tell the American people so from the beginning? The industrialists (elites, modern oligarchs) shafted the American worker to bolster profits. In addition their federal taxes were cut by 28% from the 1971 tax rate. The wealthiest are now paying 42% less than they were in 1971. So the wealthiest are screwing Americans from both ends, on purpose . . . and they are poised to shaft us again with the tRumPutin tax cuts errr . . . I mean tax plan.
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  1348. Joseph Inhiding - The focus on work, hard work or any kind of work is a dead end proposition. That is not the answer, if it were then the U.S. economy would never have been gutted in the first place. Human beings are not averse to work. I myself have done more work in my lifetime without pay than for pay, so to say that humans will just be lazy and not work is a flat out lie. You are moving in the wrong direction. Nothing that you or Peter have brought up in all these long comment posts actually moves Project Humanity into a sustained future. You both advocate for extinction. Project Humanity, that is where your loyalties should be. What I read from Peter is extinction talk. What I read from you Joseph is slightly nicer, but it is still extinction talk. Until we can take Project Humanity seriously and really start planning that project, all this talk about markets, labor, robotics, lazy people and work . . . . it is all just a bunch of hot air. Bye bye Humanity. Nice knowing you.
    2
  1349. Gilbert, this is what happens when OUR free press is bought by billionaires or corporations, because now they control all the messaging.
    2
  1350. Yeah. America loves Trump and family about as much as we love a face full of porcupine quills.
    2
  1351.  Merzetude Joseph  - Amen Brother!
    2
  1352.  @tim4pele  - We have direct experience with psychopathy in the family, the real mental illness variety. However, psychopathy and sociopathy can and do develop in intelligent, high functioning adults, especially when such adult attain positions of power. The list given by the Original Post is a literal recipe to develop sociopath's in our society, which is a direct cause of most of the problems we have today. I'll pick one example, Jamie Dimon, who is CEO of JPMorgan Chase. Jamie Dimon is a sociaopath. When under oath testifying to the House of Representatives, Jamie Dimon made it perfectly clear that he deliberately set up his business to extract wealth from ordinary citizens and force them into debt. His mother probably raised a perfectly fine son, who then went on to become a sociopath due to his life choices and he most certainly followed to general intent of the OP's list.
    2
  1353.  @tim4pele  - Examples of sociopathy among corporate executives are abundant. Just follow the first three lines of the OP's comment, when the first two are adhered to, the third line simply drops away. Simply put, when you "Let go of negative emotions like guilt" and "Set goals that are aligned with your values", the sum of those two lines is far too often "greed". Once greed takes over, working to serve other people is no longer a consideration. So-called negative emotions like guilt are the guard rails of empathy, get rid of that and you have sociopathy.
    2
  1354.  @Mark0003260  - In order to answer you, I pulled up some information on both places you mentioned. The information was more complete for Compton and less so for Lynwood, the Lynwood information dealing more with demographics and was completely devoid of history. Geographically they are located very close to each other. Compton never did have much of a commercial sector, so what happened over time was the migration of black families into the area to take up farming. Black families tended to be more affluent than white families. The lack of a commercial tax base lead to erosion of taxes in the area, helped along by California Prop-13, which is the entire reason for the area's being in decline. These were not capitalist sacrifice zones. Your comment "Compton California that was a very good place to live when it was all white in the 50s ", tends to indicate that race was a factor in the area's decline, but that supposition is not supported by my research.
    2
  1355. @Payton Sellers - You are spouting myth, the myth the wealthy want you to believe and I can prove it with simple math. Using the figures for 2019 shows how the wealth get trillions in "free money" that they never lift a finger to earn. Privately held financial assets (wealth) exceeded $90 trillion, with a average growth rate of 5% to 7% annually. The GDP for the USA was $21.5 trillion with a growth rate over 2018 of 4.1% for the year. The pile of wealth grew by $4.5 trillion (using 5% figure), while the GDP grew by $848.8 billion. If only 18.8% of the wealth growth was converted top capital gains. that would wipe out all the GDP growth for 2019. Accumulated wealth is cannibalizing our economy, eating us alive, and for no better reason than for the wealthy to have bragging rights. Enough is enough.
    2
  1356. Innocent people, especially a president of the USA, should welcome investigations that will clear their names. Only guilty people rant against investigations and call them "witch hunts" . Sure are turning up an awful lot of guilty witches!
    2
  1357. @Max Mustermann - Irony, very powerful stuff.
    2
  1358.  @anonymoususer4376  - Court packing with conservatives is part of the big American wealth racket, also the people who vote republican are helping the wealthy to undermine and eventually eliminate the Constitution. The United States chose socialism a long time ago, for the wealthy. Americans don't even realize that the top 20% skims $2.5 trillion in free money directly out of the economy every year, without lifting a finger to earn that money. That is socialism for the rich and the so-called conservative justices are the means by which this scam on the American people is pulled off. In other words, republican voters are the least informed citzens who believe propaganda and thus consistently vote against their own best interests.
    2
  1359. Yes, one man rule. Screw Congress. Screw democracy.
    2
  1360. Here is the problem: Housing "units" are capital assets. An asset has a single purpose, to increase in value. Housing is not for families to call home anymore, it's to increase the wealth of the owner.
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  1361. heavyarms55 - Extremely well stated!
    2
  1362. What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day.
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  1363. Has anyone compared the number of U.S. citizens killed by police per year . . to how many U.S. citizens are killed in jihadists terror attacks each year? According to the New America Foundation, jihadists killed 94 people inside the United States between 2005 and 2015. If we use the FBI data for "justifiable homicides" by police, that trends steady at around 350 people per year. Based on that we can extrapolate that 3500 people were killed by police over the same period of time referenced by the New America Foundation. Add up those fatal killings over the decade and our police are responsible for killing 37 times more U.S.citizens than terrorist jihadists are responsible for over the same period of time. Why are we as Americans spending so many lives and so much treasure in this "War against Terrorism" abroad when we have a domestic terrorism situation at home involving those that are supposed to "serve and protect" us? The answer is that we as a population are being managed. I'm 56 years old and until last year I spent my life being fooled and lied to by our media and politicians (even thought I thought I knew quite a lot about economics and politics . . . not!). Now I recognize that I and everyone else is being played, and played by our own people. These traitors call themselves Americans, but their only loyalty is to themselves for greed or power. Like it or not, we are going to have to take charge and do a real purge, perhaps even changing our economic and government systems in the process. First step, no more bought and paid for politicians. This is something "We the People" still directly control. With our vote we can take control by not voting for any politician that owes allegiance to corrupting forces. Second step, we the people need a real plan. The JD platform is a start but we need a fundamental development plan for the future of all humanity . . . not just our local nation states.
    2
  1364.  Chris Page  - Trump in prison 2020!
    2
  1365.  @luke8349  - Sorry Bud, I'm not the one who needs to seek help. Anyone supporting Trump is a full on under educated idiot.
    2
  1366. Trump actually used the same words and phrases at this Heroin Summit, as he did when he walked away from the podium during the executive Order signing and Pence tried to get him back. There is at least a year between the two events, which means that Trump is on auto pilot during his "episodes".
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  1367. Projecting much?
    2
  1368. I'd also like to see what the GDP is without the "weapons/defense" and "big pharma/private insurance" industries (rackets), but also without the "financial services" and "investment services" rackets. The top 20% in the USA has over $55 trillion in financial assets which pull down at least $2.75 trillion in "interest" payments, that is more than 13% of our GDP. The books on the GDP are definitely cooked. That interest payment money is mostly extracted from the bottom 80% in the form of increased housing and health care costs. Our costs for vital living provisions are going up, up , up, yet we are getting less and less in value.
    2
  1369.  @Kushien  - ''Who profits by fomenting hate and violence?" Keeping us divided is how the wealthy are able to loot the country at will, without resistance.
    2
  1370.  Butch Coolidge  - You wrote: "The left is literally incapable of taking responsibility for anything ever". This is because neither the left, nor the right, is responsible for any of this. Being divided is a useful tool and that tool is put to use by the wealthy. We long ago were divided to keep the wealthy safe, and in modern times the wealthy have upped their game to looting entire national treasuries. Keeping us divided is the only thing that keeps them safe, and it looks like you are buying their game of Three Card Monte.
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  1371. Pence is irrevocably tied to Trump, impeachment of one . . . is impeachment of both. Tom is correct, any talk about potential bills concerning health care or infrastructure go nowhere in the Senate or Trump . . . so that is wasted time for the House of Representatives. Investigation and impeachment is the only theater of operations where the House democrats have power over the next two years. The voters, including myself, are demanding that the democrats take that action path. Investigate first, if nothing is there . . . . so be it. We will accept that and move on. However, the more likely scenario is that proper investigations in the House will reveal to the American people the true breadth and scope of Trump's illegal activities. Then we the American people will decide how the House shall proceed. If the facts of the investigations show the patently obvious to be true, impeachment is a mandate.
    2
  1372. Learn Socialist Justice - Lets go farther than that, let us abolish Wall Street. They are parasites on the real economy and especially with the derivatives market (gambling) being 100 times larger than the annual global economy . . . the rich play Russian Roulette with us every day. Time to put a stop to this madness.
    2
  1373.  @milfordcivic6755  - Your remark is very similar to something else I heard Michael Hudson say about the wealthy, that they view the real economy as "an inconvenience", something to be suppressed and minimized. This remark fits in very well with what I have observed about "our leaders" actions and behaviors.
    2
  1374. Pootube Doodle - Well said. What you wrote matches my research.
    2
  1375. You know, the comments here are rather strange. Yes, there are more homeless people here than in any other state. Why? Because the weather is survivable all year round, it has nothing to do with political ideologies. California roads are not the best to be sure, yet as my daughter departed her state due to divorce, she noted that the roads that were not interstate highways were exceedingly bad in every state until she arrived here. I'm going to point fingers here, "you people", who write all the snide comments about "Commieforna" and the democratic politicians here, yet you are blissfully unaware that you are being manipulated. This video is manipulating you. John Stossel is not an unbiased reporter. His Fox Business show "Stossel", aired viewpoints on individual freedom, free market capitalism and small government, all very common in the American media. Yet what most people seem unaware of is these are the talking points of billionaires, whose purpose is to use propaganda in pursuit of power. The homeless issue is not a product of political positions, because it happens regardless if a democrat or republican is in power. Homelessness is a product of growing wealth, when large corporations buy up whole neighborhoods, driving up costs of home ownership for everyone and driving those less able to cope onto the streets. The wealthy cleaned up in 2020, with financial assets gaining almost ten trillion dollars. I believe the entire reason Trump never responded to the Covid pandemic is because corporations wanted to fire millions and re-hire some of the fired workers at lower wages. Stop blaming the politicians and political parties, while they are not saints, they are not the ones in the drivers seat. Use your common sense people, wealth cannot get bigger while millions lose everything, not unless something fishy is going on with our "elite" wealth holders.
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  1376. Patrick Shelly - I finally found a point of disagreement with you which is a huge problem. It has become apparent that indeed we do need to put a cap on wealth and income, for both individuals and corporations.  My daughter and I did a thought experiment to determine how much wealth can allow a family to live in the utmost luxury, for a lifetime, without being able to extend that wealth to influence votes other than their own. The number we came up with was ten times greater than my original thought on the subject, but it would accomplish the goal of eliminating undue influence by any person/corporation in our governance. It is devastating to our government and economy when the Koch Brothers are able to spend 400 million dollars influencing a single election, and when Washington D.C. is saturated with lobbyists. The right wing think tanks are almost entirely paid for by wealthy individuals, once again it is devastating to our society when The Heritage Foundation has undue influence over politicians and acts as a rubber stamp agency in the selection of Supreme Court Justices. It is also vitally important with regards to the vast wealth inequality problem we have world wide. The idea of wealth and income caps has merit, it must be part of the discussion and should be debated openly. When Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates have slightly more wealth than the poorer half of the country combined . . . we have a sizzling problem that needs to be solved.
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  1377. brjema1 - Well now, arn't you the pot calling the kettle black. What you are listening to here is all propaganda, which is completely void of facts. Have you read the UN Rapportuer's report or listened to him talk on the subject of Venezuela? I have. Given that, I can say without qualifiers that you have not fact checked a thing . . . you are just blindly believing the biggest fake news organization in the world.
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  1378. mackjeez - I never made any claim that Chavez or Maduro did a credible job governing Venezuela. What I am saying is that the entire situation is none of Trumps business, or the business of the United States to place sanctions on Venezuela. International aid is coming into Venezuela, Maduro is simply not letting in so-called aid from the USA. He has good reason not to trust us, because the USA has used aid shipments in the past as a cover to smuggle arms into Latin American countries before . . . for the express purpose of arming right-wing rebels and to destabilize legitimate governments. Funny how folks are getting all bent out of shape over Venezuela, yet there is not an equal hue and cry over Saudi Arabia.
    2
  1379. Arhtur Galaxy - I'm just glad someone other than myself picked up on that. Keep a sharp eye . . . serves you well.
    2
  1380. Ken Bugbee - For a guy who claims an IQ of 109 and can't figure out the real reason 10 trillion was added to the national debt, you sure seemed to have missed the point of this video. You are aware that Congress has more do to with the debt than the President? After all it is Congress which handles all appropriations, and what did we have for most of Obama's presidency? A Republican Congress. Trotting out your decorated veteran status was a mistake. Unless (this is an important caveat) your service was during WW2 or the Korean War, then you served the Empire of U.S. corporations. That is not something to be proud of. The manner in which you carry yourself makes you a disgrace to the uniform, I hope you didn't teach your kids to act like you are acting here. Grow up old man.
    2
  1381. Not until we get smart enough to put a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. Until we do that one thing, capitalism in its cannibalistic form marched on.
    2
  1382. Legalize drugs in the USA and stop selling weapons south of our border, then the gangs terrorizing these children will evaporate. That will save the children without the need for a stupid wall.
    2
  1383. The noted Marxist David Harvey has opined that capital is too entrenched, has grown too deep of roots to remove by revolution. Therefor, capitalism itself cannot be removed by revolution. There is a way however to evolve capitalism so that the eventual path to a better society can be achieved. Put a cap on wealth accumulation for both individuals and business. Stop allowing for the limitless accumulation of wealth. No system, natural or artificial can grow forever, there are always limits. The problem with capitalism now is that it can grow until destruction. Limits are the path forward, preserve capitalism, with limits on accumulation of capital and wealth.
    2
  1384. The choice is coming down to this: a choice between the Star Trek economy and the Mad Max economy. I will opt for the Star Trek economy, we can do this.
    2
  1385. Biased because his purpose is to spread propaganda and misinformation.
    2
  1386. You have that backwards, the USA is the Evil in the world now, capitalism and greed of the 1% like Rupert Murdoch is what drives the war machine, not good American citizens.
    2
  1387. trev moffatt - That only applies if you are talking about local and state taxes, if those are cut there is less for firemen, police, libraries etc. Remember, federal taxes do not pay for local services. Federal taxes have been cut, cut and cut again . . . and then cut some more. Federal spending is transferred to the federal debt, now closing on 21 trillion dollars. All those tax cuts did not bring us new and better jobs from corporations and the wealthy, in fact they are gutting the American people by extracting more in fees . . . that feels and tastes like a tax hike to me.
    2
  1388.  @kathcasey2090  - I've seen that you have given replies to several comments, so I have a question to ask you. My studies have shown me that politics is all about channeling the economy to benefit some over others. Are you aware that the totality of "investments" that generate interest and dividends are five to ten times larger than the entire yearly economy of the USA?
    2
  1389.  @kathcasey2090  - Of course you knew the rich were getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Do you know the scope of it? Right now there is so much wealth in the form of "financial assets" (over $150 trillion), that those assets dwarf the economy. Something over half of our GDP goes to pay interest and dividends. Most people do not know that. Our economy is one huge scam. We need to get rude and loud about this.
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  1390. The Butler rebellion involved the Bush family. Iran-Contra with the hostages involved the Bush family. What we really need in the USA is leadership who are not wealthy criminals. I'm voting for Bernie Sanders, no more neo-liberal criminals in the White House.
    2
  1391.  @DEUltra82  - Hmmm. Flawed progressive tax system. Yes, flawed to the extent that there is not a progressive tax system any longer. There used to be one, before Reagan cut taxes from 70% to under 30%, and Bush Sr cut taxes, and Bush Jr cut taxes, and then Obama who made the Bush Jr tax cuts permanent, then Trump cut taxes. Doing all this tax cutting is what has driven up the federal debt to the extent that it is. What all these tax cuts have also done is allow the wealthy to extract wealth from everyone else. So yeah, our present progressive tax system is flawed, in that there are not enough taxes being paid and the burden of taxes now falls on the middle class rather than corporations and the wealthy.
    2
  1392.  Bro Den  - All I can say about your comment is that I have done extensive research into the economy, most of which indicates that your comment is for the most part, factually incorrect. Certainly there are a few (a very few) who made their fortunes by working hard, but they are the exception and not the rule. What you are suffering from is overexposure to propaganda. You are supposed to think in this manner, because it benefits those who are manipulating your mind. Be careful. If you are truly all for fairness, then I suggest you start digging deeper because it is your logic that is actually fatally flawed, not mine.
    2
  1393.  Bro Den  - What are you expecting? This video was about, or should a I say, against, progressive income tax. Who do you think benefits the most from modifying or abolishing progressive income taxes?
    2
  1394.  Bro Den  - I have company today, having an in depth discussion is difficult to manage at the moment. So I am asking sincerely, would you like to discuss this topic of progressive taxes and associated "cause and effect" more in depth? If so I would be happy to. You are raising fair points, but they need to be explored in more detail than I can manage with just a quick message.
    2
  1395.  Bro Den  - PragerU is a propaganda channel whose sole purpose is to brainwash the under educated masses. The owner of this channel, Dennis Prager, is a multi millionaire who does not want to pay his fair share of taxes and he is using his fortune to convince you to help him with his goal. Believe what you will, but these videos are harmful to the citizenry, not helpful to the country at all.
    2
  1396.  Bro Den  - With all due respect, you have a great deal to learn. The problem good people face every day is learning how to navigate life while manipulative forces are at work all around them. I don't know you, but you seem like a nice enough fellow. You have no reason to take my advice over anyone else's, but I do advise you to do some digging. The reason I started digging is because I own a small business and what I had been taught about running a small business and playing by the rules, was not what reality was teaching me. I had to figure out for myself what was going on with our economy. The very first piece of information I started my investigations with, was a chart showing wage growth and worker productivity from 1945 to 2015. You read what I wrote in previous comments. I know you want to believe in PragerU and to put your faith in what is portrayed in these videos. These videos are very appealing for those like me, who were taught as children what to believe and how to live. I am now approaching 60 years old and it is only in the last few years that I have learned how we are being manipulated by wealth holders. Now I have made it my purpose to hut down the truth. Just have a care about where you place your faith and good luck to you.
    2
  1397.  @jmaxton  - When I wrote the word "progressives", I did not realize at the time that I had used the plural. The word should have been "progressive". My error. "Fair share" is relative, we can really get into the weeds discussing that. Yes, I did watch the entire video, multiple times (though some time ago). The characterization of the three brothers is very arbitrary and does not realistically portray common situations, hence this video is a propaganda tool. Yes, the government does "create" its own fiat currency, the USA is the "sole manufacturer" of the U.S. dollar (this is written into the U.S. Constitution). Recently, the Congress and the Federal Reserve have made a mockery out of that ability via the CARES Act. Contrary to your statement, the government does not "only" redistribute tax money, though they certainly do engage in that behavior (mostly by redistributing from poor to wealthy). While you have credible understandings as outlined by both of your comments, you are off the mark by a wide margin concerning the governmental operations. The republic has been absorbed and remade into a plutocracy. The wealthy are in charge of the government. What you or I wants from the government amounts to little more than static noise at this point. The end game of capitalism is monopoly. I scrolled up and reread my comment. If you were paying attention, then you could easily follow up on the inevitable result of what compounded interest does to both debt and wealth, then be able to definitively conclude that the growth of both wealth and debt are unsustainable. Both have been growing at a higher rate than economic growth since the end of the Great Depression, and capitalism has created three crises in the past twenty years that only the wealthy have recovered from. Given that, what is the actual meaning of the word "fair"?
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  1398. Hydra509 - Thank you russian troll. First thing, when you declare that "you guys" really need to research more and stop thinking a single source is gospel . . . . you just lost all credibility. When you follow up will an "most honest" recommendation for news, we know you are dishonest. Thanks but no thanks.
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  1399. robert forsythe - Indeed. We need to insist that whatever laws and punishments apply to corporeal persons also must apply to corporate persons.
    2
  1400. I believe these right wing networks have been doing more than just indoctrination. Over the span of 55 years, from 1965 to 2000, our economy expanded by 336 percent. Wealth on the other hand, expanded 4599 percent. Think about what kind of long term planning is required for such a feat. I don't think our economy can generate that, just so far this year the gains for financial assets equals 49% of our entire economic output. There is no way this is the "free market", so these guys have taken over the government also. There are no government programs I know of that are not administered wholly or in part by corporations these days. The 1971 "Powell Memo" was a roadmap for the corporate takeover of all institutions and it looks like it worked.
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  1401. Ryan W. - Well now, isn't that smart of you. Who will you take your answers from? By the way, How is the weather in Moscow? Comments posted from persons with empty profiles are very suspect.
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  1402. Clarkecars - Every republican has selective credibility issues and by default, have no credibility at all . . . as proven by this video.
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  1403. Better make them without sleeves so Big Daddy can see the Queen's hand next time he tries to grab it.
    2
  1404. I vote by mail in California. There is a registration number on the ballot and a tear off stub for voters to keep as a receipt with that registration number. Signature matching is also done through the Registrar of Voters and the DMV. Very secure system.
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  1405. Exactly. Until we get smart enough to put a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation, the Monopoly game goes on and on until it all ends.
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  1406.  @hunteressthompson5878  - Agreed.
    2
  1407. The creation of the IRA and 401k retirement plans in 1974 and 1978 was another way the millionaires and billionaires screwed us over. The effect of compounded interest has been well known for centuries, with regards to wealth it is unsustainable but our government did pull off these legislative schemes anyway. Now we have a sum total of privately held financial assets well over $90 trillion. This sum total is presently at least four times larger than our economy, with a growth rate that is double that of GDP growth. The creation of the IRA and 401k were poison pills meant to extract wealth while involving innocent citizens as accomplices.
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  1408. Dedier - You are very correct in that "the majority of the populace is either too uneducated to understand or too disinterested to be concerned." This is something that concerns me greatly, because it leaves only the very few to come up with AND enact change for the better, on behalf of that greater part of the populace. Those very few on the "light" or good side are poor in resources when compared to the vast wealth of the very few and powerful who represent the "dark" side. When it comes to collaboration, I have a specific "something" for which I could greatly use more minds to flesh out the idea and build it into something real. The inspiration on my end comes from the "Star Trek" economy of the future. I just finished writing out a version for another post, so I will copy and paste the text body here and I would greatly appreciate your critique and criticisms. Mostly I am wary because past reforms have always been eventually undermined and eliminated by the "royals" of our time, the oligarchs and mega-corporations. So here goes: I would like to impart two main items, one simple and the second requiring some elaboration. First: It was because of the Justice Democrats and their campaign platform that I switched my voter registration from Independent to Democrat. JD's are very appealing and they are in the main on the correct track. However, reform is not enough. Reforms are always undermined and then removed by the oligarchs and their minions. That leads to my second item. I live in California and my eldest daughter (29) lives in Missouri with her husband. Over this past weekend I called her and we discussed my wealth cap proposal. She asked me to define a "life of luxury" so we could have a basis for discussion. Since "luxury" is defined differently by different folk, I provided this baseline for our discussion: "If a family lives can afford to live in a 29 room mansion and they are building an new mansion with 92 rooms, that is too much wealth." She told me that "mansions" in her area ran from 1.6 to 3 million dollars, so we started our "thought experiment" using the upper limit of 3 million dollars for housing and another 3 million for property taxes over a lifetime. I would ask her for the upper limit on what she considered "luxury" for transportation, food, clothing, entertainment, furniture, healthcare, travel and other lifestyle luxury amenities. Together we came to a total of 50 million dollars in accumulated wealth which would allow her and her family to live in the utmost of luxury and security. So if we break that down into an annual income over a 30 year working life, no one should really require more than 1.75 million dollars per year of total income after taxes. You see, there are only a small proportion of millionaires and billionaires who use their wealth to benefit mankind. Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson, perhaps the Gates (though I don't actually see what they are doing, My Lady reminds me of their Foundation work) . . . and the guy who made his fortune making and selling those 5-Minute Energy drinks (Billions for Change). On the diabolical power hungry side of the ledger we have the Trump's, the Mercers, the Koch Brothers, Julian Sinclair Smith of Sinclair Broadcasting, Rupert Murdoch and family, the Bush family, the Dupont's, the Johnson family, plus countless others I cannot name without looking them up. Throw into the mix the lobbying cartels for every known corporation using their money to buy OUR government representatives. Put a wealth cap on all of them and big companies and corporations will have to break apart, ending monopolies. Co-operatives between many stakeholders will become the new norm instead of the exception. Large building projects will require the cooperation of many builders instead of a few Mega-Corps. Large companies owned by individuals will be forced into reinvesting into their employees and company infrastructure. Many of the things the Justice Democrats stand for will happen by default with one simple and sweeping change. I could go on, but if you are as intelligent as I believe, you will see the possibilities in this once you give it some thought. So many of societies ill's will get attention and even cures with the revenues generated by a wealth cap tax . . . and no one will suffer the deprivation of their chance to earn millions. With vastly increased tax revenue, funding the vast potential of technical and artistic talent among our population can be unleashed. With a Universal Basic Income people are no longer bound to the useless hamster wheel of human wastage the current capitalism economy creates. ALSO: There will no longer be an oligarchy with the means and tools to undermine these societal reforms. Just think about it.
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  1409. Let's not forget that there are still a lot of Covid-19 deniers running around out there, sensible people who don't want to get sick because of other peoples carelessness. Smart people are not going to enter the job market until the majority of people are vaccinated.
    2
  1410.  @trackingthecoreofstuffandm2310  - Care to elaborate on that statement? Comparing your two comments with mine, of the two of us it is you who is not making any sense.
    2
  1411.  @six6goddess214  - The thing is Dee, we are not the ones getting the free money. Have you taken a look at how much money the Federal Reserve created in 2020? If not, then you are not seeing the full picture here. Less than 5% of all the money created in 2020 went to unemployment or Covid relief checks. The bulk of the $13 trillion created in 2020 went to corporations, who then used that money to buy back their own stock, thus propping up "free money" to the wealthy via the stock market and other financial assets. If you don't look into what the propaganda is telling you, then you are just another poor sap being conned.
    2
  1412.  @teo5  - Disgust is more apt a description.
    2
  1413. While I respect what Josh Harder did in this setting, he is not our hero here in the 10th district of California. When Josh ran for congress, his ads were almost exclusively in support of Medicare for All, featuring his disabled brother. His very first vote was in support of the PayGo rules, which effectively but a straight-jacket onto all Medicare for All legislation. He has turned out to be a dedicated corporate democrat, whose 2020 election funding is from 78% single source donations, in other words his support is almost exclusively from 1% donors. This was a good show for Josh, but I'm afraid that a show is all this is.
    2
  1414. For those who have the slightest interest in saving themselves and this country, you must understand the implications of two words: Financial Assets. The amount of financial assets out there is staggering.Try to wrap you head around this. Take a sample size of $100 trillion in financial assets and set aside just the interest gained over one year in a separate account. The interest gained over one year on that smaller account would be 3.3 times larger than all of the economic gains posted in 2019. Even that tiny sample is hollowing out whatever economy there is, so just think about what that larger $100 trillion account is doing. The wealthy are dependent upon your ignorance of simple math. Their wealth passed critical mass decades ago and even the global economy cannot support their capital gains. That is why these "bailouts" keep happening, the wealthy are parasites. The economy stopped being profitable enough to pay "interest" on their investments long ago. The only solution to this is to stop allowing unlimited wealth accumulation, but as long as people don't look too closely and fail to realize our economy is being hollowed out, the looting will last indefinitely. This is why there will be an all out war against the establishment in this country, if there is any possibility whatsoever of saving the country.
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  1415. Jane Shepard - What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day.
    2
  1416.  @anthonybrowne3942  - Nancy pelosi is not listening to us. I have called her a dozen times about impeachment . . . crickets.
    2
  1417. I don't think it is short term thinking about returns, not with what has happened over the long term. Over the span of 55 years, from 1965 to 2000. our economy expanded by 336 percent. Wealth on the other hand, expanded 4599 percent. Think about what kind of long term planning is required for such a feat. I don't think our economy can generate that, just so far this year the gains for financial assets equals 49% of our entire economic output. I believe these right wing networks have been doing more than just indoctrination.
    2
  1418.  @aureliusp1330  - I need to do further work on my messaging, because by no means did I intend to imply that such wealth growth benefits our people. The truth is, that while our economy grew, our wages did not. Wealth grew enormously, because most of it was stolen from us or looted from the government. The theft and looting happened because the wealthy own the government and wrote laws to benefit and protect itself. The long term planning I referred to began before World War Two, was codified in the late 1940's and was initiated in the late 1950's and early 1960's. The basic framework was to grow wealth by arranging rate of returns on "investments" to be greater than the growth of the economy. The starting gun was The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, weakening unions. By 1965, the growth of financial assets already equaled almost half of our GDP. To grow more and faster the economy would have to change. In 1971 our dollar was decoupled from gold. In 1974 pensions were decoupled from employers, the ERISA Act bringing all that retirement money into the stock market. In the 1980's Reagan stopped enforcing anti-trust acts which allowed him to then destroy unions. NAFTA, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (which destroyed the Glass-Steagall Act) were part of the 1990's action to extract more wealth from us. This has been a long steady march to a beat we did not create. When FDR refused to confiscate the riches of the wealthy after the Great Republican Depression, he left the oligarchy with the means to dilute and undermine the New Deal. The wealthy were angry with FDR and essentially swore an oath to take down the New Deal and put in place a government/economic structure that allowed them to take it all (god-given right to rule and all that BS). We are now living in the era when society itself unravels under the strain, both the economic strain and the strain caused by the lies the oligarch indoctrination has woven into our societal culture.
    2
  1419.  @stavroskarageorgis4804  - Interesting. I recommend leading comments such as yours with, "I am not defending this" to head off misunderstandings. Now that I understand your position better, I completely agree that we must do away with Capitalist property relations. Such relations are a means of control, a contortionist way of preserving an obsolete monarchical regime using the economy and perverted legal system as a means of control.
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  1420. John Deckenbach - Excellent point!
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  1421. I'll tell you why I am here on the Fox News comment section. Dept grows faster than the economy, that is always the case regardless of economic ideology. The Babylonians knew that. The Ancient Athenians Knew that. The Roman Empire knew that and then decided to forget it. Modern capitalism just ignores that and pretends it can grow forever. This channel is bought and paid for by the billionaire Rupert Murdoch, whose express purpose is to make you stupid so he and his buddies can do as they please . . . but also to keep you ignorant of Debt Jubilee. I am keenly interested in mankind's continuing survival and prosperity. Fox News stands opposed to my agenda and spews propaganda designed to keep you ignorant. I say that because I was ignorant for 55 years. When I started gigging on my own, that is when I learned enough over time to understand what is happening. So go ahead and disparage me . . . .but I suggest you start your own independent research project. You will learn some interesting things.
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  1422. The real problem and crisis is invisible. For as long as it is legal for individuals to accumulate unlimited wealth, sovereign currencies and government treasuries are reserved and preserved for the exclusive function of growing more wealth. The returns gained from financial assets have long ago outpaced the productive capability of economies based on goods and services. Now the only way financial assets can grow is to tap into government treasuries. This will continue until someone makes a law limiting how much wealth an individual can accumulate.
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  1423. I'm going to add something to your comment. Fully half of our economy now goes to paying the wealthy "unearned income". The mass or "weight" of financial assets has reached such a level that in order to pay interest and dividends on those assets, it is cannibalizing our economy. Most people are simply unaware of this. Capitalism as we understand it, no longer exists. "Investments" no longer produce any product, they are simply a means of extracting wealth from all of us. Just in case anyone is interested, I have examples to show (yet so many people yawn and tune out when math is involved).
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  1424. World wide, the top 20% own or control 94.5% of all wealth. When the bottom 80% must divy-up only 5.5% of the worlds wealth between themselves, what can you expect? Obviously capitalism is no longer a legitimate economic form and governments backed by capitalism are no longer legitimate in the eyes of the majority of people.
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  1425.  @toomuch8232  - You cannot use the killing of millions as a defense, or as an offense. Capitalism in the USA killed one million over 25 years by denying health care to people. The same number of people were killed by guns in the same time period, would not have happened except for the gun manufacturers and lobbyists. There are countless examples of capitalism's thirst for killing, Pol Pot is small potatoes compared to what American corporations do around the world every year.
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  1426. Homemadebeats - You are incorrect. The polar opposite argument is what the oligarchs want you to believe, and that argument is not in your best interest. Time to shake off the political programming the propaganda has pushed upon you my friend.
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  1427. unfairadvantagefilms - Spot on!
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  1428. Plutocrats are the real enemy of the people. Seriously, the plutocrats got the Federal Reserve to create $13 trillion last year, most of which ended up in the stock market. Financial asset value rose by $9.8 trillion in a down economic year. This is actual looting with the ship on fire and sinking, yet we are all distracted by political theater shadow puppets cast on the timbers by the firelight.
    2
  1429. Drain the swamp? tRumPutin has made it into a Federally Protected Wetland!
    2
  1430. peter gbrics - That was the most idiotic, ignorant and irresponsible comment . . . you must be one of the Greedy Old Pricks cheer leading sycophants. Capitalism has gone viral and out of control, it is time to put the yoke and bit of regulation back in place to reign it back in before it kills us all.
    2
  1431. peter gbrics - Why is it also that you insist socialism is all about creating equality among all? That is simply not true. That is as far as I am willing to go into your garbled writings. If you want me to take you seriously in any way, clean up the mess you have made. Why is it that so many of you "rightists" seem to have a problem creating comprehensible writing? Misspellings, no spaces between the period ending of a sentence and the beginning of a new sentence? Not to mention the horrific paragraph structure or complete lack thereof? Did you know stupidity is something the oligarchs want in their tools? You are doing a great job.
    2
  1432. peter gbrics - Ok, not interested in conversing with someone who is obviously writing for shock value only.
    2
  1433. peter gbrics - Very funny Sonny, I am probably old enough to be your grandfather.
    2
  1434.  LAST CALL  - The word "shall", and the word "will" are not open to interpretation. Both indicate an inevitable action. There is no room to squeeze in a "maybe" or "maybe not", both words are definitive modal verbs. They are not "could", or "may", or "might", or "should". The word "shall" is as powerful a definitive modal verb as the word "must". There is simply no room for interpretation, which is why that particular law (26 U.S. Code, Sub Section 6103, Paragraph f1a) is written the way that it is. Both Trump (by ordering) and Mnuchin (by obeying the order) are breaking the law by with holding Trump's taxes from the House of Representatives. If the Supreme Court finds that Trump and Mnuchin have the latitude to reinterpret that law to fit their own will, that will be the day the USA breaks for good, because all law will, on that day, then become absolutely meaningless.
    2
  1435.  LAST CALL  - You wrote: "Congress is required to have a "specific federal crime" and "reasonable cause" to obtain anyone's tax information, and a political vendetta against a President that they do not like does not qualify as either of those things." That statement is not written anywhere in the law. You, and Trump, made that up . . . . which by the way, is called a lie.
    2
  1436.  LAST CALL  - What law? Show me where it is written into U.S. law that the Congress must have a "legitimate legislative purpose" to legally obtain the president's tax records. I showed you the specific law that gives Congress the absolute right to see the president's taxes. If you cannot show me something specific, then like Trump you are simply trying to make things up. Your first attempt did not work (because you do not have a functioning brain?), because I showed you exactly what the law is, where the law is and what the law says. So show me, or shut the fuck up.
    2
  1437. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
    2
  1438.  @noraclarke1344  - Do I hear you being just an emphatic about every republican politician as you are about Bernie? Do I hear making such a fuss about bought off corporate democratic politicians? Do I? Do I really? What you are is an attack dog. How about every other politician "lead by example" first, before Bernie. He has already walked the walk before he started walking the walk. He is far more honest than you, who first hurled insult, made a baseless attack, then in reply you hurl insult and attack again. The only people who act in this manner are those who are self important, yet feel a deep shame or unworthiness. This profound emptiness is why you attack, it is not really about Bernie at all.
    2
  1439. Have to agree with xadam2dudex. Nailed it.
    2
  1440. Spot on. Your "cusp of civil war" paragraph was well mapped out. The smash and grab robberies are happening more often and are well organized. When I grabbed the numbers for GDP and Total Financial Assets, then totaled the numbers, it shows why this is happening. Fact is, wealth is a huge mass compared to the economy. Wealth is larger and grows faster, without apparent support from the productive economy. As wealth grows it becomes a black hole, sucking in all wealth that is touched by a web of corporations and financial institutions. For anyone interested in the math: in 1947 Total Financial Assets was 2.88 times the size of GDP for that year. Financial assets have on average grown faster than GDP by 0.6% annually between 1947 and 2021. Financial assets are connected to stocks, which are connected to corporations, which in turn supply most of what we need to live. The need to "turn a greater profit" year over year is what brings us inflation. The only reason we did not have overt inflation for a decade was that corporations had access to almost free money, so they could boost their stock price with stock buybacks on borrowed money. That door is closed now, so corporations have turned to their customers for the "profits" that will float their stock prices. Now, Total Financial Assets are 4.95 times the size of our GDP. Last year the gains alone for financial assets was more than 66% of our GDP. There are limits. The facts you describe in your "cusp of civil war" paragraph show that entire sections of our society have been pushed beyond their limits. Sad fact is that most people do not know the real source of their woes. "The rise to power of great wealth" It is the power of great wealth that utilizes "Divide and Conquer" in order to protect itself. Is it not past time to focus on our actual nemesis, the great wealth? That overwhelming anxiety people are feeling is caused by "great wealth", which is, for all intents and purposes, the un-elected government that is really in control of our lives.
    2
  1441. Bill Gates 2% annual wealth tax on $20 billion would be $400 million. No one of his stature would settle for less than a 5% rate of return on his invested wealth, so even after he paid the 2% his net worth (at 5% RoR) his fortune would still grow by $600 million. The problem no one is talking about is this: The 1% have over $30 trillion in idle wealth which they "invest" for a rate of return. There is also $28 trillion in retirement savings which is also invested for growth, which must be a RoR over inflation and fees. I don't know how much of an overlap there is between the retirement savings and the 1%'s accumulated wealth, so for the sake of simplicity, lets ignore the retirement savings in the following math which illustrates the problem few seem to grasp. Our U.S. economy is just shy of $20 trillion in annual GDP with a growth rate (in 2018) of 2.56% The 1% are "investing" at a RoR of over 5%, (S&P 500 index funds have paid over 9% since 1994). That is $30 trillion seeking a rate of return in a $20 trillion annual economy. The economy GDP grew by $560 billion in 2018. The RoR on $30 trillion at 5% is a trillion and a half dollars ($1.5 trillion) Can you see the problem yet? To pay the 1% their RoR, all of the GDP gains for 2018 are eliminated, plus an additional $940 billion skimmed directly out of the economy. This is done by raising the price of health care, housing and whatever else can be used by financial institutions to extract wealth from us, all the while calling that extraction "product" or "production in the economy". That extraction from us is actually counted by these criminals as part of the economic growth for the year. In reality the economy is shrinking, the numbers are being skewed to hide this from us. What we really need to do is dump this 2% on wealth tax, instead we need to put a hard cap on accumulated wealth for individuals and corporations. This much . . . no more. This whole "incentives" argument is bullshit to cover up the scam they are pulling on us. I say we cap wealth accumulation at $10 million, that is plenty to live a life of luxury and it will stop wealthy people from buying our politics and shaping government policy.
    2
  1442.  QB5  - Thanks. I'm in total agreement with you, but I'm not really trying to change their minds. When I engage in these losing battles, my resolve grows stronger. This is a war for human survival and I want my children and their children to live, not to go extinct.
    2
  1443. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
    2
  1444. I have already voted for Bernie in the California primary, and here is the reason why. Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
    2
  1445. Brian Garrow - This why we have to refocus our energy. Our efforts are wasted when we try to do reforms of any kind, because those reforms will always be dismantled. Instead of changing a myriad of different laws trying to combat undue influence, there are only two simple rules that must be placed into law. First in an Annual Income Cap, the second is an Accumulated Wealth Cap. It is vast wealth in the hands of individuals which is the root cause of all our woes and the dysfunction of wealth inequality in our worldwide collective societies. Vast wealth is the toolkit used to dismantle all reforms put into law, and the one glaring example I will put forward is FDR's New Deal. In the decades since the New Deal, the wielders of vast wealth have been dismantling the New Deal piece by piece. Now the New Deal is gone, destroyed. This happens to every law, every reform ever put in place to protect the majority. There is a simple guide as to what the caps should be. By all means, earn your millions until you have enough for you and your family to live in the utmost of luxury for a lifetime. Beyond that point, return everything you earn back to the society that helped you create the wealth in the first place. No one makes millions in a vacuum, everyone who does so has the help of the entire society of human beings . . . every millionaire made is a joint venture with society. I'm 57 years old and my eldest daughter is 30 years old. Between us we have the life experiences of our generations. We did a "thought experiment" to ascertain what the income and wealth limits should be. Her ideas encompassed more than my own, so we generally went with her numbers. I would like to see more of us doing such "thought experiments" so we can come up with a consensus that will make an annual income and accumulated wealth cap palatable to the majority. Do these two things and all dark money political contributions evaporate down to a level where the will of the few no longer dominates the will of the many. We already know excessive wealth beyond what is needed to live a life of utmost luxury is mostly then used to exert power over the powerless.
    2
  1446. Mike Foxx - Look into a mirror Buddy, you have the projection thing backwards.
    2
  1447.  @rogersmith7396  - Workers got a raise, yes. However employers raised prices on goods higher than the worker wage gain. Inferring that workers raises caused inflation is, well, idiotic at best.
    2
  1448. Retalak - Bravo! I'm glad that more people are becoming aware of the real situation in Venezuela and I'm certainly glad that you brought it up in response to Glen Wallace's comment. Too many people have been ensnared by the corporate media's propaganda version of events in Venezuela, which would have us believe socialism is a failure by holding up Venezuela as the example.
    2
  1449. Thom is no longer hosting on RT. Final show was last week, Thom introduced new host.
    2
  1450.  @ehron214  - I watched the beginning of this video several times. The student who was tazed was not shown to be attacking anyone. Is there some other video of this event showing what happened prior to the start of this video? In any case, the police are big and strong adults. They can handle situations like this without resorting to pepper spray and especially without using tazers. The young man who was tazed never got up. The officer who did the pepper spray and tazing also did a lot of aggressive shoving, looks like he has anger management issues.
    2
  1451.  @Valterius87  - Agree and disagree. Yes, anyone can carry a weapon, even at school. We have seen recent proof of that, but not in this instance. Containment and control is part of police duty, but aggressive attacks are not. Note that police killings of citizens in the USA are over 7000 since 2014, more than the next ten countries combined, so that is a problem with our policing. Most murders are committed by 17 to 29 year olds, by comparison those children in the 5 to 16 year old range commit a very small fraction, about 8% of murders when compared to the 17 to 29 year olds. Just that figure alone shows that the officers in this video over reacted by several orders of magnitude. Last, this is not an exactly main stream media, this was a social media video. There are postings here in the comment section and on social media that explain the roots of this situation, which is another example of authority over reacting, sexual bias and simply ignoring sexual predation in connection with the school.
    2
  1452. Yes, this is the same video as part-1.
    2
  1453. I'm sorry Eric, but you are wrong. Here is what a Biden win is going to do. First, it is going to put Americans to sleep. Everything is fine, we got rid of Trump. Cool, we can stop paying attention now. Four years is going to tick by while the country goes back into Obama daydreams. Meanwhile, nothing gets done on climate change, four years gone from the clock. Moving on, the little know time bomb of financial assets will continue on its merry way. Just paying interest and dividends on financial assets takes up a quarter of our economy, which is the hidden reason why Trump won in the first place. All that interest and dividend money has to be well hidden in the economy, so housing will go up, health care will climb faster and interest rates on credit cars will exceed 35%. All of this sets the stage for a new, smarter version of Trump to run on the republican side for 2024, saying truthfully that the democrats simply cannot do anything right. Ok, you are so into getting rid of Trump, you just screwed the entire human species. Happy now?
    2
  1454. All this furor about the "Squad", flared up right after Jeffrey Epstein gets arrested. Trump is trying very hard to obscure media coverage of something which is going to hurt him very, very badly. Serves him right, after all Trump specializes in hurting people . . . women, unpaid contractors, unpaid cities who put up services so he can hold his fascist rallies . . . the list goes on.
    2
  1455.  @nochepatada  - Yes, because "American style" freedom is simply slavery by another name. We all are bound by debt peonage to the 1%, who have rigged the economy so that we can never escape slavery.
    2
  1456.  @Stephanie-vw3qq  - I voted for Obama twice. It was only after he was out of office that I learned and understood that Obama sided with capital accumulation over the needs of American citizens after the 2008 crisis. In effect, Obama decided also to end democracy, because capital accumulation and democracy cannot coexist.
    2
  1457. Summary of the Trump Presidency: "It's not my fault, it's not my fault. Save yourself, I'm not going to do my job."
    2
  1458. The "elites" are a system malfunction. We should have learned by now, in 12,000 years it is always the ever expanding greed of the elites that brings repeated destruction onto the masses. A "system" is defined by boundaries and the elites have none of those. What we really need to do, to saves ourselves and everyone else, is to eliminate that class altogether. Ever expanding wealth is a system malfunction, no system can maintain operation with such a malfunction, so the answer is to but a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. Do that one thing, make it stick across the board and let no one escape, we will have a chance to avoid extinction.
    2
  1459.  @paddymcelligott5375  - The only way we get a government that is not for sale is to put a hard cap on individual wealth. I just ran the numbers for GDP vs financial asset growth. Over the past 70 years, financial asset growth has outpaced GDP growth to such an extent that within a few years, our entire GDP will not be enough to cover the growth of financial assets. We can't afford wealthy people any longer.
    2
  1460.  @paddymcelligott5375  - Not disagreeing with you at all. In fact, incremental change is the only way we will progress. However, multiple crisis are coming on faster and faster, so those increments are going to have to stretch or we will break. Also, we need to focus on the nexus of our problems with equal ferocity to the attention we pay to all the various agendas. Wealth accumulation is at the core of every issue we fight for. Just read an article today, "How Private Equity Took Over Air Ambulances". In reading that article, I could plainly see that wealth accumulation is causing problems in yet another arena. We need to focus on that core issue like a magnifying glass burning a blade of grass. To fight so many multiple battles is just diffusing our energy and making it easy for wealth to nullify us. That is the lesson I have learned from all of my research and efforts, so that is why I keep hitting that point whenever I can. We must deal with wealth accumulation with as much vigor as we pursue any other action, or we will remain reliably impotent.
    2
  1461.  @paddymcelligott5375  - Here is why I settled on a wealth cap instead of high taxes. We had the high taxes twice already and both times the wealthy eroded those taxes away. To keep reforms in place, there must be safeguards against erosion and that means placing limits on what wealth can do. All of the elements of socialism that you mentioned have been under sustained attack and are more than halfway through privatization. A wealth cap does not prevent anyone from getting filthy rich, just does not allow anyone to get wealthy enough to alter or mold our democracy into an oligarchy. Scratch that, we need to yank our democracy back away from being an oligarchy. Right now, we have no say whatsoever in our government . . . . talk about stinking of stagnation, we are already there.
    2
  1462. The Lady Olenna Tyrell - Excellent comment. The Democratic Party is suffering a condition which in legal terms is called "irreconcilable differences". The corporate democrats want "unity" while the progressive wing will have no part of that while the corporate democrats are being bought off. This is grounds for divorce. The young people have the correct take on things here, and they have pushed me into investigating our economy. I'm 56 years old, and boy do I feel like a fool now. Both democrats and especially republicans have been pushing us into economic calamity, something I have been blissfully unaware of until recently. Last year I specifically changed my voter registration from Independent to Democrat . . . to push the democratic party to the left. If another viable party can emerge from within the democratic party, I'm all for that. As long as our politicians are bought off, they will never represent us. I give priority with my vote, to the candidate that raises campaign funds from the people directly and does not accept PAC money or corporate money or billionaire money or think-tank money . . . I think you get my drift. Vote out all the corrupting influences, then maybe we can reconstruct our country. If not . . . we will devolve into fascism or dystopia.
    2
  1463.  @tidus9942  - If you were a numbers guy and looked closely at financial statistics, you would see that the exponential growth curve of wealth will absorb all your money and sent it to the top 0.01%'ers in about 35 years. My advice to you is, your guns are pointed in the wrong direction.
    2
  1464. Republicans fall into two categories: the ones that lie, and the ones that willingly believe those lies...
    2
  1465.  @davidsambora8924  - Excellent comment. Steve Keen has the correct approach, the whole system needs to be trashed. We can do better.
    2
  1466. Elizabeth Warren has called for a wealth tax on all accumulated wealth over 50 million dollars. I support this idea, it is the same thing as the property tax most of us pay on our homes . . . so it is a fair thing to do. However I would go further than Elizabeth Warren by supporting a wealth cap at 50 million dollars. The wealth cap would forever eliminate the oligarchy and prevent our grand children from having to deal with this problem again in another 100 years.
    2
  1467.  @ahwmahwm5533  - But my sociopath is better than your sociopath.
    2
  1468. Hey Peter - Prove how capitalism is not a racket. I dare you.
    2
  1469. Hey Peter . . . still waiting.
    2
  1470. The Fed is once again bailing out the banks . . . . which for some reason are "short" on money even though they are making huge profits. Between September 23 and October 10, the Fed will be pumping $75 billion of liquidity per business day into the banking system. The market repurchase agreements, or repo program was initiated when the overnight borrowing interest rate between banks skyrocketed from 2% to almost 10% in a day. Pumping almost $1 trillion in liquidity into the banking system dilutes the value of the dollar . . . once again making things we need to live cost more. We need to put a stop to this. There is one very easy solution that everyone seems to ignore . . . put a cap on wealth accumulation. No system, natural or man made, exists without limits . . . except how wealthy certain people can get. Enough already, we need to apply common sense to the situation and place hard cap limits on wealth . . . that one action will solve so many of our problems in the economy.
    2
  1471. Not so funny fact, our police kill 37 U.S. citizens for every U.S. citizen killed by jihadist terrorists in the USA.
    2
  1472.  @TJHTouring  - I'm all for improvements. The reality is however, that reforms are always eroded and then eliminated by wealthy interests. If we really want to solve problems, then we have to address the means by which problem solving is stymied over and over again. Wealth equals power, so if we are ever going to get reforms that stick we must directly address the manner in which reforms are fragmented and blocked, that means taking down power behind the curtain. That in turn means capping individual wealth to the point where the people who vote have the power to make changes stick. Refuse to do that and we are just stuck in the same leaky boat as always.
    2
  1473. Republicans have conned the Boomers and those who came before them into sacrificing our children and grandchildren, just so that the wealthy can sit on their piles of assets. AOC is a REAL American, unlike the traitor GOP. Anyone want to debate that? Bring it on.
    2
  1474.  j a  - Once again, you are proving yourself to be an idiot. AOC fought the Amazon headquarters because Jeff Bezos was trying to syphon off $5 billion from New York taxpayers to pay for that gargantuan waste of effort. That $5 billion could have brought in 10 times the number of jobs to New York just by rebuilding their transit system, waste water treatment plants or organizing new wind and solar farms to provide power to the city. Jeff Bezos did not need a dime of taxpayer money to build a new headquarters, he could have paid that out of pocket. See what I mean? You have been conned, which means you are all kinds of stupid.
    2
  1475.  Gary Schooley  - China is selling their U.S.Treasury bonds at a loss to whoever they can, so is Russia. They are buying gold. The U.S. has been trying to hold down gold prices, but that lasted only so long. Gold has gone up in price steadily since mid April. Both countries expect the USA to default on it's bonds and they don't want to pick a fight by trying to cash them in. Ultimately, the world will split with China and Russia in the "de-dollarized" trade zone. When the new U.S. Treasury bond holders try to cash their bonds, that is when the real crisis will hit us at home. Other countries that the USA deems vital will also want to join the "de-dollarized" trade zone when it means greater opportunity, at which point the dollar will collapse. I think Trump is working with both China and Russia to speed up the process.
    2
  1476. J.A. Holland’s Quiet Storm - I agree with you 100%. It is as plain as day what trump is doing, destroying everything the USA has built up and stood for since Roosevelt was in office, both domestically and internationally. However trump is but a symptom of what the republicans and corporate democrats have been doing to our country ever since the Powell Memo was written. In the Powell Memo, Lewis Powell quotes Milton Friedman about a powerful attack under way against the American system. Here is the quote: In a foreword to these lectures, famed Dr. Milton Friedman of Chicago warned: “It (is) crystal clear that the foundations of our free society are under wide-ranging and powerful attack — not by Communist or any other conspiracy but by misguided individuals parroting one another and unwittingly serving ends they would never intentionally promote.” With four and a half decades between then and now, I would put forward that what both Powell and Friedman have wrought with their policies have been far more destructive to the American people than those whom they so feared back then. The republicans and the oligarchs have been fighting against the American people ever since General Smedley Butler thwarted the republican and businessman's attempted coup against the USA in the 1930's. Now they are close to getting what they want, which can be compared to the partitioning of England after the Industrial Revolution. The peasants (that would be us), are getting kicked off the land (out of the economy) . . . where we will have to fend for ourselves (no more democracy) and hopefully starve to death. The Powell Memo: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/
    2
  1477. Democrats are simply put, republicans now. Nancy Pelosi is refusing to do the bidding of the 2018 electorate, we voted in the blue wave to hold Trump accountable and she is refusing outright. My new democrat representative is acting more like a republican every day. Joe Biden is Trump with a better smile. When Joe Biden becomes the nominee, I will write in Bernie or vote 3rd party for the first time in my 57 years.
    2
  1478. We have our own Lord Voldemort now, all that matters to him is the service he receives from his followers, the level of devotion. Not even loyalty matters now.
    2
  1479. And yet, Kentucky just elected him to another six years. They call what Trump did "The Big Lie", when actually the Big Lie goes back over 50 years. The only way we get out of this is eliminating billionaires and limiting millionaires to a few million each. Growing unlimited wealth is the actual big lie, when really, nothing can grow forever.
    2
  1480. Summary of the Trump Presidency: "It's not my fault, it's not my fault. Save yourself, I'm not going to do my job."
    2
  1481. Fully agreed with your presentation. Our constitution is obsolete and has been taken advantage of to hand power back to modern day un-elected kings, who now control the economy and political policy through asset management. Resolving problems by force leaves devastation in the wake of the violence, solving nothing. People need to understand violence, we have a plethora of historical and current events that demonstrate conclusively that violence makes situations worse and solves nothing. But we also cannot have unelected kings of finance making all of the decisions for our collective futures.
    2
  1482.  @tedgemberling2359  - Your analysis is spot on. Just watched an eye opener called "Asset Manager Capitalism" featuring Mark Blyth. Wealth mass is so concentrated now, that we have lost virtually all political decision making capability as citizens.
    2
  1483.  @SweetandSourohmy  - Your ten minutes were up six minutes ago . . . no owning happening yet.
    2
  1484. "The influence of these groups comes not from money" Says The Swamp Creature himself. Rubio is drenched in dirty money and has been bought out by so many special interests that he can no longer smell the blood on his hands. Floridians, please get rid of this slime.
    2
  1485.  @sylviam6535  - Most people, including yourself it seems, are unaware that the major flaw in our economic system is that wealth grows faster than every economy. This creates an imbalance, that everyone suffers from except the top 0.01%. Snide remarks do not help, math does. A wealth cap is logical.
    2
  1486. You are all morons, fighting over stuff that makes no difference. Here is what we have: Privatization does not work. Cutting taxes does not work. Spending more on the military does not work. Holding us hostage to big oil does not work. Median incomes today buy LESS THAN HALF of what median incomes did 30 years ago. Why people, why? Republicans spitting at democrats, democrats spitting at republicans . . . it is all diversionary. So . . .while we all fight, methane is thawing. Do you know what that means . . . any of you?
    2
  1487. "Corporations are people too!" According to my copy of the "Declaration of Independence" and the "Constitution of the United States", . . . There is mention of "people" and "mankind" . . . . yet I have never seen a reference to "corporations". "Constructs" are not people, "entities" are not people, and corporations are certainly not a member of "mankind". DigitalLibrarian - I know your comment was tongue in cheek. I seek to eliminate all that are not "real people with pulses that breath air" from the umbrella coverage of the word "mankind". Time to get ourselves back to "We the People" in the USA. Since 1986 the median price of a new home has gone up 230%, yet the median wage has been stagnant. Where has all that money gone to and where exactly is all that "demand" coming from? The fishy smell started when the industrialists of the 1960's abandoned the U.S. national economy for cheaper outsourced labor, then when "corporations" became "people" and . . . "money" became "speech". It is time to take back our country. If you think we can be a drained husk and survive . . . then just kiss your children goodbye right now.
    2
  1488.  Hazzycakes  - Agreed, but that idea must be partnered with an idea that is simpler and easy for the population to get their teeth into. Money out of politics (forgive the pun) is far to hazy a concept for most people to get behind. When people understand that the 1% are reaching directly into their pockets to extract their wealth entirely . . . that will set the populace on fire. Then we can kill two birds with one stone.
    2
  1489.  @Denis-ue2nz  - I fully agree with you. To make things worse, now wealth is so concentrated (as opposed to two years ago when I wrote my earlier posts) that three asset management firms actually own most of the assets under "asset management capitalism" and the mass of these assets are so huge that they cannot be sold (illiquid). The goal now is wealth preservation at all costs. None of this wealth is being used for productive purposes and the owners now control virtually every aspect of our actual and political lives.
    2
  1490. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
    2
  1491. romulus463 = Farm Troll, don't feed, likes to bite hands.
    2
  1492. Abuse of personal debt is trivial. The value of financial assets has gained enough in the past two years to equal a full year of GDP. The only reason that happened is because the Federal Reserve is loaning trillions every year to corporations. They in turn buy back their own stock, artificially pumping up the stock market. Corporate debt of this magnitude can never be paid back.
    2
  1493.  Crystal K  - People do evil even when they are not evil. Accumulating wealth without limits is an exercise in evil, therefor those who pursue such wealth are evil.
    2
  1494. I've looked at two things; 1) Median wages have not kept up with productivity and have remained stagnant for over thirty years. 2) The median price of a new home has risen 230% over the past 30 years. With stagnant wages, where is all the demand coming from to buy these new homes and cause their price to go up? Housing is only one item that has risen in cost, heath care, child care, rents, transportation and energy have all risen over 100% in the same time frame. Meanwhile we have this deep finance state going on, where something called "derivatives" . . . .a finance tool none of us have access to . . . . has grown to be more than all of the planets productive output. These are playthings for the rich to gamble with and they will eventually topple the entire global economy. The reason housing prices have risen along with everything else is that these finance toys are extracting wealth from you and I. "Big Risk: $1.2 Quadrillion Derivatives Market Dwarfs World GDP. One of the biggest risks to the world's financial health is the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market. It's complex, it's unregulated, and it ought to be of concern to world leaders that its notional value is 20 times the size of the world economy."
    2
  1495. deathgirl71 - Capitalism as it stands is system that has gotten us far . . . but in its later years has become hopelessly corrupted. Time for us to adopt a modified form of capitalism or an entirely new system of economics.
    2
  1496. I think it is time to do some castigating of our own. Question: What is it all about, this thing we are doing? Is the be-all end-all of human existence to grow an economy by 3% per year? What is the point and purpose to it all?
    2
  1497.  @Raphael4722  - Honestly? That prediction hardly matters. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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  1498. Hi David, having a slow day? Your trolling usually has more bite to it but tonight its all wet noodle. Backing up an exposed criminal liar draining all your gusto?
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  1499. Sheila chambers - I share your concerns, they are quite valid. From my current point of view, there is abundant evidence that we as a people are being actively maneuvered about by unseen hands. This shows in the election problems, the economy . . . even our constitutional rights. Right now I am in my late fifties and it is only recently that I have become aware of how bad the bigger picture is. Most of my life there has been a sense of disquiet in my mind for reasons I could sense but not pin down. We have been scammed by the capitalists who own our government. Capitalism is unsustainable, government won't do its duty . . . I fear the eventual collapse of both will lead to famine as our people cannot feed themselves. Whatever happens, it will not be pretty. This is why I attack the source. History has shown that all reforms for the people get undone by the wealthy over time. Reform enactment and eventual undoing follow a historical cycle, same as regulatory enactment then deregulation and the up/down "business" cycle. The wealthy like it that way, even promoting regulation and reform, because it provides ample distraction from the "Achilles Heel" of the oligarchy, that vast wealth which is central to their power. There is really only one solution that will result in permanent reforms. Take down the wealth of everyone to the point that no one person can "buy" or unduly influence the government of the people. No one needs "billions" of dollars, so that is a starting point. How many millions then, does one "need"? There is not an issue with rewarding good works handsomely, for ideas, inventions and successful business acumen, . . . . however there is a point in luxury life where more money is a pointless acquisition . . . . unless your goal is to wield power.
    2
  1500. Nancy Pelosi's donors love Trump so she is certainly never going to act on our behalf and even allow an impeachment inquiry to take place.
    2
  1501. The better question is: Why do we need the wealthy at all? They will always screw things up for the majority, history shows this to be true without exception. This time, if we even have a chance to make changes, we must bring the wealthy down to our level, thus eliminating the most destructive "class" of human beings. If we do not or cannot, they will cause our species extinction.
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  1502. John, the illegals are a scapegoat. That is only their recent designation, because first they were exploited to undermine our unions. Both sides are to blame . . . and now we have to clean house. As an avid model maker and designer, I have come to know some of the history of our veterans through the models I create. All of us need to stand firmly beside and behind them, we owe them. Veterans should never be used as political pawns.
    2
  1503. whyamimrpink78 - Your example using the healthcare argument to illustrate your opinion of the left, is factually incorrect and filled with bias. First item: The left uses the logic of numbers and lower costs, everyone can have health care and the cost will be 2 trillion dollars less over ten years for tax payers with Medicare-for-All. The argument the left uses is also based on core human rights, which is a necessary component to a modern society as opposed to societies of antiquity. Second item: Contrary to what the right would have us believe, there is no shortage of resources, especially the resource of money to pay for universal health care. There is also no shortage of availability in the health care industry. A) We are already paying more than the cost of Universal Heath Care in the amounts citizens pay annually now in Health Care Premiums and taxes that go toward government provided healthcare. B) There is nothing whatsoever that prevents the USA from printing as much money as it wants and giving that money to somebody, the real issue is if the resources that money will purchase are available when needed. The preceding sentence paraphrases Alan Greenspan talking to Paul Ryan in sworn testimony. If there is one thing the USA has in abundance, it is medical care, the only shortages are ones artificially created by those run the for-profit health care insurance (scam) companies. I'm going to turn this around and declare that you and the political right, are the ones making emotional arguments and flat out lying most of the time. The distortions are clear to see in your writings. Finally, something else you are wrong about. There are a vast number of successful healthcare systems that covers everyone . . . including foreign visitors. The fact of the matter is that out of all the 36 member countries of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), representing the most advanced economies on this planet, the United States of America is the only country that does not cover 100% of its citizens health care under a universal or single payer program. Everyone else does the logical and cost effective thing (which is supposed to be a republican "thing"), but not the USA.
    2
  1504. Americans are stuck on the economic hamster wheel 6000 feet in the air. If we jump off, there is no net to catch us and we go SPLAT.
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  1505. All of these tariffs that Trump has put in place are simply part of Putin's plan to weaken the USA on multiple fronts. Weaken our foreign policy, weaken our economy and divide the people of our country. Putin is getting full returns on his investment in Trump.
    2
  1506. The democrats are bound to fail if they put up a centrist candidate for president. They are already projecting that a centrist will be their choice, that is why they are giving up on Ohio. To the horror of my wife, I told her that if we get a centrist democrat like Joe Bidon or Kamalla Harris on the 2020 Democratic Presidential ticket . . . . I would be voting third party. She is rightfully horrified that a split vote will bring us another four years of Trump. However, there is no lessor of two evils . . . there is only evil unless we can get a progressive on the democratic ticket for president. It is time to hold our ground. Sanders 2020.
    2
  1507. No reform like $15/Hour minimum wage will last as long as the tools used to dismantle reforms remain. Accumulated wealth is used to destroy reforms, so until there is a hard limit to wealth accumulation, there will be no lasting reforms. Social reform cannot happen without economic reform. The idea that unlimited wealth accumulation is a bug rather than a feature must take hold in our society, because without a hard wealth cap all reforms are doomed.
    2
  1508.  @indricotherium4802  - Yes, the "how" occupies my daily thoughts. First is information and education, we have a populace which has been indoctrinated. My indoctrination was broken over several years of self education. We don't have time for that, so my thoughts have been very preoccupied with breaking down the components into small packages of easily digestible information. Still a work in progress and frankly right now I fear the country tipping into authoritarianism, which will inhibit or even outlaw the dissemination of critical information to the population.
    2
  1509.  @indricotherium4802  - You are correct, the "them" started out on their path decades ago. Have you ever read the 1971 Powell Memo? That was a Supreme Court justice writing the roadmap for the wealthy to take over the government and end democracy, all under the guise of saving the country from "communism and socialism".
    2
  1510.  @bluewater454  - What you have written is an excellent example of a point of view skewed by oligarch propaganda. Clearly the left is your enemy, but the why is inconsistent. The very existence of 401k was brought about to make ordinary people unwitting accomplices in the theft of wealth from the majority, and you think that does not hurt people? I can imagine your reaction, to immediately depreciate the idea that you are involved in theft of wealth from your fellow Americans, or that you are an unwitting accomplice to that theft. Alternatively, you might also launch into immediate denial, outraged by the very idea the only function financial assets serve is to syphon more wealth from the economy than it is able to produce. So really now, the left is simply reacting to this theft with the idea of tax increases for those who benefit from that theft. Furthermore, I will declare that you are essentially ignorant and you don't really understand what you are talking about.
    2
  1511. Peter Nachtwey - Here is where I am going to call out your bullshit Peter. You wrote: "You can subsidize failure but all you get is more failures." What you fail to include in your analysis is this fact that out of those subsidies will arise a greater number successes, more so by multibles than without the subsidies. Every big invention that drives our economy today was subsidized during the starting phases, whether it be from ones own earnings or from Mom and Dad who paid the bills while the inventor son worked in the garage. From those few successes arise the giants like Microsoft, Apple, the airplane, the telephone, the automobile. Now just think of what could be accomplished for society if all people were subsidized with a UBI. Whatever that success rate would be, it would be at least tenfold of what is possible with the predatory and extraction based capitalism of today. That increase would benefit the economy tremendously, far more than would ever be possible with your vaunted capitalism alone.
    2
  1512.  @alohatigers1199  - Bernie (bless his heart), like the rest of us, is thinking too small. You have a grasp on a tendril of the truth with your "idea of growth" and "Greed" comment, but that can be likened to the shade of a single palm tree in the desert. "Profits and revenues had to increase every quarter year", is the literal truth, yet it is also misleading. If you can stand way back and see the biggest possible picture, what comes into focus is an economic scam, a long con game played on the American people and the world, set up by wealthy people who really think they have a god given right to rule. Here is the shortest, simplest form of the truth. We were set up. Shortly after World War Two, with so much of the world economy in ruin, two seeds were planted and were expected to grow (metaphorically). One seed was the U.S. economy, the other seed was "financial assets" or "investments" as it is known today. Public records from the Federal Reserve start in 1947 and run about one business quarter behind the present day (4th quarter numbers for 2022 have yet to be posted). In 1947 financial assets started out 2.88 times the size of the 1947 economy and have averaged a half percent greater annual growth rate than the economy for the past 70 plus years. Skip to the present day. Financial assets are now five times the size of the economy. The 2021 rate of return on financial assets was over $13 trillion (more than 2/3rds of our entire economic output). These so-called "investments" could not have grown to that level based on economic performance, that is simply not possible. You are correct, profits and revenues had to increase every quarter year to keep stock prices growing. This goes beyond simply raising prices on consumers (inflation), it also involves distortion of law (politics) and tapping directly into government treasuries (tax cuts and corporate borrowing from the future through Federal Reserve lending). This theft of wealth is a long con game, normalized by Congress through the creation of "retirement plans", which involved regular American citizens in the scam as accomplices. I could go on, but I think the picture is pretty clear when you look at the charts for GDP and "Financial Asset" growth. Our system of "investment" is a con game, we all feel it in our bones and the end results are all around us. Homelessness, crime and political instability, all caused by allowing the wealthy to rig the system. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDPC1) | FRED | St. Louis Fed https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 Total Financial Assets, Level (TFAABSHNO) | FRED | St. Louis Fed https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO
    2
  1513. I did the math . . . the caller said he got up to $500 extra per month, which equals $6000 for the year. He was getting refunds before of $1000 before this year and his witholdings stayed the same, so adding the $1000 to the $5000 check he cut to the IRS equals $6000. He broke even. So the tax cut game was a scam.
    2
  1514. Lucky Fisher 72 - Sorry Dude, you are the stupid one. You see, I took the time to educate myself, you you calling me stupid is like water rolling off of a ducks feathers. You are so freaking ignorant, I would laugh if it were not for the damage you and your ignorant associates do to this country by believing in republican and billionaire lies. You listen to Fox anchor millionaires who are paid by the billionaire Rubpert Murdoch to spread his lies. Don't worry, you won't learn anything new on the other corporate media outlets either. But you are probably too lazy to do your own research, so thank you for your part in demolishing our economy over the past forty years good buddy! Thanks to you, the wealthy own almost everything and get all the GDP gains. Yippee!! By the way, god is a woman and she is multi-racial. She does not look kindly on us right now.
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  1515. mistert800 - I will concede to your point about TYT and David Packman, you are correct. I was actually quite disgusted with Kyle in this video and in the heat of the moment forgot to include qualifiers. Thank you.
    2
  1516.  @frannanderson4165  - Thanks for sharing and reading the riot act to these ignoramus.
    2
  1517.  @Sharonformation  - Awesome! I'm with you.
    2
  1518.  @barrybarnard836  - My dear Sir, you may possibly not understand what has happened to the economy here. The industry based economy was abandoned by our leaders. Industry has departed our country. Now wealth is gathered by increasing prices for everything we need to live and limiting employment to service jobs with low pay. Everything is private property, so we cannot just leave and start our own farms.
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  1519. Our economy is being cannibalized by the necessity to pay interest on the financial assets of the top 20%. All the GDP gains plus 10% of the ENTIRE economy is being eaten to give free money to those who already have enough.
    2
  1520.  @dustyroads834  - Old, debunked, propaganda.
    2
  1521.  @dustyroads834  - Dusty, for 55 years I also had that opinion. I hear you man. The problem is, when I really started looking into our economy about five years ago (60 years old now), I found out that "socialism" is the way the rich get rich. So many things I believed, well it turns out as I researched I found out they were myths. So I did more research because I wanted to find out why we had these myths in the first place. Turns out, the wealthy have paid a lot of money to fill our heads with false information. Here is the truth in a nutshell. The economy is big ($22 trillion/year GDP), but the pile of wealth "invested" is much bigger ($104 trillion). The GDP grows about 3% annually, that pile of wealth grows at 5% to 7% annually. At this rate, all wealth will be owned by just a few people in about 35 years. Kiss the Constitution and our country goodbye. The wealthy don't earn their money, it is given to them using "investments". The problem is, the investments are guaranteed to grow because the rules have been rigged, but they don't actually invest in anything except property (that is why housing costs so much). To protect this racket, the rich pay for "think tanks" that spin webs of stories that seep into our culture. The rich want you afraid of "socialism" because they alone actually benefit from socialism. The Federal Reserve put out charts that show this happening, but economic numbers are a dry subject and cops killing another black man is much more sensational, so what the rich are doing basically stays a secret.
    2
  1522. The Saudis want a U.S. supported war against Iran so badly . . . they staged a self inflicted "attack". Take a serious look at this, a "missile" attack without explosive warheads? Refinery structures with "puncture" wounds, which were back in operation within days? Missiles are expensive and tend to flatten structures when they explode. What was shown to the media as a missile attack . . . . was really a few well placed Saudi artillery rounds doing minimal damage . . . all staged.
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  1523. David Bates - Well stated, you have explained the situation very nicely.
    2
  1524. LackadaisicalE - Stooopid is a troll who puts out the right wing talking point that the wealthy pay 80% of taxes in the USA, that is utter bullshit.
    2
  1525. We, spent $7 trillion for the Iraq War. What exactly did WE get out of this, besides a Federal debt?
    2
  1526. Here are the latest figures released by Oxfam. Globally 54% of all wealth is owned by the 1% and also globally, the top 20% own 94.5% of all wealth. With the bottom 80% holding only 5.5% of all global wealth, stagnation is either already here or will set in for all global economies. The wealthy elites are well aware of the situation, yet will do nothing to change their behavior. My belief is that we need a global hard cap on the wealth an individual or business can accumulate.
    2
  1527. You know, the comments here are rather strange. Yes, there are more homeless people here than in any other state. Why? Because the weather is survivable all year round, it has nothing to do with political ideologies. California roads are not the best to be sure, yet as my daughter departed her state due to divorce, she noted that the roads that were not interstate highways were exceedingly bad in every state until she arrived here. I'm going to point fingers here, "you people", who write all the snide comments about "Commieforna" and the democratic politicians here, yet you are blissfully unaware that you are being manipulated. This video is manipulating you. John Stossel is not an unbiased reporter. His Fox Business show "Stossel", aired viewpoints on individual freedom, free market capitalism and small government, all very common in the American media. Yet what most people seem unaware of is these are the talking points of billionaires, whose purpose is to use propaganda in pursuit of power. The homeless issue is not a product of political positions, because it happens regardless if a democrat or republican is in power. Homelessness is a product of growing wealth, when large corporations buy up whole neighborhoods, driving up costs of home ownership for everyone and driving those less able to cope onto the streets. The wealthy cleaned up in 2020, with financial assets gaining almost ten trillion dollars. I believe the entire reason Trump never responded to the Covid pandemic is because corporations wanted to fire millions and re-hire some of the fired workers at lower wages. Stop blaming the politicians and political parties, while they are not saints, they are not the ones in the drivers seat. Use your common sense people, wealth cannot get bigger while millions lose everything, not unless something fishy is going on with our "elite" wealth holders.
    2
  1528.  @Bocbo  - What's the matter, too many words for you? Public education at its finest.
    2
  1529.  @Bocbo  - Yup, they have you exactly where they want you. Strikes me that you have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . you enjoy being used like toilet paper?
    2
  1530.  @OMGAnotherday  - You are correct, there is no move to bring manufacturing back into the economy. The exit from the USA, of industrial capitalists from the 1960's onward, should never be reversed, or so it seems if one is to take seriously the guru's of the modern financial age. I think that to even make the suggestion, creates fear that the details of acquisition and asset stripping which has characterized the past 30 years of "business" in the USA would become all too apparent to the common citizen. Michael Hudson wrote a long, two part paper on compound interest. When I look at the charts for financial assets and even GDP growth, they are on "exponential curves". Exponential curves applied to anything on a finite planet is an expression of the impossible. Michael referred to Richard Price, who wrote in 1772 the following: "Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold". Bottom line: We have been lied to by the smartest, most powerful and wealthy people, and many other smart people believe in those lies. That must be the type of persons who run and work at the Federal Reserve, because the economy we have grown up with is impossible to mange with infinite growth.
    2
  1531.  @siouxrose7766  - You have brought up what is perhaps, the most important "externality", that of the eradication of nature in pursuit of economic gain. Though I was focused on "rate of return", I am glad you brought this up.
    2
  1532.  @furryfrog9520  - The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  1533. Rick Hustwick - You are spot on. Unfortunately we have a massive propaganda machine in the USA churning out false statistics . . . and facts that are not real. Joseph Goebbels would be very proud.
    2
  1534. No Payroll tax? How is Social Security going to be funded then? If a payroll tax cut is enacted, expect republicans to attempt to gut Social Security based on SS going broke.
    2
  1535. Hey Peter . . . . here you are, embarrassing yourself again. Peter is a serial abuser of Professor Wolff. Peter makes the very automated systems that put people out of work, and he is proud of it. He just got back from China, no doubt with a big fat contract for putting even more people out of work.
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  1536. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "Low end jobs may be lost but high end jobs are created." Peter, you are a liar and a thief. The end result is that more jobs are lost than are gained by your efforts. You get joy out of the misery you create, making you a disgusting excuse for a human being. Otherwise you would not come back to these pages time after time just to abuse and gaslight on behalf of the 1% who are taking everything and giving nothing back. You are a freaking monster.
    2
  1537. Peter Nachtwey - This is a merry-go-round I'm not riding. The wealth you create with your automation is done so on the backs of the workers it eliminates. That is the quintessential definition of misery. You don't accept that all wealth created is the property of the society that creates it, you deliberately revel in the use of money to convert social wealth into private property. That is cruelty. You are a cruel and miserable person. There is no need to refute anything you say, because the conversation will end just like the last one and the one before that. When I ask you how people are supposed to get employment in your automated dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest world . . . your answer is that the weak and unlucky can just . . . (and I'm quoting you here) . . . . they can just "F-off and die".
    2
  1538. thelongs27 - Your comment is one of the very few that actually makes sense. Fox News viewers have no idea what socialism is, they are stuck with the cravings for their propaganda pacifiers.
    2
  1539.  @misterc8387  - Are you serious? Talk about "fake news"! What riots? There have not been any riots. The Trump bashing is richly deserved. Defacing property? Where? Nazi symbols on WW2 veteran tombstones? That makes no sense. Our household lives by conservative principles, spend within your means, etc. The "Conservatives" in government are fake, they are shills for the wealthy and corporations. When you talk about attacking "innocent conservatives", why are you leaving out the vicious attacks on innocent progressives carried out by right wing hate media? This is all very one sided and most of this is made up grievance.
    2
  1540.  @wouldntyouliketoknow7363  - I read the article you linked to. The end result is that people with right wing tendencies suffer from cold heartedness and lack empathy. Progressives only attack when attacked first and the political right's entire mantra is to attack the "other". This video is an example of that. Your entire comment is a case study on the effects of right wing propaganda, in other words . . . . you have been brainwashed. Really now, would it kill you to learn how to spell properly? The under educated have always been the most susceptible to propaganda and in an ironic twist, you don't really want to know that.
    2
  1541.  @wouldntyouliketoknow7363  - Well . . . . if it make you feel better about yourself, go ahead, keep on projecting.
    2
  1542.  gary noland  - Oh, you mean all those welfare scum who keep draining our economy by getting above 9% interest on their millions or billions they have hoarded, while the national GDP has not gotten above 3% average in over 30 years? You mean those wealthy welfare scum that never work, yet work the tax system so that they take from all the makers in the USA . . . ?
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  1543. "The major issues were off the agenda". That one line says everything. The corporate democrats are implicated in wrong doing, or worse, are just as guilty of major crimes in office as Trump. This means that neither party can really hold the other accountable, which is why we get impeachment only when an democratic elite is targeted, or something like "Bengazi forever" from the republicans. World wide, the top 20% own or control 94.5% of all wealth. When the bottom 80% must divy-up only 5.5% of the worlds wealth between themselves, what can you expect? Obviously capitalism is no longer a legitimate economic form and governments backed by capitalism are no longer legitimate in the eyes of the majority of people.
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  1544. If you are referring to the Federal debt, none of that money was used by your average citizen of the USA. All of it went into the pockets of the wealthy. It is the wealthy who cannot live with the extraordinary means they already have, they must have more. That means, eventually we will have to make the wealthy ordinary or submit to being ruled by the wealthy. Also, the next generations are already paying right now, no wealth, great debt, stagnant wages and wealth transfer to the oligarchy.
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  1545. The simple root of all of our problems political and financial is this . . . accumulated wealth. The oligarchs will obscure this fact in shrouds of propaganda fog, yet there it is. It is time for us to place a hard limit on wealth accumulation, a wealth and ownership cap. No reform, not $15/hr, not medicare for all, not even Social Security, can survive the onslaught of wealth power pitted against these reforms. So we must remove the tools of power from the oligarchs by getting rid of them. Cap everyone's wealth at a set limit, failure to do this will cost us our future as we go extinct from the excesses of the oligarchy.
    2
  1546.  @leovolont  - You are most likely correct. However it needs to start somewhere and the USA is the logical seed. After all, it was the USA who broke up the Bretton Woods Agreement, which had restricted capital flow across national boundaries. We can enforce a wealth cap on U.S. citizens which would prohibit the ownership of offshore non-domestic holdings of any type. The entire reason Bretton Woods unraveled is because of the Vietnam War. United States dollars were being spent in South East Asia and ended up in French banks. The French collected these dollars and cashed them in for gold (we were on the gold standard then), which depleted the U.S. gold reserves to the point where the dollar could no longer be backed in gold. So, in addition to the wealth cap, we must also pull back our military from abroad and confine the military activities to within our own borders. I don't see a problem with that, since the U.S. military is the biggest threat to other countries that exists today. I also don't buy into this "national security" scam, projecting force is not what it once was (it is now a means for the 1% to become wealthy off the U.S. Treasury). Today our military is used to coerce other countries to be exploited by the 1% and U.S. corporations. Once we pull back our military, our costs will go down drastically and all countries will be able to represent [themselves] in the global market. There are issues to solve, like what if Denmark decides to go on a crusade of military and land expansion . . . . what can our response be if we cannot project military force? The answer is that we can, if needed, however a joint military agreement with allies would be more aligned with our best interests, and such an agreement can address overt national agression. Bottom line, we must depose the oligarchy which has rooted itself in our country and government. We start with a rigidly enforced wealth cap, then move into changing our legal system so that it does not back the interests of wealth and power (as it does now). This will mean replacing the Supreme Court and the Federal Court system, perhaps just by cleaning house but possibly by amending the Constitution. Meanwhile, the Constitution does have the tools we need to make change, starting with Congress removing the practice of "Judicial Review" from the federal court system and reinstalling the Congress as the body of law making power.
    2
  1547.  @leovolont  - Well done, you started and ended in the nexus. Yes, the USA would be the "greatest and most virulent enemy to such an undertaking". Your conclusion that "The World will not be allowed any freedom of action until America falls out of the equation somehow", is also correct. What you have concluded is exactly why this transformation needs to begin in the United States. The more I look into this problem of concentrated power, the more convinced I am that humanity needs a transformative change. I've studied our (the USA) economic and political history in depth starting in the present and going back to 1917. After that immersion, I had to shake myself like a wet dog and seek to distill what I had learned. Something was bothering me though, I recognized the behavior I was seeing in the history . . . had a pattern. Bits of history I had learned from earlier studies in astronomy and aviation started to click into place like a table top board puzzle. Other bits from my studies of ancient civilizations (astronomy related) and medieval histories (Vikings, Kings and Crusades) also started to click in place. We have a long history of concentrated power and wealth. We cannot proceed in this manner, even if those holding wealth and power still wish it to be so. Like everything else, there is a time for change. Human impact on our one planet is slapping us in the face and shouting to us: WAKE UP! Our species faces extinction in the very near future without a course correction. What you stated about the USA being "greatest and most virulent enemy to such an undertaking", is entirely correct. The only way we can make change is to simultaneously dismantle and rebuild our society, the road block to which is the Gordian Knot of "legal precedence". The United States legal system has its roots in the British legal tradition. So the key to making change this significant is finding the one thread that when pulled, unwinds the Gordian Knot . . . and I think I found it. You see, from the 13th to the 17th century, the wealthy Lords of England enclosed the land, cutting it off from the peasants who used to freely use the land to support themselves. Legal battles were fought, with the peasants losing those battles. These legal battles established precedent which was the foundation of law going forward. There is a generally overlooked aspect to these legal battles which it vitally important today, if we are to make the changes we need and unwind the Gordian Knot of concentrated wealth and power. Those peasants who lost the legal battles against the Land Enclosures were uneducated, they lacked standing and they lacked legal representation. Few if any poor folk sent their children to universities to become lawyers. The winners in the enclosure legal fights were the Lords . . . and who do you think were the judges and the lawyers on their side? It was the second and third relations to the Lords, those who could not hold the land (because with power, enough land is never enough) yet were highly educated and thus "earned" their positions as judges and lawyers. That dynamic has now changed. In modern society, even the poor, are highly educated (and indoctrinated, another battle to fight). All of "legal precedence" and even our own "judicial review" was built on the decisions of an elite few . . . and still is. All of that can be and has to be unraveled. The elites making decisions has had its time in our history and has allowed us to progress this far . . . but for mankind to survive precedent must give way. The poor now have an abundance of lawyers and the poor have standing . . . our standing is that we have a right to live and for our progeny to live. Our technology has advanced so far that concentrated wealth/power wielding that technology leads only to one path . . . to extinction. Death Squads and killer robots . . . repression of the population cannot stop our inevitable extinction if the sociopaths continue to hold power. These people who now control our fates, what they really are is "ordinary", they simply have not faced that fact. Extinction does not discriminate. We must, and will, reshape our society . . . starting right here in the United States.
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  1548.  @leovolont  - You have, quite correctly, identified the core issue. The wealthy became that way through the use of force. This is why the only way we will being down the wealthy elite and make them ordinary, is through the use of force. Those with the big arms, barrel chests and the brawn, are rarely the thinkers and doers who advance humanity. They are the ones during the Neolithic Era who rode up on nascent farmers and took the land those farmers were tending, using their superior might to enslave the farmers and kill those who stood up against them. Now the thinkers and doers must learn to band together and forcefully topple the oligarchy. The same thing happened in the nascent United States as happened when the Normans took England. The indigenous people were killed or forced off the land. The legal system adapted "precedent" to fit the needs of the conqueror's, since the indigenous people obviously had prior and superseding claim to the land, the legal standard here and in Australia evolved to find in favor of those "improving" the land rather than the "precedent" of who was there first. Your mention of the Franks and the Normans highlights the hypocrisy of the "we were here first" legal argument the Lords used against he peasants during the Enclosure era in England. All of it was the use of force, bringing up the use of force after my last comment was a brilliant segue. My concern is about educating the public in the requirement to use force. The "Fight for 15" over the minimum wage highlights that this is a "use of force" issue. What most people do not realize is this, Medicare for All, $15/hr minimum wage, the Green New Deal . . . none of these reforms can last if we do not also take the wealth from the elites. As the OP stated: "Minimum wage wouldn't matter so much if we had a maximum wage". I would adapt that as a political slogan to read "Minimum Livable Wage requires Maximum Wealth Limit". The reason a maximum wealth limit is required for those other reforms to succeed is this, the elites will always use their wealth to dismantle all reforms. Why even attempt to get a living wage or Medicare for all if both will be gone in twenty years? Leaving the tools to dismantle reforms in the hands of the elites has already been proven to be folly. Look at what happened to FDR's New Deal, the only surviving aspect is Social Security . . . and the elites are hell bent of privatizing and eliminating Social Security. We must organize our people. However, our people do not study history, so they need simple tools and slogans in order to force the elites to their knees. That is what I am focusing my energy on. Meanwhile, just like those on the right, we must form our own "think tanks" for the purpose of thinking out the permutations required to initiate and stabilize a global society/economy which does not burn down rain forests and seize lands from indigenous peoples. You input would be appreciated. Finally, no I have not read Arnold Toynbee. My initiation into the global calamity we are facing came late in life, the time before that was spent pursuing my hobby interests and wondering why the economy that worked so well for my father . . . failed me and my children. The history that I learned was incidental and a byproduct of other interests. I had just turned 55 when Trump was selected to be president by an outmoded feature of our Constitution, then I decided enough was enough and I started an earnest research project into our economy. Now I am 58 and have come to understand that the government and economy will never work for me unless I force it to work for me. Therefor I am focused on the work ahead of us, which is to change human society and topple the malignant oligarchy before they kill us all.
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  1549.  @leovolont  - Ok, lets take on the "so easy just to kill us all" line of reasoning. In our recent history, the Germans and the Japanese tried to do exactly that. As I remind people all the time, look at what the result was at the end of that conflict. Germany's cities and infrastructure were in complete ruin, so were the Japanese. Neither country was able to kill their way to victory, and they learned what happens to nations who tried to "kill them all". In your more modernistic scenarios, lets explore the likely outcomes. In the "killer drone" scenario, let us assume for the sake of discussion that a cabal of oligarchs was able to successfully design, test and then simultaneously release a half billion killer drones upon the population, all logistically deployed to maximize casualties. The most likely outcome would be mass casualties at first. Everyone would be surprised, even the police (cannot tell anyone, leaks of information undermine secrecy). However, even in the first wave of attacks many drones would be shot down by civilians and police alike. Shortly thereafter, the drones would need to be recharged and rearmed. Drones would be followed to their deployment zones and shortly after that, the greater portion of the surviving population would realize war had been declared . . . even if they did not know by whom or what for. There would be some confusion, but the tactically savvy would soon learn how to counter the drones and even turn the drones own weapon systems to their favor. Shortly after that, the real source of the attack would be exposed or discerned . . . with the inevitable result of the oligarchy being hunted down and eliminated. The very same thing will happen if the police and white supremacists try to start a "cleansing kill", mass casualties at first and then the retaliation would be overwhelming, ending with the death of every policeman in the land, most white people and the oligarchy. Do you think our black population is just going to let the police mass kill them outright? Hell would be a paradise compared to what our black brothers and sisters would do under that threat, no one should want to witness that. Also, can you imagine what the military rank and file would do, even if they were deployed overseas . . . out of the way? Killing their mothers, fathers, brother and sisters . . . oh they would hear about it very fast and their response would be devastating to those responsible. The oligarchy has already mounted this assault, it is slow moving and instead of killer drones, they are using the ravishment of the earth and the economy to kill. Look at the equally slow moving response to this action . . . the population knows they are under attack and are mobilizing against the oligarchy. Not very effectively yet, but it is an undeniable mobilization. My outlook is not based on optimism, it is a strategic and tactical response to being under attack. My attitude is called "pragmatism". It took me decades to figure out, that first . . . I was not the cause of my own "Failures" and two . . . I and everyone else was under systematic and sustained attack, actual attack by force. The whole thing as been fogged over and deliberately hidden through elaborate propaganda deception for decades, however the fog is blowing away and we are clearly under attack. The logical thing to to is form a resistance with a strategic and tactical plan to defeat and disarm our attackers. That is not optimism, it is pragmatism. If we are going to be truly pragmatic, then our goal must be to remove or destroy the weapons our enemy is using to attack us. Now, if you or anyone else is going to give up before we have even started . . . then we have a problem because the oligarchs will have already won. They are counting on us to look at history and decide to give up . . . because how can we possibly beat the historical odds? I'm not buying the "so easy just to kill us all" line of reasoning. I will disregard that kind of self defeating talk, let them try it and see what happens. Everyone like me will fight and kill til none of the old power structure remains . . . they will lose everything. Nothing changes unless we make it change. I spent too much of my life believing propaganda, all the while looking at WW2 German propaganda and thinking "good thing that cannot happen here!". Well it is happening now, it was happening in 16th century England, it happened in the Gilded Age, it happened after WW1 and it happened again when Nixon and Reagan dismantled our economy so the oligarchs could take control. History means nothing if we don't heed the warning. History shows the attempted coup against FDR because the oligarchy threw a fit about the necessity for high taxes to help the masses. History shows that during FDR's time in office, he should have killed capitalism instead of saving it. No, my "optimism" is based on pragmatism. We must, once and for all eliminate wealth as a tool of power and the way we do that is to put limits on wealth. Lets work on that . . . before any real bloodshed starts. To wait is folly.
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  1550.  @leovolont  - I suppose that WW2 could be considered a Global Civil War between fascists. I've come to terms with it being a capitalist induced conflict, however I still have internal difficulties rendering an opinion due to the overwhelming patriotism propaganda I've ingested. World War 2 aircraft were my obsession for many decades, and I recently completed a World War Two 1/12 scale Douglas A-20-G-10 Havoc bomber which I also designed as a radio controlled flying model built from Balsa wood. As a result I ingested a great deal of WW2 history, but it was not until I finally studied the Russian end of the conflict that I realized that the Russians did as much if not more to win the European conflict that all other allies combined. I don't think the Russians can be counted as fascist. Moving on to the U.S. military bases around the world, I've come to understand that the military has been used as a tool of coercion, if not outright conquest for U.S. capitalism and corporate interests. Three questions: 1) Are you familiar with Smedley Butler? 2) Are you familiar with John Perkins? 3) Are you a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Your scenario concerning Facebook giving up all American leftists, to be formulated into a hit list . . . really reminds me of Captain America-The Winter Soldier, and the Hydra Algorithm for targeting those who must be eliminated via heli-carrier firepower. Having seen many science fiction and action movies, I've become very aware that Hollywood has been thinking about these scenarios and introducing these concepts to people via cinematic stories. Since I really doubt that Hydra mega gun platforms with targeting satellite uplinks really exist, I have a difficult time reckoning how suck an elaborate and extensive set of assassinations could be pulled off before the word got out. Even now with our bought out corporate media, there is still some semblance of conscience in the broadcast hosts . . . because every once in a while they will let something slip by that the bosses might not like getting out. The latest example was on MSNBC, The Last Word, when Lawrence put out the word that Trump has Russian co-signers on his loans . . . Lawrence apologized for, but did not retract his statement. I think this was a purposeful act, to accidentally/on purpose let the word out. If mass killings started up, the word would get out and the plans of the killers would go fubar . . . too much risk. Better to use propaganda and misinformation, that is a lot less messy and quite productive for the bad guys. Ok, I'm done for the day here. I have painting to finish up and then bedtime. Looking forward to reading your responses and answers to my three questions when I get up.
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  1551.  @leovolont  - Hey Leo . . . excellent conjecture and quite entertaining. Truth be told, even Skynet "mice" do not concern me. First, if such a thing would happen, I would be dead or I would be fighting . . . either alternative would take up all my time. Second, not all EMP devices are nuclear, there is the ability to create small and portable EMP devices to stop electronic killing machines. Third, families everywhere have diverse political beliefs. When such killing scenarios start to play out, people are not going to align by political outlook . . . all of that would be meaningless in such a situation. We would be looking at the collapse of civilization and families would band together for mutual protection or to be "mass exterminated". Fourth . . . and this one is really important, I am very familiar with flying drones. The "Amazon" delivery drones have some range, but even they cannot fly for more than 30 minutes. We simply do not have light enough or powerful enough batteries for light weight autonomous drones of the type you are imagining. Killing everyone who does not agree with you . . . that is a massive undertaking which cannot be kept secret. The logistics alone, of any single element whether it be development, manufacture, distribution, field support, deployment, recharging and rearming . . . every single element of this idea has the potential to be exposed and no billionaire would take that chance . . . because it would inevitably lead to his/her own execution and it would lead to the collapse of the very system of control they were seeking to dominate. You must take into account the "law of unintended consequences", something that is playing out across the globe at this very moment. Never in his widest nightmares did Milton Friedman ever dream that his vaunted "neo-classical theory of economics" would lead to global instability in the manner which it is manifesting today. That is the theory of unintended consequences playing out, the same thing would plague any billionaire plot to mass execute people. One . . . more . . . thing (favorite saying of Uncle, Jacki Chan Adventures), Billionaires are not going to voluntarily give up on being billionaires, which is exactly what would happen upon the deployment of mass killing mice. The economic system would collapse and more than likely those killer mice would be captured in mass numbers by the resistance and turned upon their former controllers. Too many smart and tech savvy people are out there and the billionaires cannot control them all. When family members, wives, girlfriends and daughters start being killed, no billionaire would be safe. Revenge is a powerful motivator. Now, please, let us put the killer mice and mass extermination to bed for awhile. There is real work to do before the billionaires turn into "Killer Clowns for Outer Space" or some diabolical version of "Skynet" (FYI, I have watched every Terminator movie and all the Sarah Connor Chronicles). There are six arenas of political and monetary reform we must enact before our civilization collapses or humanity goes extinct. These are the arenas that I wish to discuss in detail, mainly to develop the political strategy for a accomplishing these goals. The bottom line is this, until there is a Central Global Government, we must re-nationalize our economies in order to take care of our homeland populations. This mean putting in capital controls and literally "executing" global capitalism. We need six major reforms in the USA, 1) disband the Federal Reserve and put currency control back into the hands of Congress, 2) put the U.S. Treasury under the control of Congress, 3) eliminate fiat currency by once again tying U.S. currency to a gold standard or a combination of precious metals, 4) put a hard cap on accumulated wealth at $10 million per adult and strictly enforce inheritance and family wealth distribution laws to keep the cap in place 5) put a hard cap on how much cash or accumulated profit any corporation can hold, and finally . . . 6) eliminate overseas holdings and non-domestic ownership holdings for U.S. citizen individuals and U.S. registered corporations alike , all holdings must be inside the USA. This means the elimination of multi-national corporations. You want to improve the situation for all citizens, once and for all eliminate billionaires and stop all of the nonsense we have had to go through over the last five decades? That list is how we do it and it applies in general principle to every country, not just the USA. Global trade is necessary and will carry on, with the appropriate currency exchange regulations which would not allow for exportation of national currencies. There is a ton of work to do to flesh out each one of these arenas, plus the development of tangential, secondary and tertiary law to support and enforce conformity in each arena. The ultimate goal is to develop a Central Global Government which will have the best elements of capitalism, socialism and a stabilized global economy which does not rely on "growth" to sustain itself and will not cause mass extinction on our planet. Are you game?
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  1552.  @leovolont  - Sorry, I never mentioned coinage, or just tinkering with capitalism. Disappointing Leo, are you just toying with me like a cat toying with a mouse?
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  1553.  @leovolont  - No, you did not "come on a little too strong with my objections about metal based currencies". You just spent far too little effort dialoging on currencies, far to little effort answering my other questions or addressing the points that I had raised . . . . and an extremely high volume of time and writing effort expounding upon your theory of billionaires death drone plans. I do enjoy the speculation, up to a point . . . and that point has definitely been surpassed. It got to where I could no longer discern if you just toying with me or if you had a grand obsession dealing with a theory which is quite out of range of us being able to deal with, at this time. If you can step back a few meters, my idea of a wealth cap would deal with the billionaire death drone problem quite nicely. I spent my morning dealing with dentistry and reading up on the gold standard. This means I'm not my usual positive self and now that this part of a horrible day is over, I have a lot of work to do with the remainder of the day and not much time for thinking or writing. However I am willing to say that I'm not so sure the gold standard is appropriate now. Tying currency to a basket of commodities seems to be another dead end. I have looked at Peter Joseph's ideas on a resource based economy, but that was a few years ago and I need to brush up on that again before I feel comfortable to discuss it. One thing that keeps coming to the forefront of my thoughts is that in all of economic history, I cannot find any reference to placing limits on wealth accumulation . . . that seems to be a HUGE oversight by all who deal with economic theory. I was intrigued by Alan Greenspan's 1966 assertion that "deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth." It seems that he might have been on to something substantial there, given what has happened in the U.S. since the "Nixon Shock" of 1971. With that as my conclusion for today, I must retire to attend to other duties.
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  1554.  @leovolont  - I'm still under the weather after my dental procedures yesterday, so I am going to keep this short. Your wrote that I still want to make private wealth work. Allow me to clarify. There is no instantaneous jump from capitalism to socialism. As with the evolution of cities or even the evolution of the human brain, they old systems must stay operational while the new systems are being built. Indeed, new systems and old systems continue to operate simultaneously, which is why humans today still blindly follow irrational leaders and act out in tribal mannerisms. Capitalism and private wealth will continue to be operational features of our economic systems, even while we are attempting to build new systems. This is why I continue to harp on limiting accumulated wealth, not on eliminating accumulated wealth. This is a stepping stone, not a solution and certainly is not me trying to protect private wealth or to make private wealth work. Placing limits on accumulated wealth is a pragmatic step which we can accomplish in our present day society, whereas the complete conversion to a socialist society is NOT something we can accomplish in our present day society. However, unless placing limits on accumulated wealth gains popular support, socialism in any form WILL NOT HAPPEN.
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  1555.  @jantheking7028  - Non of the networks are about real information, it is all "infotainment" these days.
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  1556.  @Quartermoon193  Indeed. These human parasites have the willingness and the capability to drain the host. I cannot for the life of me understand how so many otherwise intelligent people can be so gung-ho to risk us all for capital gains.
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  1557.  @beesplaining1882  - I hope you understand that from the point of view of corporations and the obscenely wealthy, any tax that gets passes on them is a declaration of war against the rest of us.
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  1558.  @beesplaining1882  - Indeed. It is a system of sociopath's, run for and by sociopath's. It is our job now to isolate and contain them so that harm to society will be minimized, we have let them run amok for long enough.
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  1559. Exactly. We must install a wealth cap for individuals and businesses, otherwise even these reforms will be eroded and eliminated.
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  1560. Cb Rich - We are not saints by any comparison. 100 million indigenous peoples died so that the USA could expand westward. Millions more die around the world so U.S. corporations can raid resources . . . and only the people of the USA are unaware of this. I was unaware until two years ago and I am 57 years old. We live in a propaganda filled country where the truth is unknown to its own citizens.
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  1561.  @davidlafleche1142  - Still living on the lunatic fringe I see.
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  1562.  @whatever3773  - It is not free will when being saturated by oligarch propaganda. Those "deplorables" need rescuing, not abandonment.
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  1563. Noam Chomsky says it very precisely, our choice is fascism or social democracy. Both political parties favor fascism, so if we want social democracy it must come from outside of the two dominant political parties.
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  1564.  @twoshedsjohnson8540  - No. The myth of big government was created and circulated by the wealthy, so that they can rule by fiat. There is no free and fair society without a government controlled by the people, the ill's of society are caused by the wealthy who deem themselves to be the only ones qualified to govern.
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  1565.  @twoshedsjohnson8540  - Are you serious? Capitalism may look all shiny, but the end result is debt slavery. Under capitalism, debt and wealth grow faster than the economy, resulting in a very few having wealth and everyone else having insurmountable lifelong debt. How is that freedom?
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  1566.  @twoshedsjohnson8540  - Capitalism does not foster freedom and you simply cannot accept that you have been lied to for your entire life. I am almost 60 years old and after careful research I have accepted the evidence in front of me. Everything we learned about how great capitalism is and that the United States is a bastion of democracy, it is all a lie. Proof of the lie is that you cannot reconcile the math. We have an economy consisting of $90 trillion in privately held financial assets gaining over 5% annually depending on a smaller host economy of $21.5 trillion which grows less than 3% annually, how does that kind of economy generate freedom? If you cannot answer that question truthfully, then you are unable to defend your position and that is the real conclusion here.
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  1567.  @twoshedsjohnson8540  - By writing this: "Ending Glass Steagal didn't cause the financial crisis...actually had very little to do with it. The commercial banks under Glass Steagall weren't the ones that collapsed...it was the investment banks where Glass Steagall did not apply to them.", . . . . . you just admitted that capitalism is a failed economic system. There cannot be annual "investment" payouts which exceed economic growth without crashing the economic system. It happened in 1929 and it has been happening again since the dot-com bubble. The only reason capitalism has not failed entirely is because the United States through the Federal Reserve is printing money like mad. Failure of your fake "freedom" fostering economic system is inevitable. We are now the Weimar Republic of 1919, more new money was conjured in 2020 than in the previous two decades combined, which means failure is imminent.
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  1568.  @bobjones2460  - I believe our friend Two Sheds Johnson is in denial.
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  1569.  @bobjones2460  - Sounds like you might have read Michael Hudson's book, "J is for Junk Economics". If people in general were to understand what the sheer mass of wealth of wealth does to an economy of lessor mass, they would revolt. Myths similar to our friend's point of view are planted to keep the masses under control, and as we can see they are very effective.
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  1570. Thank you! We hit a home run for Bernie in California and I will write Bernie in this November if Joe Biden gets the nomination.
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  1571. Tell me how this is supposed to work. You got $100 trillion in "investments" trying to make 5% off an economy of $22 trillion that grows by 3% per year. Can we say . . . . schoolyard bully just took my lunch money?
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  1572.  Thrunabulax  - The answer to your question is . . . propaganda. I'm now 58 years old. Just after Trump was elected, I decided that a project I had been contemplating had to be started immediately. I make and sell stuff, so it is hard to carve out time to do such a project because it would be open ended and require a lot of research. The project was, what in the hell is happening in our economy? The end result was that I found out that I had been indoctrinated with propaganda for my entire life. The average guy is not going to do what I did, so unfortunately most people just buy into the system they are told "works" best and vilify what they are told is "evil".
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  1573.  @MK-fk4kp  - Thanks for confirming that your brain is stuffed with propaganda. You should broaden your horizons by reading "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins, and "War is a Racket" by USMC General Smedley Butler. I attended a talk by Robert Kiyosaki decades ago, the man is a slimey con artist, which mean you have ZERO credibility.
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  1574. After we install a wealth cap for individuals and businesses, otherwise even these reforms will be eroded and eliminated.
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  1575.  @georgefurman4371  - We will never have real democracy until we take away the ability to gain limitless wealth. Never.
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  1576. Stop electing people whose campaigns are funded by maximum contribution donors. Just stop voting for the guy or gal who has money, start voting for people who have very little money. If a candidate has enough money for media ads, billboards, mailers and big parties, that person will never represent you.
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  1577.  @Lee-xb7lb  - Seriously. Perhaps capitalism did lift people out of poverty in the beginning of its arc of influence, but now capitalism is forcing people into poverty, is taking away their health and their wellness. Capitalism is forcing families out of their homes, draining their wealth and increasing the death toll around the world.
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  1578. Troll Alert!
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  1579.  @curiousfella4076  - I agree with "Money for the People". Mark Blyth has touched on this subject many times in his lectures. However, hand in had with any public trust program, there must be a hard cap on wealth accumulation, otherwise any and all reforms will be undone by those with the wealth.
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  1580. Of course, why bother hiding the corruption now? The 1% plan to take it all. Drain the wealth, kill democracy and start the age of modern feudalism. The republicans are out to crush the working class, because that is what their end game requires. When you look at the math, wealthy people have so much money that their capital gains are taking bigger and bigger bites out of our GDP, consuming the host economy like lethal parasites. For business monopolies, Covid-19 is a great opportunity to buy up failing businesses and consolidate, preying on our distressed society. Congress made it easy for them to do this with trillions of dollars, passes by both parties. Until we realize how dangerous it is to let people control so much accumulated wealth, we will never have the opportunity to expect anything different. No reforms ever survives in the presence of accumulated wealth. Every reform dies, because wealth kills reform. We must start with that simple fact.
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  1581. Racism has its roots and continuing strength in wealth accumulation. The Africans where brought here to build wealth for white plantation owners. The Asians were brought here to build wealth for white railroad owners. The Mexicans were brought here to build wealth for white agricultural land owners. In each case, the people brought here had one purpose, to build wealth for white people, and then these people were deemed disposable. Racism is all about white people disposing of the people they exploited to build wealth. Therefor racism will continue until the wealth these innocent colored ancestors built is restored to their descendants. As a white man, I want to see justice for these people, which can only happen when we tear down the citadel of white wealth accumulation and have a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation.
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  1582.  @johnd6389  - This has everything to do with regulation, or rather the lack of regulation. To say or think otherwise defies logic.
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  1583.  @johnd6389  - Yeah, right. Like economics classes today actually teach anything that is not neoliberal propaganda. Nice try, but you are wrong.
    2
  1584.  @rise_and_reborn4048  - The first thing I want to convey in this comment response is that I really appreciate it when someone takes the time to express their opinion in a well written form. Thank you for doing so, it is discouraging and annoying that most replies are one or two lines at best. Now on to the topics at hand. In principle I agree with what you are writing about consumer pressure and choices, this is something I have believed since early adulthood. There is some power in walking away and sending your purchase power elsewhere. Experience however, shows that there is not always a choice. We just ran into this with my daughters employer, to work from home requires a high speed internet connection. Although there is a choice of internet providers, only one provides the services needed in our area. There is no choice on this, under these circumstances. There would be, if internet providers were a public utility, or if the federal government had consumer friendly regulation of internet providers. The market and regulatory landscape of internet providers which narrows down or eliminates choice, is duplicated throughout many areas of the economy that citizens depend on. Your attitude and beliefs seem to be similar to my own, earlier in my life. Due to an opportunity to study the economy in detail, so much of what I believed just fell away. This video is part of a very long running con job. It has been well known for centuries that compounded interest always outpaced economic growth. Yet we have been sold this idea that an ever expanding economy is healthy, not only for us but for the poor all around the world. We have been sold on this idea and it is a hustle. Exponential growth is not possible, but the hustlers need us to believe it is, that is the reason they also sell us stories about things like choices in the marketplace. How can competition be good for the consumer, when the point of competing is to be the only one left standing? You expressed several ideas in your closing sentences, ideas that are simply no longer practical for most people or no longer exist as choices. As a veteran of "make your own to provide an alternative to monopolies or oligopolies", I can tell you the barriers to entry in any business arena are now virtually insurmountable due mostly to the FIRE sector. Your opener indicated your unfamiliarity with this, FIRE means Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. The FIRE sector used to be heavily regulated for just these reasons, however due to the deregulatory environment of the past four decades, this sector is growing by shrinking all the others (economic cannibalism). To get away with this, stories are told, like this video. The narratives that we live by are designed for us, so that we will not question. It was a hard thing, to see almost everything I believed in being stripped away by the truth. My first comment contains the core facts, accumulated wealth is huge compared to our economy. In order to grow, wealth needs to feed. It feeds on the economy and when that is not enough, it feeds off of governments. This will end with a government collapse, we have just witnessed the beginning of that collapse.
    2
  1585.  David Watson  - Yeah, show us the depths of YOUR intellect.
    2
  1586. In 2018, the top 20% received $2.75 trillion in "free money", simply because they owned "financial assets". That number is 13.41% of the entire GDP. The top 20% got that money by raising the cost of health care, education, housing, energy, and cutting the wages of the American worker to new all time lows . . . . not by growing the productive economy. Capitalism the USA is literally sucking the life's blood out of the majority of its citizens. Bernie 2020!!!!!
    2
  1587.  @Moistbuddhist  - You are very correct about the stock market becoming an exclusive club for the ultra wealthy. Not only is the 88.1% ownership of stocks by the 1% a problem for all of us, so are the sum totals of wealth involved. In 2019 alone there were over $90 trillion in privately held financial assets, generating an average 5% rate of return. What no one seems to look at is how a $21.5 trillion GDP is supposed to generate $4.5 trillion in returns for those financial assets, when the GDP grew by only $881 billion (4.1%, and those may be cooked numbers). Furthermore, the derivative market has grown to $1.2 quadrillion ($1200 trillion) high end Notional Value by 2020. Even the low end Notional Value is a whopping $558 trillion, twenty five time the size of the entire 2019 United States GDP. Derivatives are supposed to derive their value from an underlying asset value. This is a major con job, because all global wealth combined is under $370 trillion. The ultra wealthy view the productive economy as a nuisance they would like to eliminate. This is why they don't give a rats ass about whether we live or not. If we are to survive as a species, accumulated wealth must for individuals must have a hard cap and must be restricted to tangible real assets. Fictitious wealth such as derivatives must be eliminated. The only way we as voters are going to gain control over this is to stop electing people whose campaigns are funded through maximum individual donations and PAC money. Our local representative ran on the populist messaging of Medicare for All in 2018, but in 2020 it was all about water rights and farmers in the California central valley. He was bought and paid for by the wealthy in 2020 and turned traitor. The better candidate in 2020 did not have enough money to get his message out. This must change, and we are the ones who need to change it by voting for the poor candidates instead of the candidates swimming in oligarch generated campaign funds.
    2
  1588. Thing is, Germany had an industrial base that could be grown by building armaments. In the USA the industrial base is gone. Is Starbucks and Amazon really enough of a business base to pull off fascism in the USA?
    2
  1589.  @jeremyrangel8138  - Not buying it. People who own multiple businesses and are doing quite well, are not taking time to troll David Harvey videos.
    2
  1590. Agreed. My feelings exactly. This show has been steadily losing credibility with me because these two seem to be cherry picking their coverage.
    2
  1591. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
    2
  1592. Mom always warned me that lovers quarrels could get nasty!
    2
  1593. whyamimrpink78 - Simple then, use the median wage figures instead of the minimum wage figures. Flawed or not as a comparison figure to productivity, both minimum and median wages are stagnant. Plus if the "owner class" gets to keep all the benefits from automation (productivity increases), then soon there will be no more buyers for product. The system needs to be changed, this one cannot be sustained.
    2
  1594. Just Playing - Well said and agreed.
    2
  1595. What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb.
    2
  1596. Yup, 100% correct. "Housing units" are considered "capital assets" in the USA, the only way that will change is revolution.
    2
  1597.  @notabene7381  - What I am suggesting has little to do with regulating markets beyond what is necessary for balancing economic requirements with our need to protect our ecosphere or biosphere. My suggestion is to regulate income and the accumulation of wealth, the latter with a hard cap or solid 100% tax (without deductions or loopholes). With regards to UBI, one of the agenda items for almost all of the political left is Medicare for All. This is something I agree with, every OECD country has some form of universal health care, the United States being the sole exception. If you examine this closely, M4A is a form of UBI. Therefor it is not a stretch to call UBI an umbrella under which a sustaining income, housing, healthcare, communication, education, transportation and food are all contained. This umbrella is essential to unlock the potential of human society, unlike the present system which locks down half the population fighting to survive while channeling the other half into destructive economic behavior which will eliminate the capability for humanity to survive on this planet.
    2
  1598.  @G.Bfit.93  - I looked up the channel of Paul Cockshott, and selected the video titled "Eliminating inequality" for review. I'm going to address your comments and that video in this reply. Both your comment and the video I reviewed have one thing in common, which is a tendency toward "absolutism". With you, it is direct. With Paul Cockshott and the portions of Karl Marx's work he is using, there is oblique absolutism. You wrote that "You cannot modify capitalism. The capitalists hold all the power". This is not true, capitalism is always being modified by the capitalist's, and was modified in an extraordinary fashion to dampen down the power of the capitalist's in our past. Your enthusiasm is commendable, so don't think that I am dismissing your end goal. There are other factors I would like to bring to your attention but it will have to wait until "movie night" is over. Family first!
    2
  1599.  @Bruintjebeer6  If Biden, Harris, Booker or Bootgig wins the democratic ticket . . . I will be voting third party. All four of those candidates are looters and pillagers of U.S. citizens. You know what people don't want? People don't want the 1% sucking down the entire GDP gain for 2018 plus an additional $1,000 billion (one trillion, or 5% of our GDP), just to satisfy their need for a "rate of return" on wealth that is already out of control BIGLY. Vote for Biden, Harris, Booker or Bootygig and that is what you get, a soft touch while your bank accounts are being cleaned out. People don't want Capitalist fanatics (like insurance corporations and Koch Industries) running OUR country anymore.
    2
  1600. JoeyFiveandDimes - Yup. Gotta agree with you. The world has changed for us, the 1960's industrialist's essentially said, "screw the U.S. national economy, we are going global". Ever since then, we have been getting screwed worse every year. We need a Peoples Party because the inevitable outcome of "free market capitalism" is the same as in cancer . . . the host body is cannibalized and dies. The median wage of today buys less than half of the essential consumer goods than the median wage bought 30 years ago. Yes, the median wage has gone up over the past 30 years. But that wage has not kept up with worker productivity nor has it kept up with essential costs of living like rent, energy, transportation and food. What you earn today as a median income buys less than one third of the health care median wages bought 30 years ago. Since you cannot get a 1/3 cost heath insurance plan . . . this is actually killing us. This is Extraction Economics at work here people, stop electing republicans and corporate democrats. They do not work for US.
    2
  1601. I think "We the People" are going to have to decide what this is . . . and act on it soon. In my mind this is a top issue which has consequential affects on all of us right now, since the industrialists abandoned our national economy the "wealth effect" has had very negative outcomes for all of us. New laws and regulations will not help because they will be undermined from the get-go. Something is wrong with our economic/political system, it is the system that breeds these "greedy fucks".
    2
  1602. MAGA myth exposed . . . . MAGA=Mafia Again Grifting America.
    2
  1603.  @lvli044  - Because one of his selling points is "a return to normalcy". People were asleep during the Obama administration. I have first hand experience. I was one of them.
    2
  1604. I heard a good one. Trump successfully drained the swamp . . . . right into his administration.
    2
  1605.  @mimilong3817  - You are correct. There must be a hard cap put onto wealth accumulation, this much and not one penny more.
    2
  1606. Yes . . . and if Rudger had played nice then very few would have heard this brilliant take down. Do you know how long I have waited for someone to take down any of these millionaire fox news hosts? The sneer on Rudger's face was priceless. This is like tough love, it had to be done.
    2
  1607.  @7788Sambaboy  - Not the direction where every freaking dime goes to the wealthy, where renters are priced out of the housing market even if they could work 24 hours a day. Or where senior citizens who pay bills on time, live within their means and don't use credit, are forced onto the street because we don't have a "credit report" to show prospective landlords.
    2
  1608. My thoughts exactly. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
    2
  1609. Right. Trump was the republican candidate because the republicans were too weak to deal with him and his TV show popularity. Trump gained the presidency because the "land", in the form of the Electoral College, over rode the popular vote of "the people" because the Constitution has not been updated to fit modern times. We have an old election system that requires overhaul, but that system serves the wealthy. So Trump is no genius, just the latest figurehead for a 12,000 year old problem that humanity has not outgrown.
    2
  1610. You are an idiot. How is the weather there in Moscow?
    2
  1611. G Milla - Ok, let just take the premise under which you approached the problem. Little North Vietnam had more bombs dropped on it by the USA than did all of Europe during WW2. Did that wipe the country off the map? No. China is vast, so what good would dropping bombs do? You want to go nuke them? The radiation thus released would poison the entire globe. Hence the Green New Deal, that is the smart way to go. Intellectual, not barbaric. I was insulting you because your entire idea was horrific. Yes, China produces and has produced a great deal of pollution. What you are probably unaware of is this: China saves our asses after the 2008 financial markets meltdown by going on a huge expansion spree. Their economic spending propped up the entire global economy. You want to thank them by bombing them? Since you get your information from Fake Fox News, they probably left that information out of their financial news. The problem is that China used more cement in two years than the USA has in the past 100 years, and the cement industry releases a huge amount of CO2 during all of its processes. How about cutting the U.S. military budget instead. The Navy uses 40% of the oil the USA consumes annually, cutting that back would do a "world" of wonders toward capping greenhouse gasses. There is logic for you. We need to take care of our own.
    2
  1612. Kevin Dalton is either a liar or supremely ignorant. It takes $10 now, to buy what $1 would buy in 1958 and that is for consumer goods only. Housing is a lot worse, costing $25 to $35 now for every $1 spent on rent in 1958. Yeah, it's the drugs alright. Kevin Dalton and anyone who believes his crap needs to have their medication adjusted.
    2
  1613. Seconded!
    2
  1614. S G Mason Knives - Walmart Logistics Canada? That hardly counts as the average Walmart employee. How about you take store clerk wages for a year while still doing your Walmart Logistics Canada job, then see how sick you are of all the Walmart bashing. You are one who makes some decent money, then looks down on those who are not fortunate enough to be in your position. Despicable and deplorable.
    2
  1615. S G Mason Knives - Well then, I hope you have learned something from this experience.
    2
  1616. American Lefty here. I'm 57 years old and a lifelong voter. My affiliation started with republican, in my 30's I went to democrat and in my 40's I registered as Independent . . . which I stayed at until the Justice Democrats came along and now I affiliate with democratic JD. When a viable progressive third party emerges, that is where I am going. This new progressive party will have a solid base if it can sprout in the toxic wasteland that is the American political landscape. Two things have to happen if we are to emerge from this nightmare. 1) Corporations must be decapitated and made illegal, so that the free enterprise written about in the Constitution can once again take their place in the economy. The Founders were anti-corporation because they had vast experience dealing with crown sanctioned monopolies like the East India Trading Corporation. 2) There needs to be a minimum income and . . . a maximum income, along with a cap on the accumulation of wealth. All of humanities problems with each other stem from the power hungry wealth hoarders. Face it, we human beings simply do not function in the best interests of all people when we accumulate more than what is needed to live a luxury lifestyle. Hunger for power takes over and we are living in the nightmare that results from 12,000 years of trickle up economics feeding the megalomaniacs. Any excess income and wealth generated by individuals and companies has to flow back into the society which enabled that wealth to be created. Experience has shown that the "free market" makes horrible decisions, far worse than what right wingers accuse the government of making. (Plus if you think government has made horrible decisions you are correct, and if you look deeper you will find in every instance private corporations were behind the scenes pulling the puppet strings. So really, the free market corporations are always responsible for government decisions.)
    2
  1617. Does anyone else suspect that the 3.7% unemployment rate is a cooked up number? I am having a very difficult time taking the unemployment rate seriously.
    2
  1618. OrionPax09 - Yep, that is what my gut is telling me . . .
    2
  1619.  @southerninterloper4107  - "Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are making a killing in the stock market." You hit a bullseye on that one. There is another rather sinister effect going on here, one that you grazed with that comment. Just this year, for every dollar in economic growth, there has been a $14 increase in financial asset value. Now I'm aware of only part pf the mechanics of how the asset market works, but I can do math very well. So far our economy this year has grown by $700 billion. Financial assets have grown by $9.9 trillion. That latter fantastic number, equals 49% of our entire economic output. I don't know about anyone else, but my math says you cannot raise the value of assets without someone ready to pay the price. Financial assets grow that much because someone spent the money to buy them, value is established by the latest purchase price. Just let this soak in, baste yourself in this number, $9.9 trillion. Someone spent $9.9 trillion this year. Bringing the total value of financial assets to $114 trillion. I also don't know if others understand what a financial asset is, so here is definition from Investopedia: "A financial asset is a liquid asset that gets its value from a contractual right or ownership claim. Cash, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and bank deposits are all are examples of financial assets." Financial assets typically gain over 9% per year. Think hard about $114 trillion getting 9%. Then think about our entire yearly economic output: almost $19.5 trillion. Then think about 9.9 trillion in asset purchases. How can an economy of $19.5 trillion make $9.9 trillion in asset purchases? So we can shave down the percentages, lots of business dealings could generate large sums to be spent in the financial asset markets. Building and land could be sold, new business deals could be made, and the proceeds directed toward the financial asset market. $9.9 trillion is a lot of directed energy. Lets just say that it came from a combination of brilliant business deals, assets sold, prices raised and money borrowed, no problem, right? The problem is, this has been going on year over year for decades. The line on the financial asset growth chart is exponential, and it is almost a vertical line. This is our silent killer. It has been decades since the economy could actually support asset growth year over year. What we are seeing is a guarantee of growth, sustained by government fiscal policy, and extraordinarily large sums of political campaign funding from private donors. People can sense that something is wrong, but cannot put a finger on it. Well, this is it. That is why, as you say, "Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are making a killing in the stock market". They help keep it all rigged. Look at the charts from the Federal Reserve. These and a few others tell a tale of a bloated and unsustainable asset market. When this blows, it will be worse than anything we have historical record of. Moral of the tale: You cannot get money for free. Households and Nonprofit Organizations; Total Financial Assets, Level (TFAABSHNO) https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&q=financial+asset Real Gross Domestic Product (GDPC1) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1
    2
  1620. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
    2
  1621.  @lucaspagan3576  - You are correct. Our representative unseated a republican who had the seat for 4 terms, because he promised to support Medicare for All. First day in office, he broke that promise by supporting the PAYGO Rules. When I recently checked our new democratic representatives campaign funding for 2020, single donors giving less than $200 amounted to 19%, whereas donation from single person maximum contributors is at 73% of his total. When I called his office last week, I made the statement that "no one except the 1% can afford to give the maximum donation to a political reelection campaign". I get at least a dozen emails daily asking me to contribute $3 to $27 for progressive candidates, I have received ZERO such emails from our representative.
    2
  1622. @9pm Till1Come - Oh, so murder of unarmed black men by police is legitimate? Double standard again, you make no sense.
    2
  1623. I am a loaf of bread - Are you offing up any alternatives to Fresno Bob's suggestion? What you wrote about the world economy and our country suffering . . . is going to happen on our current course regardless. Time to hunker down.
    2
  1624. I am a loaf of bread - You are not making coherent sense: "you know it went down maybe because in the years" . . . maybe you did not complete your thought? I am starting to suspect you might not understand the bigger picture here yourself.
    2
  1625. I am a loaf of bread - Dude, I was trying to save you some embarrassment. Your sentence was incomplete, incoherent and had misspelling. Now you have wasted four more postings with nothing new to add except a new misspelling . . . it is spelled "coherent", not "coharent". Furthermore, your sentence rambled and the content is garbled. It seems you need remedial education. I have extensive knowledge of the political, economic and military history of the USA over the past 100 years, so if you want to have an actual conversation . . . bring it on.
    2
  1626. I am a loaf of bread - Incorrect and incoherent. Look it up. Furthermore, you have had plenty of opportunities to contribute . . . but you have been to busy defending your illiteracy. Unless you have further coherent opinion to offer that is not spelling or sentence structure related, I am done with you.
    2
  1627. Don't forget, Joe Biden was selected, not elected. Biden's political will is governed by those who got him into office over Bernie.
    2
  1628. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
    2
  1629.  @renellwhite9315  - I've read through all the comments in this thread and you don't have a comment with 5 reasons Californians are leaving. I'm not going to search through 5000 comments to find yours ya-know! Just do a copy and paste here and then I'll read them. Meanwhile, out of any of the comment replies I put in this thread, show me one single untruth. I dare you. If you put down something that you have not researched to find out the truth of the matter, prepare to be roasted for being lazy.
    2
  1630.  @edwuncleriii1922  - You are correct. How can Bernie win, when the American people let him down? Right now, you have many comments and replies. Not a single one of these comments mentions anything important, because the American people have become stupid, can't focus, can't do simple math, therefore the American people force Bernie Sanders to dumb down his messages just so he can communicate with us. What is wrong with you people? Here is the whole problem we have in a nutshell: The 1% are consuming more than the economy can grow, they are our cancer and we ignore the treatment. Can't you people do basic math? We have a $20 trillion national GDP growing at 2.5% per year. The 1% have over $30 trillion in wealth, money demanding interest payments. Last time I checked, the milk toast S&P 500 index funds has averaged 9% since 1994. Even if we use a very nominal 5% interest rate, the 1% is consuming 7.5% of our ENTIRE national GDP. That is $1.5 trillion in free money going to the 1% every year, not including their huge Trump tax cut. Stupid people are forcing Bernie Sanders to talk about raising the minimum wage, free college, Medicare for All and what not . . . . because we are simply incapable of confronting our real issue. Left unchanged and unchallenged, the 1% will consume everything within 15 years. You want to do something about climate change? Well, you can't . . . not unless you deal with the 1% first. There is no system, man made or natural, which does not have limits. Without limits, everything blows up or dies another gruesome way. So why can't people get it through their thick heads that there must be a hard limit to wealth? This is the very definition of stupidity, when we cannot deal with the obvious and this is why Bernie Sanders cannot win.
    2
  1631.  @MrDinghus  - What does one's line of work have to do with Marxism?
    2
  1632.  @jeremyrangel8138  - The OP has a point. The CEO class should not be getting a free ride.
    2
  1633. deathgirl71 - Yeah, resignation . . . and then the fastest possible plane flight to Russia! That is of course, if the FBI does not simply wait for him to walk out of the White House and then arrest him on the spot.
    2
  1634. vsboy 25 - Why are you using a picture of a Russian boy-toy for your avatar image? Oh wait . . . . you are a troll.
    2
  1635. Jody Fiers - Nice, and a good read. I'm glad to see others are picking up and passing along the MMT information too. It is vital that our citizen population get up to speed on on MMT and discard the old lies that we were taught. To think that the military/industrial plus financialized wealth interests have been able to suck down huge sums from the federal treasury that rightfully belong to the American people while our wages stagnate and corporations suck us dry while getting their taxes cut. . . just pisses me off. Thank you for writing such a well rounded explanation. Everyone should look up Stephanie Kelton here on YouTube.
    2
  1636. mikeincalifornia - Where have you gone Mike, whatsamatter . . . you don't have a comeback for all those who have commented on your idiocy? You claim that the government will just waste the money raised by taxes. How ignorant that statement is . . . do you not realize that 100% of all the U.S.Dollars held and circulated by all the peoples of the USA and many other countries as well . . . originated from the government of the USA? Methinks Laddie . . . that it is you who is out of touch! Try and grasp that thought with your tiny little brain. To all the other commenters to this thread, you all deserve intelligent comments instead of pettiness . . . but there are times as highlighted by the the stupidity of the OP's remarks, when I just cannot help but to throw down a few well deserved insults.
    2
  1637. Trolls hate socialism because they have too few brain cells to understand . . . they think socialism comes in a single flavor.
    2
  1638.  @danristau3274  - Can't help but to smile at that reply, you have a good one too Dan!
    2
  1639. The math does not hold up. Seventy years ago, just after WW2 ended, financial assets started out at over 2.5 times the size of the economy and over time have grown faster than the economy. The only way that is possible is to pull wealth from every available source, from us (society at large), from the government and from the future through borrowing. Now financial assets are over five times the size of our economy, in 2021 alone the growth of financial assets was greater than 66% of our GDP. Since all wealth generation is supposed to be tied to the real economy in order to make any sense at all, wealth growth as it exists today is a scheme, not something based on any sustainable system.
    2
  1640. Talk about a damper on the economy . . . . . . . . Here are some facts for you, taken straight from the Federal Reserve. Ever since the final business quarter of 1980, the sum total of financial assets (from which IRA's and 401k's are derived), has been greater than our GDP. This happened because Congress gutted company funded pensions in 1974. At the end of 1980, the sum total financial assets was half a trillion more than our GDP. By 1990 that gap was enlarged to $6.9 trillion. By the year 2000 the gap had widened further to $21.2 trillion. Today that gap is $93.684 trillion or 4.8 times the size of our GDP. Today the gap has widened so far that extraction from the population is simply not enough to fuel a 12% annual growth rate, so the government is now being looted. The money to grow IRA's and 401k's is stolen, not earned. What gives anyone the right to take money they have not earned? Also, what happens when there is no more loot to steal? Now when I say "looting" and "stolen", this is all legal and on the up and up, because the wealthy paid for the politicians who made it all legal. If we are supposed to live in the "land of the free", why are these few people able to literally strip us of our freedom through legalized theft?
    2
  1641.  Frederic Bastiat  - Playing to ignorance much? The federal government has no need of your money because it is the root source of all dollars. You and Grover do the same thing, it is call gaslighting.
    2
  1642.  Frederic Bastiat  - Most of the worlds wealth is held in dollars. That is a fact anyone can confirm. Giant transnational investment companies do more damage to us than Medicare for all or free college education ever could, they suck up more money than taxes ever could. Taxes are meant to modulate the economy, not transfer wealth . . . but you know this already, correct? What you are doing is assisting plutocrats by spreading their propaganda . . . not being paid to do so is really stupid.
    2
  1643. ProSocial Future - Yes, I agree with you . . . I was just having a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun. It is very frustrating dealing with some of the characters who write comments on Professor Wolff's videos. As for the feasibility of full automation, I do not think that will come to pass anytime soon. As an anecdotal example, I designed a costume prop for my daughter using 3D CAD software, then I 3D printed 48 parts for the costume prop ( two weeks to print). The assembly of the prop was done by hand, but the surfaces are required to be smooth and 3D printing leaves distinctive ridges due to the additive layer process. All that ridging had to be hand sanded, putty filled, sanded again, etc, to prepare for painting (four additional weeks of effort . . . so far). The 3D printing allowed for the making of a costume prop I tried and failed to make entirely by hand, but still needs lots of manual work to complete. We will need to have some pretty advanced robotics and automation to produce without the need for humans in the loop. What concerns me is this: If I were to make this costume prob as a product for sale, it would fail in the marketplace for two or more distinct reasons. People no longer have the disposable income to buy such items, and I could never earn enough to cover all my time and expenses (even in larger batches). We are currently in a race to the bottom economically, even advanced tech is not helping the common worker overcome this drag.
    2
  1644. Yup - The Koch Brothers $400 million in paid TV ads have started to hit us in California. At first I thought it was Jeff Denham(R) 10 District putting ads up again just like he did before the tax scam was passed into law . . . but this time it is Americans for Prosperity putting up the lying ads on MSNBC during the Morning Joe show. They featured an attractive woman who was saying that she received $2000 in extra income due to the tax cuts, and of course they are targeting the conservatives who watch that show. Too bad that lady has not gotten her Health Insurance bill for the year . . . . . yet. We have, it went up by 66% and we did not get anything from the tax cut. Thank you republicans, we are going to remember you at the next election.
    2
  1645. Here are the latest figures released by Oxfam. Globally 54% of all wealth is owned by the 1% and also globally, the top 20% own 94.5% of all wealth. With the bottom 80% holding only 5.5% of all global wealth, stagnation is either already here or will set in for all global economies. The wealthy elites are well aware of the situation, yet will do nothing to change their behavior. My belief is that we need a global hard cap on the wealth an individual or business can accumulate.
    2
  1646.  Crystal K  - Troll. Don't feed the trolls.
    2
  1647. If the economy is sooooo good, why then has the Federal Reserve cut interest rates so much? When the economy is good, interest rates are supposed to go up, not down. In addition, if the economy was so good, why has there been an ongoing REPO operation going on since late September? Why is there such a liquidity problem with the banks? Additionally, what is this garbage about the economic gains made by the poor? Rents are going up more than 5% per year, health care costs continue to rise, yet we are getting no greater value from these cost increases. There is so much more about this economy that is faltering or failing, but I don't want to strain the poor republican brains too much.
    2
  1648.  @Redskirt  - Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
    2
  1649.  @Redskirt  - Radical, yes. However it must be done. I've made this into my mission, ever since I realized that exponential wealth growth is not just unsustainable, but impossible. We are on a course toward self destruction. Thank you for your careful consideration.
    2
  1650. Thom hit the nail on the head two days ago with this summary: Worker productivity since Reagan has gone up 321%, while worker wages have risen only 1/10 of 1%. Meanwhile, the simple costs of living such as housing and energy have tripled and our Federal Treasury has been raided by private interests for trillions of dollars. We, as in you, I and the ordinary people of the USA must fight back. It is time for a Maximum Annual Income . . . . and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. That is the only way to fight what is happening, open ended profits are killing us. Personally, I think the wealthy oligarchy is taking revenge on us for the FDR New Deal . . . even though the wealthy never really suffered under the New Deal. Any reforms we get will be dismantled until we the people take away the tools used to dismantle reforms. Than means capping wealth and income, no two ways about it.
    2
  1651. Leo Volont - If your point was that arbitrary decisions will be made for the individual by the Cooperative Society, even in a passive way (as in "comrade, what do you need that for?"), then I get it. Some people are individual accomplishers while others are group accomplishers, so a truly Cooperative Society will be structured to take that into account. Somewhere among the individual accomplishers there may be the person who can repair or replace the neck of your ancient regime 5 string bass . . . because that kind of work is their passion. The truly Cooperative Society has been structured in such a way that these two individuals (musician and artisan) are recognized as contributors rather than just takers. I design working models, that is my calling. Do I want society to assign me a job picking lemons? No. Do I want society to divvy up economic productivity's surplus among all citizens? Yes. With that yes, I can continue to design working models and fruit pickers can continue to pick fruit . . . everyone is happy except for those who consider the redistribution of wealth among all of human society to be theft.
    2
  1652.  @gregj831  -Look in the mirror buddy. The comment Charles made was right on point. The police have an unwritten mandate to protect property, not people. That makes people into the enemy with the police working for those with the most property.
    2
  1653.  @foipa13  - If we are to learn, then we must learn from history. Every time, and I mean every time there are reforms to our economic and political systems, the wealthy use the power of their wealth to erode and eventually eliminate those reforms. This leaves us with a very limited set of options.
    2
  1654.  @Harbringe  - Look more closely. Just in the past two years, the value gained by financial assets alone equal a full year of GDP. The main way this was accomplished is through the Federal Reserve REPO operations and corporate bond purchases. The money "borrowed" by banks and corporations is astonishingly high, multiple trillions. This money is impossible to pay back, all made possible by the power of millionaires and billionaires. Corporations are a tool and are not the source of the problem, it is the tiny minority of people who run them, all millionaires or billionaires, who use the power generated by wealth to rig the system. The solution is derived directly from the problem, let people become wealthy enough to live a life of luxury if they have earned it, but do not allow enough wealth to accumulate in individuals for political power to be wielded by those individuals. One person, one vote. Wealth allows one person to wield more than one vote, whether through lobbying or media propaganda (Murdoch's and the Fox News types).
    2
  1655. Those 26 billionaires received a 12% increase of their wealth in 2018, which very nearly mirrors the 11% decrease in wealth suffered by the 3.6 billion poorest people in the world. This is world wide extraction economics in play, and it will not resolve itself in a rational manner.
    2
  1656. The Guy - You are correct. I am a life long voter. While our new representative is no AOC or Ro Khanna, he did replace a corrupt republican and did so without taking PAC money. Change can come when voters do their part. Currently I am in a disagreement with my wife because I told her if Kamala Harris gets the Dem slot for Pres . . . I will be voting third party. My wife says that will hand Trump a second term, but I say we cannot vote for a non-progressive progressive.
    2
  1657. flake452 - Just who do you think you are kidding? When you look at world population, it was the advent of the oil age which brought on the population boom. Furthermore, the religions of the world continue to perpetuate the notion that birth control is "immoral". You are not fooling anyone with this "The rich pay in far more than they receive thus paying more than their fair share" crap . . . because crap is crap and you can really tell when you get up close and give it a good sniff.
    2
  1658. flake452 - Your argument that "The rich pay in far more than they receive thus paying more than their fair share" falls flat when confronted with fact. The 26 richest billionaires got 12% more wealth in 2018 . . . you cannot in any way show that they are not getting "their fair share". That 12% gain, you cannot possibly prove or even justify that they "worked" for that money.
    2
  1659. Hulk Smash - Did you all know there is only one source of the type of steel DT's border wall can use? It is a Canadian company owned by a Russian . . . whose wife is good friends with Ivanka Trump. Every time we turn around, there is another connection to Russia. What happened to Buy American? Here is the gist . . . Evraz North America is the company, owned in part by Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Putin.There are a number of stories to follow up on. I don't have a subscription to Bloomberg, so that story I could only read a fraction of is here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-25/under-trump-made-in-america-is-losing-out-to-russian-steel . . . but there are many more such as: "The Salt Lakes Tribune": https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/2019/01/19/letter-who-will-profit/ https://crooksandliars.com/2018/12/guess-who-likely-profit-if-trump-gets-his Google the following: "Evraz steel border wall" or follow this link to get more: https://www.google.com/search?ei=WtVHXOCmEZPe9AOgwYbQDQ&q=evraz+steel+border+wall&oq=Evraz+Steel&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i131i67j0i131j0i7i30l2j0j0i7i30l5.20705.41889..49003...1.0..0.111.2642.22j7......0....1..gws-wiz.....6..35i39j0i22i30j0i22i10i30j0i20i263j0i131i20i263j0i67j0i10.RkFph7cUTNg
    2
  1660. Nancy Pelosi's donors love Trump so she is certainly never going to act on our behalf and even allow an impeachment inquiry to take place.
    2
  1661.  @sandramarshall8127  - Very logical comment and excellent rebuttal to the "CockHolster" moron. He has no idea that he is a brainwashed fool who is dragging the rest of us down. On the other hand, we are going to have to shoulder the responsibility for dragging these morons up, if we leave them be they will only sow destruction for us and our kin.
    2
  1662.  Michael Shenefield  - The "NOW WHAT ???????" is happening. The membership of Congress is being replaced by forward thinking progressives. Good riddance to both the corporate democrats and the republicans, their time is almost over.
    2
  1663.  @parsonj39  - Perhaps inflation hardly budged because the increased money supply went to inflating the stock market, not real markets. Money has to get into the hands of all actual persons to really cause inflation, not just soul less corporation fake persons.
    2
  1664. @Laura - Drives me nuts also, no one seems interested in the basic economic facts and how that is tied into who runs the government. Last year financial assets gained over $13 trillion, greater than 2/3rd's of our economy. People don't seem to realize that when the stock market goes up, so do the prices we pay for everything. Also when housing prices go up, rents go up. I did an Excel spread sheet comparing GDP and Financial Asset totals from 1947 to 2021, the results look like a schoolyard bully shaking down other kids for their lunch money. We have not gotten ahead in this country, because for 70 plus years, all money is diverted to growing financial assets instead of roads and schools.
    2
  1665.  @mikegoliath8678  - Capitalism funds the democrats. Capitalism funds the republicans. You chose democrats for your example, republicans are equally responsible for the same grievances. The why, is capitalism. No capitalism, little to no class warfare.
    2
  1666. The Justice Democrats will win seats, so waiting will not help at all. The change is in motion now.
    1
  1667. Paul Ryan declared "an attack against one of us is an attack against all of us" on June 14, 2017, referring to the shooting at the baseball practice. Well now Paul Ryan, you have been attacking Americans for quite some time now. So has Mitch McConnell, Mick Mulvaney and Donald tRump. Just because the republican attack is with the pen does not make it any less devastating. How many more Americans will die this year because they lack the health care that every other industrialized and advanced economic nation provides its citizens as a right? If the republican supported voter suppression, cross check and gerrymandering continues, then the 40,000 dead and maimed each year from lack of medical care will be joined by more victims of gun violence. The shooter died yesterday, but his protest sign message resonates with those under the boot. Republicans are all about violence, death and destruction, the civilized kind that gives them plausible deniability. This is what we liberals are fighting with words. I don't support using gun violence to solve these problems, but I know exactly how the shooter yesterday lost his cool. The republicans are getting away with murder every day and it seems to be getting worse instead of better every day.
    1
  1668. Focus, focus, focus people. . . this is all smokescreen while they run out the clock on their long game. Think about it, wages have not gone up but GDP has doubled - that is the most massive theft of capital from the American working people ever pulled off. The same group that pulled this heist also had their taxes cut by 55% while most of us are paying more. Banks have successfully financialized the economy to the point they can rake 20% off the top. The medical industry has been successfully financialized to the point where insurance companies can rake 20% off the top there too. The list is growing longer every day. This is an extraction economy meant to be as punitive as possible and it almost has the power to topple our government and society. All of this was done legally through our system of laws, and that is how it is undone. They are not finished with their plan and they still have to follow the rule of law, as laid out in the Constitution, in order to get their way. This also the way we stop them, by using the Constitution as a weapon against them, while there is still time to do so. All this quibbling I see here in the comment section is getting us nowhere. We need to act, but first "We the People" need to fully understand what is happening to us, and how those behind this plot to take us down are accomplishing their plan. That is the key to undoing what they have done, and the key to creating a better future for ourselves.
    1
  1669. Kellyanne Conway is one of "oh so many" in the tRump administration that need to lose their jobs, let us not leave out the buffoon at the top. Watch Keith Olbermann #84 "Did Trump Himself Meet With the Russian Ambassador?", toward the end Keith goes through a list of "what such-in-such thing" that really connects the dots on tRump's reall accomplishments in office and before. The thumpets all need to lose their jobs.
    1
  1670. "Justice Democrats OR BUST movement". Exactly. I'm 56 years old and just changed my registration from Independent to Democrat, specifically to fight for the Justice Democrats Platform. I also live in California and I'm completely disgusted with the Cal Dem's electing a corporate lobbyist to any position in the party, let alone to be its head. WhirlingWolves is right on target with his/her comments. Super-delegates have no right to exist and subvert my vote , just like I have a greater claim to existence over health insurance companies right to exist. I'm sick and tired of my vote being diluted by wealth driven special interest sectors. For me it is "Justice Democrats OR BUST", because there is not a third party in existence now which can realistically win against the two major political parties. Kyle, I don't agree with you 100% but you anr spot-on with most subjects you talk about and have the fire in the belly that is needed for the fight ahead. Justice Democrats need to bust open this corrupt political system, we need you to spend a great portion of your efforts to keep the Bearniecrats here in California armed with the latest and best information.
    1
  1671. And why are the political parties able to carve up our government and the election process? When the politicians represent their wealthy campaign donors over the voters. That means the billionaires, corporations and wealthy industrialists are the problem. The same problem that gave us Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, making SCOTUS unwilling to do what you suggest.
    1
  1672. Done.
    1
  1673. Soooo, what? Time to just give in? Go home and watch Gilligan's Island? What a waste of words. Just because you have given up on small town Americans does not mean the rest of us have. How about pitching in instead? I've banged my head against the wall trying to reason with these conservative idealogs, I don't expect them to change their minds . . . at least not yet. One day it will hit them like a thunderclap facepalm, and then they will come around. Either that or the west coast and New York state will secede from the USA, leaving all the illiterate dumbasses to make it on their own.
    1
  1674. Since the 2016 election I've studied both right and left arguments, then went to historical records. The result was eye opening but murky. Then yesterday I listened to an angry Trumpeteer saying "can't have my guns" in response to CNN reporting on the Virginia shooting. . . and I had an epiphany. Rich People - they figured out approximately 40 years ago that productive human society was developing beyond the need for money. We are not there yet, but they have a vested interest in keeping control. So they set right against left, left against right. Does not matter who is correct, as long as humans keep fighting. Rich People fear losing their power. Simple as that. That is our modern super-villains: Rich People. Guns in the hands of the 99% of regular people are the modern version of pitchforks.
    1
  1675. Hello The Rational National. You are right on target with your summary. The item I want to mention refers to voter turnout. The percentage turnout could have been higher if not for the demoralizing effect of voter suppression in the 6th District. Both the Thom Hartman Show and Democracy Now had separate interviews with independent reporter Greg Palast about Jon Ossoff's chances of winning in a district that had voter tampering. Karen Handel was Georgia Secretary of State. She was responsible for purges of the voter rolls that eventually resulted in a federal lawsuit. The report that Greg Palast filed included an on camera interview with Karen Handel where he asked her about the use of the voter "CrossCheck" system. Aside from the republican cheating when it comes to voter suppression, your message is spot on. No more running republican light candidates. From this point forward it should be all in with the progressive left agenda front and center for all to see.
    1
  1676. Kyle, there are many telescopes watching for near earth asteroids. The website http://www.spaceweather.com/ has a daily updated list at the bottom of the page. As of today, here is the SpaceWeather report: On June 25, 2017 there were 1803 potentially hazardous asteroids.
    1
  1677. This is our pre-existing condition: Rich People. Since the 2016 election I've studied both right and left arguments, then went to historical records. The result was eye opening but murky. Then yesterday I listened to an angry Trumpeteer saying "can't have my guns" in response to CNN reporting on the Virginia shooting. . . and I had an epiphany. Rich People - they figured out approximately 40 years ago that productive human society was developing beyond the need for money. We are not there yet, but they have a vested interest in keeping control. So they set right against left, left against right. Does not matter who is correct, as long as humans keep fighting. Rich People fear losing their power. Simple as that. That is our modern super-villains: Rich People. Guns in the hands of the 99% of regular people are the modern version of pitchforks. Bernie Sanders is our best torch bearer.
    1
  1678. Heman 2000 "Maybe Trump is a blessing in disguise. Because he is so bad, others are becoming more politically aware, and understand more about who are they voting for." Yes, and there is more. Since the 2016 election I've studied both right and left arguments, then went to historical records. The result was eye opening but murky. Then yesterday I listened to an angry Trumpeteer saying "can't have my guns" in response to CNN reporting on the Virginia shooting. . . and I had an epiphany. Rich People - they figured out approximately 40 years ago that productive human society was developing beyond the need for money. We are not there yet, but they have a vested interest in keeping control. So they set right against left, left against right. Does not matter who is correct, as long as humans keep fighting. Rich People fear losing their power. Simple as that. That is our modern super-villain: Rich People. Guns in the hands of the 99% of regular people are the modern version of pitchforks.
    1
  1679. Aaron Hoy - Excellent points and analysis, thank you.
    1
  1680. yzeew w - That recession you are forecasting is already something we are familiar with from recent decades. So it was not a good idea then, to move the steel industry out of the USA decades ago and thus seriously impact the GDP. Countless other manufacturing jobs have been exported over the decades, did that not affect the GDP? How did the GDP double over the decades will all that loss of productive jobs? I'll wager it was the growth of non-producing business entities like health insurance companies. They help the GDP of the rich, not the average person or worker. An industry like steel is productive, making a contribution. You want a non productive industry practice (medical insurance companies) with proven predatory behavior, to be protected as a ward against recession? McDonalds is soon going to install order taking kiosks in 2500 stores, a very efficient move for McDonalds bottom line. They will make a lot more profit, which will go to the top executives. Meanwhile a few thousand workers will become a redundant and unprofitable expense. McDonalds will let the workers go, its nothing personal you know . . . . and the externalities like the now greater cost to society at large is not McDonalds concern. Does not McDonalds actions here contribute to recession? What responsibility resides with McDonalds for the concerns of the economy or even of society? We have to decide as a people what to place in higher esteem, the unfettered capitalism that enriches a few at the top, or the social responsibility of society as a whole (including business and corporations) to take care of our people.
    1
  1681. Max Strong - Yes, ironic . . . isn't it?
    1
  1682. Exactly why Thom should continue with having these so called Conservatives on his show, they reveal to us all exactly how ridiculous they are.
    1
  1683. Curry Munch - So the wolves are at the door, your solution is to open the door and let them in. Policies are failing according to a purpose, in education and healthcare. The free market is free to pillage and plunder, wreaking economies over the decades by a set of rules allowing extraction economics and calling it free choice. Free market requires my democratic vote to be silenced because the flourishing market capitalism must free to consume everything . . . . including healthcare, education, airports, waterways . . . . why not just privatize it all? Do you think that all critical thought has departed from the population? The new education system is well thought out to remove critical thinking skills from the population. I witnessed my kids going through it. The education system was set up to fail long ago, the more and more funds were needed to feed a bloated administration required to track all the improvements like "standardized testing". This was the deliberate failure of policy, by which I mean that failure was the intent all along. The same people who politically polarized education will be the beneficiaries of school privatization, they will own all the schools, testing services and education supply companies. Yet this comment section was about the health care . . . . I mean tax cut for the wealthy called "trump-don't-care", and it is simply another "free market" solution seemingly fantastic because it offers "freedom" to everyone. Meanwhile the democratic will of the people is thwarted by thriving capitalism for the 1%'ers, we pay double or more and receive much, much less than any other advanced nation. So, to answer your question, no I don't want to continue with failed policies, especially not the extraction economics practiced by the current neoliberal conglomerate which currently dominates our government. It is time for new policies, clean out the old policies that are clearly not beneficial for "the general welfare" of We the People" Our public schools need to stay public, as should our hospitals also be public . . . thank you very much.
    1
  1684. Curry Munch - Once again, No. The real cause of wage stagnation is not illegal immigration, that is simply a convenient foil presented to you (the masses) to inappropriately channel blame away from wage theft by the oligarchy. I recommend that you look for Nancy MaClean's interviews here on YouTube, where she lays out the internal details of the Koch Brothers ongoing attempt to takeover the USA using the ideas of economist James M. Buchanan. The problem the left suffers from is not having a cohesive vision for what a suitable future for society is. Rarely if ever have I read or seen ideas put forward by the left, which counteract the push to change our Constitution in the manner the Koch Brothers have in mind.
    1
  1685. Nancy Martin - Thank you for the compliment, though I feel some clarification is necessary. Since the election I have spent an inordinate amount of time researching, so much that much of what I have going on in life has been supplanted by the quest. Most ordinary people do not have the time or inclination to dig into facts, figures, charts and statistics about what has been happening in the USA. Not only am I appalled at that I have found, but I am extremely angry that a small group of people have placed their wants and desires above that of an entire country. Myself and millions of other citizens have been cheated and stolen from, legally and quietly by corrupting our political system. What I thought was the land of the free and home of the brave, is no more. We have been taken over by the oligarchs. They have not gotten their Constitutional Convention of States yet. Therein lies our only hope, we must stop them. But now Trump is going on a campaign of national voter suppression, this is their war against all of us.
    1
  1686. Allard Freichmann - Hear hear! and seconded. Short circuit money in the political equation, don't vote for well funded candidates.
    1
  1687. Since the 2016 election I've studied both right and left arguments, then went to historical records. The result was eye opening but murky. Then yesterday I listened to an angry Trumpeteer saying "can't have my guns" in response to CNN reporting on the Virginia shooting. . . and I had an epiphany. Rich People - they figured out approximately 40 years ago that productive human society was developing beyond the need for money. We are not there yet, but they have a vested interest in keeping control. So they set right against left, left against right. Does not matter who is correct, as long as humans keep fighting. Rich People fear losing their power. Simple as that. That is our modern super-villains: Rich People. Guns in the hands of the 99% of regular people are the modern version of pitchforks.
    1
  1688. Michael Li - Remember that the Washington Post on Friday blew the whole Russia thing wide open, Putin personally ordered the USA election interference assault. Trump got the classified briefing, he has known all of his presidency that "this Russia thing" was real. He has not moved to protect this country from further assault. That alone is aid and comfort to an enemy, or treason. Article 3, Section 3, Constitution of the United States of America. Eventually "We the People" will have their balls in a vise.
    1
  1689. No Jacob Ben, we are his backup. I'm in agreement with Raymond Weiss about your comment, very childish.
    1
  1690. Karen Handel is not a conservative, she is a neoliberal. If those small businesses could actually supply the "good paying jobs" over the past 40 years, we would have seen the evidence of such by now. Wages are artificially low. This "extraction economy" has been crafted through government policy by neoliberals in public office, who represent and do the bidding of their donors over the voters that put them into office. When are people going to get it, that we are being deliberately screwed by these traitors? Over the past 40 years the top 20% of earners in the USA have pocketed a 55% tax cut and the top 1% has pocketed all the GDP gains enmassed during this same time period (in addition to getting that 55% tax cut). Right now 52% of all new wealth generated by the USA goes directly to the top 1%, or as Bernie Sanders tells us that wealth goes directly to the top 1/10th of 1%. This is not promoting "the general welfare" of "We the People" as called for in the U.S Constitution. Karen Handel is anti-U.S. Constitution, thus should never be placed in a position to represent "We the People" anywhere in this country.
    1
  1691. No more half measures or baby steps. We go all out for each program and policy, enough already with the Corporate Pick-Pockets. Go Justice Democrats!!
    1
  1692. Dick Hamilton - Ok, very good short summary, I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment, mostly is sounds like what have read so far. This is still fairly new to me and I do not claim to be an expert, just very-very alarmed over what I am learning. The parts that I am mostly inflamed over is what Milton Friedman said about social responsibility and market principles, that a company manager who makes a socially responsible decision that costs more than a straight up business bottom line decision . . . is stealing money from the company. Business has no business making socially responsible decisions, that is government and society's responsibility. When business infiltrates government, society becomes an externality. This is unacceptable. My perception is this particular conservative/neoliberal mindset has spread like cancer throughout the world, the bottom line is paramount and "externalities" are not to be concerned about. This is madness. Market principles cannot be applied everywhere when the fallout is to simply say that only business bottom line matters, when without society there would be no business or profits to have. We have to take care of our people. Also, my understanding of Conservatism, especially of the fiscal type, is to make financially responsible decisions within the framework of budgetary allowance. That is how we run our household. Neoliberalism seems to have broken out of the descriptive framework you have laid out and has become this all consuming monster. Hayek or Friedman's economic theories may have started out in the "conservative economists" camp, but I don't think that is where they are camping out right now. The Preamble of the Constitution may not have direct legal standing, yet I think neoliberalism is diametrically opposed the the idea of "promoting the general welfare" of "We the People". Something is very wrong with the course our government has taken over the last forty years, and I'll wager it has a great deal to to with the neoliberal mindset that has infiltrated into government through our elected officials. Thank you for the civilized discourse.
    1
  1693. SuperThumpasaurus - "leftist politicians are incapable of being sociopaths" . . . Whoa there, did I write that or imply that? Interesting, never intended to imply such a thing but just out of curiosity, who are the leftist sociopaths? I'd like to steer clear of them too!
    1
  1694. SuperThumpasaurus - "Re: your most recent post..." Whoa there, I was talking about Milton Friedman and his ideas. I've listened to several of his lectures here on YouTube and those are his assertions, not mine. When I tacked my own thoughts in a sentence at the end of the relevant paragraph, it may have been confusing. We are not that far apart on substantive issues and I agree that socialism as practiced in communist countries is putting too much authority in the hands of government. However there is a compromise between socialism and capitalism, but your first two examples of "smallish and unintrusive federal government and free market economy", may need some refinement for the system to work. Everything else you wrote as examples I completely agree with. Pressed for time at the moment but I want to pass on something I heard: "The American Dream is alive and well, and it is living in Denmark!"
    1
  1695. Wendell Goode - ""Rubio, GOP & Risk Corridors", there is your answer." You nailed it!
    1
  1696. Since the 2016 election I've studied both right and left arguments, then went to historical records. The result was eye opening but murky. Then yesterday I listened to an angry Trumpeteer saying "can't have my guns" in response to CNN reporting on the Virginia shooting. . . and I had an epiphany. Rich People - they figured out approximately 40 years ago that productive human society was developing beyond the need for money. We are not there yet, but they have a vested interest in keeping control. So they set right against left, left against right. Does not matter who is correct, as long as humans keep fighting. Rich People fear losing their power. Simple as that. That is our modern super-villains: Rich People. Guns in the hands of the 99% of regular people are the modern version of pitchforks.
    1
  1697. Rising tide to raise all ships in the Harbor? In principle I like that saying, yet the Republicans and Corporate Democrats have been busy firing torpedos at all the ships that are not wealthy. Can't raise a ship with too many holes in the hull.
    1
  1698. yzeew w - Don't count on the supreme court. They have been compromised, three at least are in the pockets of the billionaire class. I'm doing a copy and paste here: Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Mark Pocan and Raúl Grijalva First Vice Chair Pramila Jayapal Whip Matt Cartwright Vice Chairs David Cicilline, Keith Ellison, Ruben Gallego, Ro Khanna, Sheila Jackson Lee, Jamie Raskin, Jan Schakowsky and Mark Takano More: On May 9, 2017, House Representative Ro Khanna of the California 17th district announced that he would become a Justice Democrat, making him the first sitting member of Congress to join. Back to my own words: The Justice Democrats seek to add members to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, make it stronger and eventually overwhelm the corporate democrats, thus taking the party from the inside. A worthy cause if ever we are going to fight for one. Plus this: We have a larger mission, save human kind and all life forms on the planet. Look this up: Methane Hydrate Gasification and the Permian–Triassic Extinction Event.
    1
  1699. Thank you . . good to know. I'll look into this further, Ro joined JD after the election . . . but I will be keeping an eye on him and bringing this up with the JD founders.
    1
  1700. Dick Hamilton - Sorry about the name mixup when I first posted. Your definition is pretty much spot on from my readings and research. With neo-libralism it is impossible to compress adequate information into just a few sentences without losing the essence of what we are dealing with. It seems to me the goal of neo-liberalism is to create two classes, the upper class and the *under class*. The upper class has the vote, power, wealth and rights, the under class has none of those. Employer/employee, Royalty/subject, Lord/serf, Master/slave, the neo-liberals crave return to the rightful order. From their highly punitive social perspective, wealth is king and the only thing that really matters. Health and well being are meaningless, especially for the greater population. (Society is dead, it matters not.) The framers of the U.S. Constitution tried their best to give us the tools to fight this kind of tyranny. Neo-liberalism is in direct conflict with the U.S. Constitution because it does not serve to "promote the general welfare" of "We the People".
    1
  1701. koushiro86 - Agreed with your assessment, and I believe the neoliberal agenda is clearly anti-U.S. Constitution. This makes the Republicans an anti-Constitutional political party, though they seems to have their citizen voting base fooled into believing they stand for the Constitution. The Democratic party has also been corrupted in great part, although unlike the republican party there are still some Democrats in the party who reject the neoliberal agenda.
    1
  1702. Manuel R. - Right on! Thank you.
    1
  1703. Optimus Fine and Manual R. have made the case for automatic and across the board registration to vote. No voter ID laws, just a system in place that automatically verifies that all citizens are who they say they are and that they live where they say they live. The onus is not put upon the voter to "prove their innocence", which is very un-American. Nor are the voter rolls "purged" by discriminatory and arbitrarily politically motivated voter removal systems like Crosscheck. Optical Clarity - the only reason to have Voter ID is for the purpose of racial and minority purging of the voter rolls. TheLawDemon - For someone who finds long answers akin to lying, I was surprised to read no actual proofs in your long answers. WebAnt just made a post illustrating with no doubt whatsoever that the NC voter ID law is discriminatory. No "straw man" argument there. Back to the OP by Optimus Fine, here in California the voter district lines are drawn by a non - partisan citizen committee, who uses physical geographical areas, natural physical boundaries, man made boundaries (major highways, etc), to draw up basic geometric districts. Some districts naturally hold more republican voters, others more democratic voters and other districts have a mix. No one can claim the system is unfair or partisan in nature. This is the way it should be across the United states. Optical Clarity and TheLawDemon, you are unwitting pawns to propaganda put out by wanna-be authoritarians, engaged since the 1960's in a massive chess game with you both as willingly ignorant sacrificial pawns. The genesis of their neoliberal game goes way back to before WW1, that is history you should study. They will overthrow democratic republic of the U.S. and tear up the Constitution upon checkmate. Perhaps you have not studied your history well enough, or actually studied the economy of neoliberal capitalism? All the information is available to you, but it seems you are not using your connection to the internet for that purpose. Hmmmmm, I'd feel sorry for you if indeed what you believe was not so dangerous to all Americans.
    1
  1704. Optimus Fine - "But please refrain from name calling and using derogatory names for people who may not agree with you politically, it doesn't help anyone's cause." True, very true . . . . but sometimes it is so hard to resist!
    1
  1705. Right on! You two have just invented the Basic Universal Income! That solves the unemployment problem too. Maybe that should be part of a political platform, it would be very popular.
    1
  1706. Wow TheLawDemon . . . . Master of Ad hominem.
    1
  1707. Optimus Fine - Agreed and agreed, and adding in lots of rolling of the eyes!
    1
  1708. TheLawDemon - I went to your first post and found . . . there is no debate or holding of dialog. Here is a quote: "Q: So how exactly does voter ID keep minorities from voting again? A: It doesn't." "See, leftists? How easy was that! If you really listened to what the other side was saying, you MIGHT gain enough respect to open a true dialogue and actually have a chance to come to some reasonable consensus. But you don't. And personally I do not believe it is because you are unwilling. I think you are actually incapable." In that short snippit I copied after TheLawDemon Q-A, the word "you" was written five times. I'll return to my regularly scheduled broadcast now: "Wow TheLawDemon . . . . Master of Ad hominem."
    1
  1709. TheLawDemon - Glad you made your choice, bye-bye.
    1
  1710. If these good paying jobs Karen Handel referred to could be had by cutting government regulations and taxes on business rather than raising the minimum wage, where are all the jobs? Her stated policy has been in force already over four decades and produced the opposite effect! Since around 1975, median wages started tracking at about the same level when adjusted for inflation, barely rising at all. For several decades before 1975 wages had risen with GDP because workers received 70% of that GDP growth. After 1975 workers received 0% of GDP growth, and I think that fact alone has a lot more to do with the hurt all Americans are going through. If the minimum wage had tracked with GDP after 1975, in most areas it would be over $18/hour. If all wages had tracked with GDP then Americans would not be stuck in this situation because consumer spending would be very strong and jobs would be in plenty. The real question to ask is this: Since 1975 the GDP of the USA has doubled and workers have not gotten a raise in pay, where did all that money go? I would like Karen Handel to answer that question.
    1
  1711. Mr. Hippie: Yes, and there is more. Since the 2016 election I've studied both right and left arguments, then went to historical records. The result was eye opening but murky. Then yesterday I listened to an angry Trumpeteer saying "can't have my guns" in response to CNN reporting on the Virginia shooting. . . and I had an epiphany. Rich People - they figured out approximately 40 years ago that productive human society was developing beyond the need for money. We are not there yet, but they have a vested interest in keeping control. So they set right against left, left against right. Does not matter who is correct, as long as humans keep fighting. Rich People fear losing their power. Simple as that. That is our modern super-villain: Rich People. Guns in the hands of the 99% of regular people are the modern version of pitchforks.
    1
  1712. Wait, I thought the republican health care bill was called "Trumpdon'tcare", right?
    1
  1713. I'm looking for an answer to my question. I'm not going to play word games, it is out in the open: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-putin-election-hacking/?utm_term=.531f5958cd0d
    1
  1714. ch33tos sesh - Yea right. That is CNN, and not even close to what the Washington Post reported on Friday 6/23/2017. I'm not concerned whether or not trump colluded with russia, I want to know what trump is doing to protect our elections from further attack. Refer to my OP for the original question and if you have an answer, then post your comment.
    1
  1715. the op kingdom - Wow, the level of obfuscation here is disturbing. There is no doubt whatsoever that russia was interfering in the 2016 election. No reasonable person can deny that at all or refute that fact. So lets go back to my original comment and read my question again, if there is an answer I would like to know.
    1
  1716. thomas bell- Maybe this is a blessing in disguise, in that because of the shit-storm being brewed up right now . . . the big and small neoliberal conspirators and criminal players standing against "*We the People*" are being exposed in a way I cannot imagine possible under Hillary Clinton. Their long enjoyed safe places are giving way before the gale . . . . long overdue but perhaps not possible if it was not for Donny Boy and crew?
    1
  1717. We the People of the United States of America are under systematic and deliberate attack from enemies within. The battleground is economic, the weapons are legislative, the engineers making the weapons are our own representatives in government (not all of them, but most), and the goal of our enemies is to divide society into two classes of people. The Upper Class will have all the wealth, power, privileges, and rights. The Under Class will have no wealth, no power, no privileges and no rights. When the goal of our enemies is achieved, the democratic republic that is the United States of America will no longer exist and a dystopia will take its place. Make no mistake, this is a purposeful and sustained attack against our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and We the People. Just FYI here: (A dystopia is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening.) The greatest middle class the world has ever experienced was built up in 30 years after World War-2 in the United States of America. Then right about the mid 1970’s the capitalist elites faced two crises simultaneously, the falling rate of profitability in industry and pressing questions from the electorate surrounding the legitimacy of capitalism. Prompted into action to save themselves, the capitalist elites co-opted OUR very own politicians whose duty is to look after us. Ever since then political efforts in the USA have been focused and unified, upon creating the legislative machinery to weaken the middle class, extract its wealth, and reduce it to the Under Class. Conservatives and neoliberals have then spent the last 42 years increasing the income and monopoly of wealth in the economy for the 1% at the top and creating a wealth extraction economy for the middle class and the poor. This is not enough for them, they have also set out to dept enslave not only our own people and government, but also entire countries . . . for the sole purpose of setting up wealth extraction economies in those countries. Going outside of our country to extract wealth makes the treasonous United States politicians and guilty United States businesses into something worse than they already represent, they became international gangsters and extortionists. Meanwhile on the home front, the entire 42-year period has been spent by Republican politicians extolling the conservative virtues of individualism and preaching the “rightness” of the neoliberal supported “Reagonomics”, or “Trickle Down Economics”, or “Free Market Economics”, to the electorate, while creating a monopolistic economy that has decimated the liberty of individuals. It appears from my vantage point that the politicians making the policies do not actually believe in the U.S.-Constitution, nor are they doing their sworn duty to protect it. The "right-wing and "corporate owned" politicians we elect are themselves the “domestic enemies” of the Constitution because their policies will lead the destruction of the Constitution. Of course we had no way of knowing that until recently, because we trust our politicians and could simply not believe they would deceive us in any manner. However 42 years of historical records do not lie about what the conservative right wing and corporate democrats in our government have done with the economy and to us. There is a way for We the People to strike back at those attacking us and win, in fact this is the only way. The Framers of the Constitution were very smart about this. We the People can perform “Election Campaign Finance Reform” ourselves instead of waiting forever for the reforms the politicians will never undertake on their own. Plus there is nothing in the Constitution that declares "Free Market Capitalism" is the one and only economic model for the land, the Framers very wisely put that responsibility of choice into the hands of "We the People". We must start electing only those persons who will not take campaign contributions from any source of wealth. Our politicians have been bought and paid for by wealthy donors for 40 years, all the republicans certainly are bought, and the "Corporate Democrats" are bought as well. These politicians represent donors not voters, and are thus corrupted. The only clean politicians we have are those like Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna, who raise money from the people and not from corporate/wealthy donors. We have to vote out the corruption and vote in only those that pledge to serve the peoples interests. They can prove their loyalty by never taking money from business, corporations, millionaires, billionaires, political action committees (PAC's) or lobbyists. They must also pledge in perpetuity not to seek employment with PAC's or lobbying interests after their term in office. This is the only way we can protect our U.S.-Constitution and honor the efforts of those who protected it with their lives, so that “We the People” will have its protection in perpetuity like the Framers intended.
    1
  1718. We the People of the United States of America are under systematic and deliberate attack from enemies within. The battleground is economic, the weapons are legislative, the engineers making the weapons are our own representatives in government (not all of them, but most), and the goal of our enemies is to divide society into two classes of people. The Upper Class will have all the wealth, power, privileges, and rights. The Under Class will have no wealth, no power, no privileges and no rights. When the goal of our enemies is achieved, the democratic republic that is the United States of America will no longer exist and a dystopia will take its place. Make no mistake, this is a purposeful and sustained attack against our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and We the People. Just FYI here: (A dystopia is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening.) The greatest middle class the world has ever experienced was built up in 30 years after World War-2 in the United States of America. Then right about the mid 1970’s the capitalist elites faced two crises simultaneously, the falling rate of profitability in industry and pressing questions from the electorate surrounding the legitimacy of capitalism. Prompted into action to save themselves, the capitalist elites co-opted OUR very own politicians whose duty is to look after us. Ever since then political efforts in the USA have been focused and unified, upon creating the legislative machinery to weaken the middle class, extract its wealth, and reduce it to the Under Class. Conservatives and neoliberals have then spent the last 42 years increasing the income and monopoly of wealth in the economy for the 1% at the top and creating a wealth extraction economy for the middle class and the poor. This is not enough for them, they have also set out to dept enslave not only our own people and government, but also entire countries . . . for the sole purpose of setting up wealth extraction economies in those countries. Going outside of our country to extract wealth makes the treasonous United States politicians and guilty United States businesses into something worse than they already represent, they became international gangsters and extortionists. Meanwhile on the home front, the entire 42-year period has been spent by Republican politicians extolling the conservative virtues of individualism and preaching the “rightness” of the neoliberal supported “Reagonomics”, or “Trickle Down Economics”, or “Free Market Economics”, to the electorate, while creating a monopolistic economy that has decimated the liberty of individuals. It appears from my vantage point that the politicians making the policies do not actually believe in the U.S.-Constitution, nor are they doing their sworn duty to protect it. The "right-wing and "corporate owned" politicians we elect are themselves the “domestic enemies” of the Constitution because their policies will lead the destruction of the Constitution. Of course we had no way of knowing that until recently, because we trust our politicians and could simply not believe they would deceive us in any manner. However 42 years of historical records do not lie about what the conservative right wing and corporate democrats in our government have done with the economy and to us. There is a way for We the People to strike back at those attacking us and win, in fact this is the only way. The Framers of the Constitution were very smart about this. We the People can perform “Election Campaign Finance Reform” ourselves instead of waiting forever for the reforms the politicians will never undertake on their own. Plus there is nothing in the Constitution that declares "Free Market Capitalism" is the one and only economic model for the land, the Framers very wisely put that responsibility of choice into the hands of "We the People". We must start electing only those persons who will not take campaign contributions from any source of wealth. Our politicians have been bought and paid for by wealthy donors for 40 years, all the republicans certainly are bought, and the "Corporate Democrats" are bought as well. These politicians represent donors not voters, and are thus corrupted. The only clean politicians we have are those like Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna, who raise money from the people and not from corporate/wealthy donors. We have to vote out the corruption and vote in only those that pledge to serve the peoples interests. They can prove their loyalty by never taking money from business, corporations, millionaires, billionaires, political action committees (PAC's) or lobbyists. They must also pledge in perpetuity not to seek employment with PAC's or lobbying interests after their term in office. This is the only way we can protect our U.S.-Constitution and honor the efforts of those who protected it with their lives, so that “We the People” will have its protection in perpetuity like the Framers intended.
    1
  1719. Mick Swagger - Not watching the news Mick Swagger? Trump was briefed before sworn in. Putin gave the orders to assault U.S. Elections. Trump has taken no action to protect USA from further attacks by Putin. Trump through inaction is giving aid and comfort to enemy - Treason. Constitution, Article 3, Section 3. Read it.
    1
  1720. Mick Swagger - You are not my enemy, you are simply reacting. Since the 2016 election I've studied both right and left arguments, then went to historical records. The result was eye opening but murky. Then yesterday I listened to an angry Trumpeteer saying "can't have my guns" in response to CNN reporting on the Virginia shooting. . . and I had an epiphany. Rich People - they figured out approximately 40 years ago that productive human society was developing beyond the need for money. We are not there yet, but they have a vested interest in keeping control. So they set right against left, left against right. Does not matter who is correct, as long as humans keep fighting. Rich People fear losing their power. Simple as that. That is our modern super-villain: Rich People. Guns in the hands of the 99% of regular people are the modern version of pitchforks.
    1
  1721. dra6o0n - Yes, and there is more. Since the 2016 election I've studied both right and left arguments, then went to historical records. The result was eye opening but murky. Then yesterday I listened to an angry Trumpeteer saying "can't have my guns" in response to CNN reporting on the Virginia shooting. . . and I had an epiphany. Rich People - they figured out approximately 40 years ago that productive human society was developing beyond the need for money. We are not there yet, but they have a vested interest in keeping control. So they set right against left, left against right. Does not matter who is correct, as long as humans keep fighting. Rich People fear losing their power. Simple as that. That is our modern super-villain: Rich People. Guns in the hands of the 99% of regular people are the modern version of pitchforks.
    1
  1722. Lee Alexander - Hear hear! Come on back home. This break up talk is sounding more appealing over time.
    1
  1723. just aburner - How about American history? Christian republicans believe their giving to churches is more effective than taxes? That just makes them stupid or ignorant . . . or worse, willfully ignorant. David Kempton's statement is spot on.
    1
  1724. Paldeus Jaco - Liberals do not take to violence to solve problems, and nothing of what you said is anything close to the liberals I know. This is a horrible event and should never have happened. I don't know what was in the heart and mind of the shooter, lets see what turns up. Right wing is going to build this up because it was high profile, yet the right has not made a stink about all the killings perpetrated by their own. Neither has the left, because we want solutions other than violence and shootings solve no ones problems.
    1
  1725. +Joel S - Hear Hear! Very well said!
    1
  1726. just aburner wrote - "Why should you be the arbiter of how wealth is distributed. You seem awfully entitled to the money of those who have made better choices than you." Made better choices? Sir, you really need to redirect your energy. "We the People" absolutely must become the arbiters over how wealth is distributed, and it has never been a matter of "the money of those who have made better choices that you". Those better choices you refer to are the back room deals made in the 1960's by a group of cigar chomping industrialists to usurp public offices so they could end the era of workers getting to uppity with their high wages and union representation. "We the People" never had the opportunity to make choices in these matters, so you need to get onto the correct side of history here. We are going to take back our choices now by creating a universal health care system. Medicare administration costs are 6% of every dollar spent on medicare. Private insurance overhead is 20% under the ACA, and that does not include all the other ways the private medical industry ventures have of sticking it to us. None of that market rape of the consumer is going through government administration, it happened that way because the industrialists bought the vote of the policy makers who then fashioned the law to permit this monstrosity.
    1
  1727. Grant R - Hear-hear and seconded!! Very good analysis, thank you.
    1
  1728. Grant R - Once again, excellent analysis. Thank you.
    1
  1729. We the People of the United States of America are under systematic and deliberate attack from enemies within. The battleground is economic, the weapons are legislative, the engineers making the weapons are our own representatives in government (not all of them, but most), and the goal of our enemies is to divide society into two classes of people. The Upper Class will have all the wealth, power, privileges, and rights. The Under Class will have no wealth, no power, no privileges and no rights. When the goal of our enemies is achieved, the democratic republic that is the United States of America will no longer exist and a dystopia will take its place. Make no mistake, this is a purposeful and sustained attack against our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and We the People. Just FYI here: (A dystopia is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening.) The greatest middle class the world has ever experienced was built up in 30 years after World War-2 in the United States of America. Then right about the mid 1970’s the capitalist elites faced two crises simultaneously, the falling rate of profitability in industry and pressing questions from the electorate surrounding the legitimacy of capitalism. Prompted into action to save themselves, the capitalist elites co-opted OUR very own politicians whose duty is to look after us. Ever since then political efforts in the USA have been focused and unified, upon creating the legislative machinery to weaken the middle class, extract its wealth, and reduce it to the Under Class. Conservatives and neoliberals have then spent the last 42 years increasing the income and monopoly of wealth in the economy for the 1% at the top and creating a wealth extraction economy for the middle class and the poor. This is not enough for them, they have also set out to dept enslave not only our own people and government, but also entire countries . . . for the sole purpose of setting up wealth extraction economies in those countries. Going outside of our country to extract wealth makes the treasonous United States politicians and guilty United States businesses into something worse than they already represent, they became international gangsters and extortionists. Meanwhile on the home front, the entire 42-year period has been spent by Republican politicians extolling the conservative virtues of individualism and preaching the “rightness” of the neoliberal supported “Reagonomics”, or “Trickle Down Economics”, or “Free Market Economics”, to the electorate, while creating a monopolistic economy that has decimated the liberty of individuals. It appears from my vantage point that the politicians making the policies do not actually believe in the U.S.-Constitution, nor are they doing their sworn duty to protect it. The "right-wing and "corporate owned" politicians we elect are themselves the “domestic enemies” of the Constitution because their policies will lead the destruction of the Constitution. Of course we had no way of knowing that until recently, because we trust our politicians and could simply not believe they would deceive us in any manner. However 42 years of historical records do not lie about what the conservative right wing and corporate democrats in our government have done with the economy and to us. There is a way for We the People to strike back at those attacking us and win, in fact this is the only way. The Framers of the Constitution were very smart about this. We the People can perform “Election Campaign Finance Reform” ourselves instead of waiting forever for the reforms the politicians will never undertake on their own. Plus there is nothing in the Constitution that declares "Free Market Capitalism" is the one and only economic model for the land, the Framers very wisely put that responsibility of choice into the hands of "We the People". We must start electing only those persons who will not take campaign contributions from any source of wealth. Our politicians have been bought and paid for by wealthy donors for 40 years, all the republicans certainly are bought, and the "Corporate Democrats" are bought as well. These politicians represent donors not voters, and are thus corrupted. The only clean politicians we have are those like Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna, who raise money from the people and not from corporate/wealthy donors. We have to vote out the corruption and vote in only those that pledge to serve the peoples interests. They can prove their loyalty by never taking money from business, corporations, millionaires, billionaires, political action committees (PAC's) or lobbyists. They must also pledge in perpetuity not to seek employment with PAC's or lobbying interests after their term in office. This is the only way we can protect our U.S.-Constitution and honor the efforts of those who protected it with their lives, so that “We the People” will have its protection in perpetuity like the Framers intended.
    1
  1730. Tony Ruiz - Only an idiot would be asking for sources on the number of illegals in the USA. It is one of the most widely circulated facts among both republican ans democrats in public office and a favorite of every news media source we have. Please, if you want to act all intellectual . . . then you cannot parse out jobs, wages and the economy separately from PPman's border wall. Do better.
    1
  1731. Darlene Royce - Let us talk about real issues. The wall is a diversion so that "Mr President" does not have to deal with stagnant wages, the lack of any type of job security with benefits like pensions, the fact that housing and energy and health insurance and college tuition and transportation costs have all risen over 200% since "trickle down Ronnie" . . . . or that China has single handedly saved the entire global economy from crashing after the 2008 so-called recession, which was caused by the USA BTW. The wall is a con job, to distract you from criminal donny's incompetence. Have you even looked at that the Senate republicans have been up to over the past two years? They are not passing any legislation that is helping the American people . . . so what exactly have they been doing? Oh-yeah . . . they have been confirming unqualified pro-corporate, anti-citizen federal judges at a rate so fast that in two years more federal judges have been seated than in all eight years of the previous administration. Why would they do that? Well now, that brings us to the longest running con pulled on the American people. Republicans pretending to be upright citizens of the USA and standing for the Constitution. The reality is this, republicans want the Constitution gone, burned to ash. Don the Con will topple the federal government if he can, that is his goal. He does not believe in democracy or the Constitution. Mitch is in on this also, those federal judges are in place to undermine the Constitution, not to shore it up. Get a grip.
    1
  1732. Bill Gates launders his reputation by giving grants to universities. Oxford University came up with a vaccine for Covid-19 and wanted to make it open source in order to help Africa and India get vaccinated, but Bill Gates threatened to pull his funding if they did. Now that Covid-19 vaccine is known as the "AstraZeneca" vaccine, with Bill Gates claiming his action was to protect "intellectual property rights".
    1
  1733. MadMax - You intellect is astonishing, brilliant and your comments well articulated.
    1
  1734.  @se6586  - Focusing on the straw man? The 61% who don't pay taxes are dwarfed by the trillions in unpaid taxes the wealthy and corporations should owe, but somehow don't. There is an unspoken reason why a majority of our citizens do not understand what is happening to them, which is the very people these pundits are fawning all over themselves for are sucking us dry like parasites. Overall, the value of financial assets grew by $13.68 trillion in 2021, an 11.58% increase over 2020. That value increase is just over 66% of GDP for the year. When financial assets increase in value, it is not because of savvy investment planning. That increase represents a vacuum cleaner that is sucking wealth straight out of the paychecks, wallets, purses and bank accounts of the bottom 90% of households in the USA.
    1
  1735. What I have seen so far, suggests that the George Floyd murder and the subsequent property damage during the Minneapolis protest over the following days, was a coordinated effort by white suprematism movements embedded in the Minneapolis police department and the White House. Trump needs a diversion from his abject failure of a presidency, and a way to kill more black, brown and poor people by state sponsored violence, and through more infections with the Covid-19 virus. The provocative killing of George Floyd was done on purpose, in order to provoke a response from minorities and the poor people who are suffering economic devastation because of the federal governments failure to help the population, and to divert our attention from the aggressive Wall Street and corporate looting of the federal treasury that just took place, using the CARES Act as cover. The final goal is to upset the 2020 election so that Trump can maintain his freedom, because when he loses the election, he, his family and his entire Cabinet will be going to prison.
    1
  1736. @Ronald Reagan - You have really soaked up the propaganda those billionaires put out on those infotainment media channels they own. Your condition gives those wealthy people everything they want, a willing subject too stupid to know he is being conned. However, you cannot beat the math (you do understand math, yes?). The wealthy pull more money out of us than the economy can support. You and the OP are both victims, but you have allowed yourself to be convinced that you are not one. That is what you get for drinking too much conservative koolaid! I will give you one thing, the left is almost as lazy and irresponsible as you are. They can't do math either.
    1
  1737. @Ronald Reagan - Nope. The narrative that "Employees can leave anytime and go to a different job" is an old piece of oligarch propaganda. Glad to see you are still willing to be a pawn for the wealthy.
    1
  1738.  @AmericaFuckYeah1776  Well good for you. I don't believe you, but good for you. One does not need physical chains these days, debt is the new bondage that holds workers hostage. Though I can already hear what you are going to write . . . . it is the individuals fault for getting into debt, right? Not when debt is a literal requirement to live a middle class life these days, a requirement that is a yoke weighing down our entire society except for those who "earn" their livelihood by putting others into debt. You really haven't a clue, just another loud mouth with a keyboard who does not understand that "Politics" is economics.
    1
  1739. Bloomberg refuses to acknowledge that his line of work, the exploitation of workers and whole population groups to build his $billions$, put minorities out of work and affected minorities economic standing in a negative manner. Of course he would then persecute those same minorities as criminals. He caused the economic problems and then made it worse by singling out minorities and persons of color to persecute. Of course!
    1
  1740. Public/Private partnerships are not just a bad idea, they are simply a recipe for fraud and expanding privately held wealth. The regulatory structure Mr. Jamie Dimon referred to regarding permit acquisition was built by private lobbyists writing both local and national laws, his complaint over permits is bald faced theatrics. The infrastructure of this country was overseen and built by the government. We need to stop giving private contractors the jobs that government should be doing directly, because private contractors are just another method to siphon off wealth directly from the government.
    1
  1741. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  1742. Making sure that you are too busy and too exhausted to deal with all of this shit is part of the plan. We are the marks in a decades long con.
    1
  1743. The top 20% drain $2.5 trillion from the economy every year, without lifting a finger to earn that money. That is like having a 500 pound man sit on the head of a 200 pound man all year. While the 200 pond man works all year, the 500 pound man does nothing and yet still demands 10% of all the 200 pound man's annual earnings.
    1
  1744. @Alex McAuliff - Yet even in the Star Trek scenario, corruption still exists. In Star Trek Into Darkness, Admiral Marcus used Starfleet resources to secretly build a massive warship. If Admiral Marcus would have succeeded in his ambitions, it would have eventually resulted in a Star Wars scenario for earth society. We will always have to be on guard, and we must deal with our present issues succinctly in order to avoid Star Wars or worse . . . Mad Max.
    1
  1745. And yet, Nancy Pelosi gave a standing ovation to regime change in Venezuela, after Trump lied about who is the legitimate president of that country. She is a war monger, no different than Trump himself. This is just a game to the elites, and her performance was just that, a performance. Just 20% of the world population controls 94.5% of the worlds wealth, she is Speaker of the House only because she wants to keep the game going for the wealthy elites. Just remember that when you are cheering for her, she does not stand for or represent YOU.
    1
  1746.  @Freespirit5371  - Perhaps, yet people need to understand, she does not represent us. She is there to hold in place the power structures of the wealthy elites. Why do you think is was these impeachment clauses, and not the myriad of worse things Trump has done? One) Trump attacked a dem elite, and Two) Democrats are just as guilty of doing the same things Trump does. BTW, I am a registered democrat, but I've had it up to here with the corruption of both parties.
    1
  1747.  @Freespirit5371  - Believe that if you must, however Donald Trump is the symptom of an illness brought on by the Nancy Pelosi's and Chuck Schumer's of the world. Have you seen some of the early footage of Nancy? She reminded me of AOC in those old newsreels, when Nancy actually believed in something. Nancy Pelosi sold out, pure and simple. There were a ton of charges that could have been brought up against Trump, but she only moved toward impeachment when another democrat elite became DT's target. I saw her stand up and applaud that fraud Juan Quido, at which time she was also applauding DT's warmongering. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see any put down of DT, but don't think for an instant that Nancy is on the side of common U.S. citizens, she is on the side of the global wealthy elites.
    1
  1748.  @Freespirit5371  - We both agree that DT is the worst representation of a human being, there is no doubt about that. DT is a diseased person. What do you think made him that way? Answer: too much wealth. So much wealth that he could get away with anything and everything. Look, DT and Nancy Pelosi are just doing political theater, they are play acting. Why do you think they both agree Juan Guido is the president of Venezuela? They don't care who is the president, they just want to get rid of Maduro, who is the legitimately elected leader of Venezuela, because he is continuing the nationalization of that countries resources on behalf of the people of Venezuela. What they are both doing is supporting the people who would profit from regime change in Venezuela, both the military/industrial complex and those lining up to extract natural resources. We cannot pretend that Nancy is some great person or leader, she is not. A person does not grow a net worth of $34 million (lowest estimate) on $190,400/year as a career politician. She is firmly in the pocket of the wealthy donor class, the less that 1% who are bankrupting the entire planet. C'mon man, get real.
    1
  1749. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
    1
  1750. Millennials are paid 20% less than Boomers (except for tail us end Boomers who got shafted also) . . . . yet each of those dollars is worth 40 cents because of predatory capitalism. So what are Millennials really getting? A stinking pile of shit.
    1
  1751. Nancy Pelosi's donors love Trump so she is certainly never going to act on our behalf and even allow an impeachment inquiry to take place.
    1
  1752. Pano 360 - Ohhh . . . it has been too long since I had a real nice belly laugh. Thank you Pano 360, that felt wonderful!!!
    1
  1753. romulus463 = Farm Troll, don't feed, likes to bite hands.
    1
  1754.  @imannpc2562  - When the 1% of the USA gets paid only 2% interest on their $30 trillion in accumulated wealth, that alone consumed all of 2018's GDP growth plus a little more. Last time I checked, S&P 500 index funds have averaged over 9% sine 1994. The entire republican party is a scam and a front for billionaire thievery. Every republican is either a pawn or a thief.
    1
  1755. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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  1756.  @bogdan78pop  - You are incorrect about Social Security. There is nothing documented about Social Security income meant to be supplemental, its original intent was to keep seniors from falling into poverty and being a burden on families that were becoming single generational rather than multi-generational. What you are saying is mirroring propaganda talking points, not reality.
    1
  1757. No, we don't. I wish we did, but the unfair always gain the upper hand.
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  1758.  @marshallsweatherhiking1820  - I don't understand how the women involved go along with dominance hierarchies, or for that matter 90% of the men. The other 10% of the men are easy to understand, they get off on the power.
    1
  1759.  @davidvernon3119  - Yes, I do have a theory. Just a bit of background history to lay the groundwork. On September 19, 2019, the Federal Reserve started a massive liquidation program for banks to head off another financial disaster. The overnight lending rate between banks has suddenly jumped from less than 2% to over 10%, which loosely translated meant that the banks were running far too low on cash. This came in the form of "repurchasing operations" or REPO's, where the Federal Reserve repurchased treasury notes the banks were holding as part of their reserves. The lack of liquidity was caused by the heating up of the stock markets, the banks simply did not have enough cash on hand to meet client requirements for stock purchases. There has been huge inflation for the past decade, but not in consumer goods. The inflation was all in asset acquisition concentrated in the stock market. Do you remember how Trump was always bragging about the stock market? The Federal Reserve is still propping up the banks almost two years later and has eliminated the reserve holding requirements. Over the past decade there has been a huge movement in corporate stock buybacks, which has been pumping up stock prices. At first the corporations (and banks) had been using their own money for stock repurchasing, but over the past year, the Federal Reserve has been allowing corporations to borrow directly from them, by adding corporate bonds to its balance sheet. All of that corporate bond money has been going straight into the stock market. Now the stock market is so overheated, that asset purchases have started to bleed out into the housing market. Right now things have gotten crazy, housing on the market all over the world are getting dozens to hundreds of offers, with many of those offers consisting of all cash. Buyers are paying through the nose, going far over asking prices, waiving inspections and even appraisals in order to make the purchase. Right now we are seeing huge inflation in real estate and I expect that this buying frenzy will start to bleed over into into the general economy. Have you seen the price of lumber lately? Lumber is double or even triple what it was two years ago, which is why housing starts have bottomed. I believe we will start to see inflation in consumer goods soon and we might even enter a 1970's style stagflation if we do not get a massive federal jobs program soon.
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  1760. Matt cash420 - "Sadly that libertarian will still never hear a simple explanation as to what rich is and how much is a fair share...." Only because he had his ears plugged. Fair Share: I for one do not believe that any sane person needs more than a set amount of money to live fabulously. Work hard and earn a lot more than others . . that is ok. Yet when you reach a certain point, society will be better served by your excess earnings going directly back into the society from whence it came. Then mankind will be able to do the BIG things, the stuff a healthy, robust and profitable private industry would just never tackle. Personal, business, corporate . . . tax it all so no one is holding excess profits "offshore" anymore. No one needs THAT much money unless POWER is what they really crave. For that reason alone, excess wealth should go back into the society from whence it came. That would stop individuals from adversely affecting all of mankind with stupid and deadly decisions. We can see first hand how dangerous it is for mankind to have so much wealth and power concentrated into the hands and limited minds of so few.
    1
  1761. Matt cash420 - How about before we talk tax brackets, we take care our society's capitalism vampires. The market based private sector is causing ordinary citizens to hemorrage money . . . like private heath care, student loans and spending on the military. Once those budget items are brought under control, costs will be reduced by far and tax brackets becomes a relevant topic.
    1
  1762. Matt cash420 - Ok, I'll bite. Filing single - Once you reach $500,000 per year, 100% tax rate for everything earned over $500,001 that year. For every type of income, earned, passive and investment, the rate need to be the same. No more 20% for capital gains while its 37% top bracket earned income. Income capped at $500,000 per year period. Everything else goes to taxes. No breaks for business and corporations. Same rates and caps as personal income. Wide umbrella inheritance tax. Five million dollar cap on inheritance, everything else goes to taxes.
    1
  1763. Matt cash420 - 100% taxation is less crazy than what is happening now. You must be of hollow mind, if you think taxation is "criminalizing" success. Buddy, you never answered my questions. I asked you about the value of median wages and how that value has fallen by more than half in three decades. You have responded to many other comments including mine, but you never answered my two very serious questions. Are you stupid or something like that?
    1
  1764. Matt cash420 - If you think capitalism is so great, then you must also think the workers are doing wonderfully under capitalism, yes? Question then: WHY has the value of workers median wages been cut by over half in the past three decades under capitalism? Read the question and suss out its meaning before you answer. Charts will tell you that median wages are stagnant or have risen somewhat over three decades. So here is another question for you: Do you know HOW the value of workers median wages has been cut by over half in the past three decades? Everybody please feel free to chip in on these two questions.
    1
  1765. Thales Nemo - Absolutely true. I have been advocating for space based solar as a lone voice in the wilderness . . . . extremely glad there are others taking up the cause.
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  1766. 1967SuperG- LIAR! You are projecting your own criminal organization wrongdoing. When the 1% gets paid only 2% interest on their $30 trillion in accumulated wealth, that alone consumed all of 2018's GDP growth plus a little more. Last time I checked, S&P 500 index funds have averaged over 9% sine 1994. The entire republican party is a scam and a front for billionaire thievery. Every republican is either a pawn or a thief.
    1
  1767.  @marcoantonio-qy7mf  - "TRUMP and zero $ 000%. document proving each lawyer.ja has closed .the request." Sorry buddy, that makes no sense to me whatsoever.
    1
  1768. Dan Nowman - Excellent comment, especially the "oligarchs have been delaying that awakening as long as they can" part of your comment. As a 56 year old tail-end Baby Boomer, I am livid and angry to learn that I and my peers have been systematically lied to for an entire generation . . . plus I bought into the whole "it must be your fault you cannot find and keep a job" line, which makes me angrier still now that the truth is emerging about what the oligarchs have done and are still doing.
    1
  1769.  @270Winchester  - Yes, that is true. Yet from Q4 2019 to Q4 2020, the sum total of financial assets increased by over $9 trillion, which can only happen if there is buying and selling going on. That increase is 45% of GDP and the money to grow financial assets has to come from somewhere. I am aware the Federal Reserve has started to absorb corporate bonds onto its balance sheet to finance stock buybacks, but even that does not account for more than half of the asset increase. So the question still remains, how is it possible for financial assets to gain so much when there is no support for value gains in the real economy?
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  1770. @Temporary Account - After considerable study, I have concluded that the United States was a direct contributor to the inevitability of World War Two due to reckless and irresponsible financial behavior during the 1920's.
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  1771. @Temporary Account - Changes must be made. Unlimited wealth growth is a poison pill that will cause human extinction. There is no system, natural or artificial, that can sustain unlimited growth. To survive and thrive, we must put a floor of support under all people and place a hard cap on how much wealth an individual can accumulate. Billionaires are a sign of impending extinction.
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  1772. Ok, I just watched this video. First of all, Prager U is a propaganda channel set up by Dennis Prager. While his videos are very appealing to conservatives, they are highly skewed. When I refer to "progressives", I'm not talking about the way households or local governments are run. I'm talking about how the federal government is run and the way the wealthy gain more wealth. We run our household with conservative methodology. Local and state governments must operate using a conservative methodology or they will go broke. That is not the way the federal government or those with excessive wealth operate. There is a distinction and a difference. The federal government creates money and can never go broke. None of our federal tax money is used to run the federal government, all of the federal government operating expenses are covered through congressional appropriations and spending bills signed by the president. Spending bills signed into law are the check, and the U.S. Treasury can always cash the check. The federal government chooses to sell bonds, though there is no requirement for this, it is a safe haven for savings because the federal government can never go broke. Our federal tax money is used to retire older bonds, but the reason the federal debt keeps going up is because taxes have been lowered over the past four decades for the higher income and wealthy citizens, so there is not enough taxes coming in to retire bonds. Of course there are other reasons for the federal debt going up, useless wars, bailing out banks and Wall Street, subsidies to industry, etc. However the main reason we have a federal debt is that the U.S. government is the source of all currency and if that currency is withdrawn by balancing the budget, we would be in perpetual economic depression. Those with excessive wealth (I consider the wealth of Dennis Prager to be on the low end of the excessive wealth scale), use this type of propaganda to advocate for low taxes for the wealthy, by trying to equate themselves with a middle income conservative household. They are nothing like a conservative household. The exponential growth of compounded interest creates wealth by extracting it from the very conservative households this propaganda is appealing to. Look here, there is an example of the accumulation of wealth put forward by a 1700's philosopher that I like to use. The economist Michael Hudson translated his writings into U.S. currency so we could understand it. If you took one U.S. penny at 5% compounded interest, and started it in a savings account at the birth of Jesus Christ, by the year 1750 the value of that initial penny would be over 180 earth size globes of SOLID GOLD. This of course, is completely unsustainable. By issuing this kind of conservative propaganda, the wealthy elites are trying to obscure from us the way they grow their wealth, not from hard work and effort like you, or Elon Musk, but from extracting wealth from all of us, so they can get compounded interest based on their already immense accumulated wealth. The same thing happens when you get 20% of the population who have accumulated wealth 2.5 times our annual GDP, the compounded interest being paid on that accumulated wealth can only be gained by extracting wealth from the bottom 80%, but even then, there is a limit. This is why since late September of 2019, the Federal Reserve has been pumping liquidity into the banking system like mad. The world is running out of money to pay interest to the wealthy. Central banks all over the world are pumping currency into the banking system, and that currency is being borrowed by corporations and the wealthy seeking a greater rate of return in the stock markets. That is the entire reason the stock markets are booming. Being progressive in the modern era means putting a stop to the over-accumulation of wealth, because it is simply unsustainable. It is not about jealousy or envy, those words are propaganda talking points. It is about our very survival as a species, that is what being a "progressive" is all about these days.
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  1773.  @drquack3671  - How many people like my comment is no reflection of my intelligence. Given the platform, the lack of "likes" is more a reflection on the type of people who watch this video and actually buy into the propaganda. You wrote a long spew on the "The Intolerance of Tolerance" video, which was almost entirely propaganda talking points. Your "basic economics" was all talking points without any realistic merit. That particular bit was guided entirely by what billionaires want you to think, someone more knowledgeable who has done actual research sees right through you. You don't even realize how transparent you are, and that is pretty lame. You think you scored some points with your "you think you're smart but" line, the only ones who will appreciate that line are just as idiotic as you are. By the way, you copied and pasted the same comment twice here and I don't know how you can insert an extra letter "c'" on the same exact comment one hour apart. "I love how you think you're smart but not one person liked your (sic)ccomment.Keep drinking the Koolaid, buddy."
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  1774. human151 - Ah, your handlers must be so proud of you Comrade!
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  1775. Your summary is very interesting, particularly "those who must be corralled "at the bottom" absorb more resources in the process of managing them". Keeping challenges to power at a minimum must be worth the premium paid, as far as the 1% are concerned.
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  1776. Josh Bobst - You have a very convoluted and distorted view of what happened on the Korean Peninsula after WW2, with only a small grain of truth attached. Furthermore, there is nothing legitimate about what trump is doing.
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  1777. Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1778. What astonishes me is the following: The top 20% because they have wealth, have gotten $2.75 trillion in free money in 2019. That is over 13% of the entire GDP. This mode of financial capitalism is unsustainable, not only is it creating record poverty here in the USA, it is literally poisoning our life giving planet. I'm currently 58 years old, born in 1961 and I have never been able to make it out of poverty regardless of my education and skill set. This economic model must end, capitalism can continue but only if a wealth cap plugs the gusher that makes so few people well off.
    1
  1779.  @randyjax09  - Yes, I watched with horror as Nancy Pelosi stood up to clap for Juan Quido. That whole thing sickened me. Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
    1
  1780.  @georgefurman4371  - They ought to feel threatened. It took me a long time to come to the following conclusion: Why do we need the wealthy elite at all? They will always screw things up for the majority, history shows this to be true without exception. This time, if we even have a chance to make changes, we must bring the wealthy down to our level, thus eliminating the most destructive "class" of human beings. If we do not or cannot, they will cause our species extinction. We are divided because they have divided us, and most (including myself for the majority of my 60 years) of us do not understand that all of our problems in society stem from a single source, the wealthy elite.
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  1781. Jeremy Chase - Just so you know, Peter Nachtwey creates and sells automation technology. He is in the business of putting people out of work. He visits China and sells them automation technology as well, so he is in fact a traitor to the U.S. worker. He has no ideas or plans to help the masses of workers unemployed by his technology, and he revels in the pain this causes. His only reason for watching Professor Wolff is to use the opportunity to taunt the people he puts out of work. Peter is the very embodiment of the predatory capitalist, he wants people to go the way of horses after the introduction of the automobile . . . everyone except him can fuck off and die. He does not even care that he is hurting his own extended family, probably hates his inlaws.
    1
  1782. Peter Nachtwey - Peter you just love to lie. Thom Hartman never takes down his videos. Now about rubbing it in . . . lets see how fast you run away this time. Capitalism is a ponzi scheme. The median wage today purchases less than half of that the median wage purchased 30 years ago. The majority of new capital flows to the top 1% and existing capital is bled away from the worker through capitalist extraction. I've posted this on your comments no less than six times, each time you wave around a median wage chart as if that is proof there is no such event happening. Meanwhile you have never presented a credible counter argument. You seem to have a lot of trouble staying on topic, so its a real hoot when you call out the "typical libtard not staying on topic". You always run away, but at least you have dropped the "this cannot be refuted" line. This indicates you might have a chance at rehabilitation, so how about it Peter? Capitalism is a Ponzi scheme, refute that if you can . . . and please explain in detail how the median wage of today actually does purchase an equal or greater amount than was possible 30 years ago.
    1
  1783. Peter Nachtwey - So you now admit that you are a destroyer of jobs. You did not say that the jobs created replaced the jobs destroyed in equal numbers, only that the newly created jobs are better (translation: the pay for newly created jobs is higher, but for every new job created 1000 old jobs are displaced and destroyed). Peter the Traitor does not like Marxism because it replaces his capitalism with a better system for the people and takes away his personal power. Peter the Sadist does not understand that I (a 56 year old) represent the older workers, the ghosts in this economy. He has already killed our jobs, now he is coming after the younger generations jobs as well.
    1
  1784. Peter Nachtwey - Better to be a joke than a traitor like you are. You are also a coward, because you always run away from facts you cannot refute. Then to defend yourself, you act stupid and ask "what facts?". The you resort to your final defense as a liar (which is "on topic") by saying "you never presented any facts".
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  1785. Being well off is not a bad thing, but how much wealth do people actually need? Once one person surpasses earnings or wealth that puts them and their family beyond the need to work for a living, that is quite enough. It has been shown time and time again that people who pursue wealth beyond their actual needs and beyond a luxury lifestyle, those people are in pursuit of power. This has proven to be extremely bad for society and humanity at large. It is time for us as a society to put stringent limits on how much in earnings and wealth a single person or family can accumulate, because our history has shown wealth beyond that point has detrimental effects on society as a whole. Same thing for large businesses and corporations. It is against the best interests of society to let a company or corporation grow so large, that it starts to devour (as in buy up) other companies. Such behavior needs to be strictly limited or eliminated, for the common good of society. People who have talent and/or good ideas should be rewarded handsomely for their contributions to society. Those same people need to be trained that beyond their handsome rewards, their contribution to society also needs to include the excess wealth generated going back into society . . . to help fund other very smart people in bringing their contributions to society. This should be a civic duty, rather than being looked at as it is now . . . as theft of what a person has "rightfully earned". Besides, when you have so much money that it sits in investment accounts earning interest . . . can that money really be considered as something they have really and truly earned? The rate on return for billionaire investors is more than the GDP growth of entire countries. How is this helpful when those investment accounts help to periodically crash the economy?
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  1786.  @ericgrace9995  - Of course I have seen the news, we have been warned repeatedly about a Covid-19 resurgence when the cold weather hits. When it comes to the mortality rates and the comparison between the UK and the United States, keep in mind that the conservatives in the UK have been undermining the NHS continuously for decades and they want an private insurance based for-profit health care service to replace the NHS so their donor class can continue sucking wealth out of UK citizens. Furthermore, the mortality rate numbers have been suppressed in both countries by their political leaders.
    1
  1787. John Semper - So far, you are arguing from a standpoint or point of view that is fundamentally flawed.If you were referring to state or local governments, then your argument has standing since their existence depends on our taxes, but since you are mocking Bernie and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez . . . it is the federal government you are referring to and that is where your argument has lost its standing. You see, my dear fellow . . . the federal government does not run on our taxes. Refer to our Constitution, Article One, Section Eight. The USA, through Congress, issues all currency. That means the USA is the sole proprietor and manufacturer of the U.S. Dollar. Of all the dollars released into the economy by the U.S Government, only some of them are taxed back, as a method of influencing the economy. The Federal Government technically has no need of our taxes to run itself, Congress simply appropriates funding and the Treasury Department makes the needed money like magic. Notice the word "appropriates", because that is exactly what Congress does. Since the U.S. Dollar is no longer tied in value to any hard metal such as gold, the value is whatever Congress deems it to be. What all of this means is that Congress can pay for anything it wants, including everything that Bernie and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have proposed. The opposition will tell you that is impossible . . . . but I will tell you a little secret. The republicans and corporate democrats have known about this all along and have deliberately mislead the public with talk about debt, deficits and balanced budgets. Meanwhile, they have been looting the U.S. Treasury on behalf of their corporate donors. That is why we have 21 trillion in federal debt, and virtually nothing to show for it . . . because the vast majority of the money is now private wealth. So, who is really projecting their ignorance? As I asked before "Are you people incapable of doing research?" Everything I have written here can be found and verified from multiple sources. You can start by reading up on the Bretton Woods Agreement and System, then how and more importantly when it was ended.
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  1788. John Semper - No John, you are not stating facts . . . .you are a troll and nothing more. Just an empty windbag blowing hot air. Thanks for making our country a dismal place, go rot in your shithole.
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  1789. John Semper - Ok, you want to follow your cool-aid dispensing propaganda outlets for your "facts" . . . fine. How do I know that is what you are doing? You have the wrong definition of fascism and you brought up Venezuela . . . both are talking points of right wing hate media. You have given proof enough for all to see. Nixon took us completely off the gold standard in 1971, which means we have a "fiat currency" . . . this is common knowledge. Everyone is laughing at you . . . so suck it up and do some actual research before you embarrass yourself further.
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  1790. John Semper - You are correct, I don't understand someone who does not know how to spell correctly or think in a logical manner. It is no fun having a pissing match with a brain dead idiot. Bye!
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  1791. If you are tired of subsidizing other people, then don't look at the value rise in financial assets, which are funded entirely by the Federal Reserve these days.The past two years have seen a value rise that would take a full year of GDP to pay off, all accomplished with loans from the Federal Reserve. If you think a couple trillion in Covid rental assistance is bad, you really don't want to see how the government is propping up the stock market.
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  1792. Hey, let's not forget that Trish Regan went on that North Korean style, state propaganda tirade only ten days ago. Hoax by the dems indeed.
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  1793.  @xyoungblood  - Finally, a rational thinker who has kept up on what is really happening. Glad there are more than a few of us keeping up.
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  1794. The better question is: Why do we need the wealthy? They will always screw things up for the majority, history shows this to be true without exception. This time, if we even have a chance to make changes, we must bring the wealthy down to our level, thus eliminating the most destructive "class" of human beings. If we do not or cannot, they will cause our species extinction.
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  1795. So you really think something that happened 50 years ago is not important today? How about 100 years ago eh? Some of you have to get your heads out of your collective asses. Yes, of course it matters. We have a situation here people, where the Royals of the past have been reincarnated (not literally) into the oligarchs of the present. They care about nothing except wielding power, to the detriment of us all. Unless you have the time to look in depth at what is happening now, then have time to trace the roots back ten years, then twenty years, then fifty years, then 100 years . . . the bigger picture will never emerge for you. That ignorance is what the oligarchs count on, keep the masses ignorant and chasing their own tails. Until we place a cap on accumulated wealth, place a very high inheritance tax, and put in place a maximum annual income . . . the oligarchs and central banking systems will always undermine and undo any reforms we put in place. That is the real lesson of history. Just figure out how much is needed to live a lifetime in luxury without getting so much money that power becomes the hobby of choice . . . that level is where the caps on accumulated wealth and annual incomes needs to be. Until this is done, any "reform" that passes into law is completely useless.
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  1796. Chase Musqkwanto - Can you hum and jump in circles at the same time? Nailing trum(PP)utin is short term, the next one will be worse if we cannot evolve our thinking. That means taking in the wide field of view, then engineering solutions that will endure. What would you have us do if not address the problem at its roots?
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  1797. Chase Musqkwanto - Good points, and they underscore that we cannot count on the corporate or "mainstream news media" to keep us informed. Just imagine how I felt as a 55 year old, learning for the first time after doing my own research . . . that wages have not gone up in respect to productivity for forty years! That information was never contained in any "business report or economic reports" that I had been listening to for all my adult life. So we have to connect with each other in places like this and hope that we can "unionize" society at the grass roots. The JD have a lot going for them but even they are woefully short of understanding where our peril lies.
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  1798. Chase Musqkwanto - Agreed, as a really good initial step. Please feel free to expound on you own ideas, I am curious. But for now . . . My Lady just arrived and I have to take my lunch break!
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  1799. True statement. Accumulated wealth is harmful to the economy, which can be proven using simple math. Using the figures for 2019 shows the harm, confirming your statement. Privately held financial assets (wealth) exceeded $90 trillion, with a average growth rate of 5% to 7% annually. The GDP for the USA was $21.5 trillion with a growth rate over 2018 of 4.1% for the year. The pile of wealth grew by $4.5 trillion (using 5% figure), while the GDP grew by $848.8 billion. If only 18.8% of the wealth growth was converted top capital gains. that would wipe out all the GDP growth for 2019. Accumulated wealth is cannibalizing our economy, eating us alive, and for no better reason than for the wealthy to have bragging rights. Enough is enough.
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  1800.  @mildredmartinez8843  - Agreed.
    1
  1801. Everything we learned about how great freedom generating capitalism is and that the United States is a bastion of democracy, it is all a lie. Proof of the lie is that the math cannot be reconciled. We have an economy with over $90 trillion in privately held financial assets gaining over 5% annually, with that growth depending entirely on a smaller host economy of $21.5 trillion which grows less than 3% annually, with all shortfalls guaranteed to be made good by the Federal Reserve printing press. So how does that kind of economy generate freedom or democracy for anyone except the wealthy?
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  1802. You people are as dense as I once was. Both sides sold us out, and are continuing to do so. Congratulations, right now all of you are helping them to hurt us . . . wonderful to have such smart fellow Americans. Do you people know anything about our economic history?
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  1803. bucky468 - You wish I was spam Buddy . . . because I am your worst nightmare. You cannot defend the actions of either political party to me, if you try I will smother you in irrefutable facts. Bottom line, you echo chamber buddies are not doing us Real Americans any good with your sniping.
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  1804. alaskanmes - Wow, you really have those right wing talking points down pat, don't ya! Now if you were really paying attention and read my words carefully, you would not make sweeping and erroneous declarations like that. It was so simple too, only one sentence and you could not even understand that much plain english correctly. The bulk of your political and economic programming must be just as awesome, if that little demonstration is an accurate reflection of of your overall "beliefs".
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  1805. SupaDr00g - You really need to stop writing, you are embarrassing yourself. Its even more embarrassing that you don't realize you are embarrassing yourself.
    1
  1806. hermenutic - You are spot on with your analysis of corporations, no fault in your assessment.
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  1807. SupaDr00g - Counterarguments are useless when addressing slack jawed propaganda programmed idiots. You and I are not having a conversation, that would involve civilized discussion, which you do not seem capable of participating in. Therefore I'll advise you to read a book or two, meanwhile I'll talk over you.
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  1808. Lando Land - Your first statement is incorrect. The U.S. government certainly does have the ability to limit income. Every sentence out of your ten statements is directly out of the corporate propagandist playbook, and every single one of them is in error. That is what the oligarchs want you to believe. Stop being a lemming, do some actual research and use your statements here as a template for comparison once you have actually cracked a few books and learned some economic history. Right now, you are simply a mouthpiece for right wing fascist talking points which gives you zero credibility.
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  1809. castro64 - I have my copy of the Constitution and I'm familiar with its property protection. Yet the Constitution is being waived for property seizures all the time, look at civil forfeiture. Furthermore, we can make amendments to the Constitution to address issues as they come up. I'm sure the founders never dreamed possible that individuals in our society could wield unheard of power to extend their vote beyond "one person, one vote", yet that is what happens when wealth is concentrated into the hands of the very few. I guess you don't mind your vote being manipulated.
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  1810. castro64 - For a person who advises others to learn something, you seem to be a bit short on learning yourself. Also, don't quote me out of context. I never called a person I disagreed with a fascist, because unlike yourself I know what that word means.
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  1811. castro64 - I really wish that folks took their reading comprehension seriously. I am implying nothing of the kind about the government seizing property without cause, it is a fact. Cash is especially vulnerable to unwarranted seizure, so is property. Then there are taxes, which have in the past gone as high as 100%. Really now, if you are going to come at me like that . . . at least make it about something real.
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  1812. castroy64 - You wrote: coolmodelguy - "So, your argument is “Government can’t seize property but it can seize property”? Seriously. Make up your mind!" Seriously? Why - don't - you - learn - how - to - read?
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  1813. Will Drucker - You nailed it. If one of those "centrists" gets the Democratic nomination, I'll be voting third party. The Democratic Party needs to learn we don't support Hillary types anymore and thus adapt by moving left, or the party needs to die.
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  1814. Heraclitus Blacking - Peter will refuse to consider what you are writing, that is his modus operandi. He is only here to lie and try to assuage his guilty conscience because he through his business of automation technology (and selling such tech to the Chinese) . . . is responsible for putting people out of work in the USA and he is being driven mad trying to justify himself.
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  1815. Peter Nachtwey - Your mother raised a predatory masochist (excuse me, I meant to write sadist . . . but I think you get off on this too much to exclude the masochism) , and we can all see how well her wisdom has served this country.
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  1816. An economy that has been hollowed out cannot be "stimulated". If you had all of your organs removed, how well do you think your body could function?
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  1817. RC Hobbyist Extreme - Shut your pie hole, you are staining a great hobby . . . one that honors the old USA when it had a conscience. California pays for red state degradation along with New York, if we stopped paying for the rest of the country we would have plenty to fund our own problems. The federal government depends on California to bail it out. YOu really have to cut your own strings . . . PUPPET, the wealthy oligarch propaganda has you be the balls. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  1818.  @marynelson4445  - Bite me. You are an idiot listening to oligarch owned media spouting right wing lies.
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  1819. mrmichaelmw - You skipped a few steps, there is no direct line from capitalism to communism.
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  1820. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  1821.  @BrainStem-jn5xp  - Do you know why we think we are soooo important? It is because you republicans play fast and loose with OUR lives and OUR money. Republicans are totally irresponsible and completely reckless, we hold more value in our lives than you do.
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  1822. Take a close look at the common thread that binds each of the entities you mentioned. It is accumulated wealth. The common foe of every left wing agenda is accumulated wealth. What is the purpose of corporate America? To accumulate wealth. We tend to get distracted by the political fights taking place 360° around us every day, that is purposeful divide and conquer, orchestrated by accumulated wealth every time. What we really need to do is ignore the static and attack those pulling the strings. To limit the power of lobbyists, think tanks, hedge funds, Wall Street, wealthy interests and corporations, is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  1823. THOM- PLEASE, Please, please . . . . FIX your Audio!!!!!!!!
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  1824. treefrog, every empire has crumbled the very same way you describe. Only now the earth's natural systems crumble along with us.
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  1825.  @pavels5600  - Did you actually read my post? Inflation was not mentioned, currency devaluation was mentioned.
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  1826.  @pavels5600  - Thank you for the interesting response. What is interesting about is that at the very least, the Yuan is also being devalued. What I was referring to was not the dollar as valued against other currencies, it is that the dollar is being devalued against its own former standing. To ordinary people there is not much distinction between the devaluation of a currency and inflation, its just that inflation happens under a different set of circumstances. This time around, the Federal Reserve is trying to keep interest rates between banks at a set level in the overnight lending market, the stability in those overnight markets is being upset by capital flight from equities to bonds in anticipation of recession. In simple speak, rich people are bailing out of equities to safe havens and they need vast amounts of capital liquidity in order to make the transfer. The end result of this capital transfer is interest rate volatility in the overnight lending markets which is being dampened by liquidity injections by the Fed. The downstream result will be something that looks like inflation for ordinary people as prices go up to counter the devaluation in the dollar. This is one excellent reason why a wealth cap for both individuals and corporations must be installed into the global economy, otherwise fiat currency "printing presses" will be required to run day and night to dampen volatility in all types of markets. While the wealthy can withstand just about any economic storm front, the majority cannot and we are heading for a reckoning.
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  1827. Unless we can successfully install a wealth cap for individuals and businesses, otherwise all reforms will be eroded and eliminated.
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  1828. Why does everyone keep looking through the wrong end of the telescope? You want a healthy capitalism? Fine. Start at the top instead of the bottom of the pyramid. Put a hard cap on accumulated wealth of $10 million per adult individual. That much, no more. This one move will solve so many problems, from ending executive pay excess to the the ending of neoliberalism itself. Wealth must be limited by law in order to wrest control of world governments back from the 1%. Failure to recognize this will mean the end of mankind, as the current leaders will do nothing as long as the 1/10th of 1% control all politics.
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  1829.  @lela658  - Oh boo hoo. Whatsamatta, poor wittle troll got triggered?
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  1830.  @lela658  - You make no sense. Both DT and NP are both doing political theater, nothing more.
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  1831.  @lela658  - You are a troll, or you are incredibly ignorant. There is no shame in being ignorant, it is not like NP is telling is telling us who she really represents. The ones who are telling us what is going on are researchers, the kind that never are invited to speak of their findings on corporate media. I already gave everyone here a statistical fact they can confirm on their own, if they have the will to look into it. All you have to do is look into concentrated wealth and who has it.
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  1832.  @sharonf106  - You misread my statement. Nancy Pelosi is not to blame for the wealthy elites, she works for the wealthy elites, they are the ones who made her wealthy and she does their bidding. She stands firmly against legislation that would turn things around for American citizens, like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. She is NOT fighting the bureaucracy in Washington, she IS a pillar of the bureaucracy in Washington. AOC outed the entire process in the House of Representatives when she exposed the indoctrination all new representatives go through, when industry lobbyists told them "this is the way things work around here". That kind of thing could not happen without the blessing of the House Speaker, it is pure and simple corruption, working against the interests of the American people.
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  1833. When our self respect and our incomes are tied to our jobs, then our jobs are eliminated . . . there will be push back. This young lady adapted to the current job market by creating her own job and income, then YouTube demonetized her channel. The rage boils over and this is the result. Mental, emotional and economic reasons seem to top the list of motives for shootings, mass shootings or events like this one. Amending the 2nd Amendment is a must, so is dealing with capitalism's deepening crisis within the USA.
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  1834. We have a minimum wage, it is now time for a Maximum Annual Income and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. Billionaires are society's poison.
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  1835. PP tapes are everywhere already, every time I see tRumPutin on TV I imagine a banner over his head that reads "Putin's Puppet". PP-TV.
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  1836. Yes, and now we know who all the rotten republicans are.
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  1837. Funny how the idea of capping personal wealth is NEVER discussed as a serious way to cut down on carbon emissions, especially when the wealthy are more than ready to advocate for caps on everything from welfare to health care.
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  1838. That cannot happen, housing units are considered "capital assets", which means you cannot restrict the buying and selling of them. We would need a revolution to change that.
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  1839.  @kentharrisgeorgia  - Strikes me that you have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . you enjoy being used like toilet paper? Blue or red, makes no difference, they all have the same masters.
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  1840. The wealthy who own the majority of our politicians are using Covid-19 to bankrupt the states, defund Social Security and Medicare, break down the postal system and generally bankrupt everyone. What comes next is privatization and the final hollowing out of all wealth from what remains of the middle class.
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  1841. There was a time when Ronald Reagan was a true progressive, he actually made speeches which any progressive today would recognize. Then there came a time in his successful career when he became co-opted by right wing fanaticism because of his own greed. He wondered aloud why he should continue to working, when after six months labor (if you can call acting "labor"), most of his earnings went to the government in taxes. At the time Reagan was musing about this individual income tax rates for the top income bracket were at 91% and 92%, out of sight compared to the present day. He stated that he would be better served spending the last six months of the year on his ranch riding horses. Well, riding horses is exactly what Ronald Reagan should have done. Let another actor have the chance to play that leading man role. Furthermore, the patriotic thing to do was to keep working and pay those taxes willingly to support the USA and all the USA could accomplish with those tax revenues. Instead greed overtook Ronald Reagan, greed that overwhelmed the sense of abundance he should have carried in his heart, greed that eventually corrupted and threatens now to topple this once great country. Exactly how much money does one person need? If Ronald Reagan had enough money to have a ranch and horses by working only six months out of the year, is that not enough for one person to have? This idea that our society can only function when a small segment demands more and more at the expense of the remainder of our society . . . that idea is the symptom of a terminal illness within our society. There is no reason for the wealth concentration pervasive today other than greed. Does not the Bible say something about greed and avarice? The idea of a cap on wealth and income is a healthy one for the society of today. Every person can live well enough, even a life of luxury . . . without the need to accumulate more than could ever be spent in one human lifetime. It is time for us as humanity to grow up, before the idiots of avarice poison the necessary life giving natural systems on OUR collective planet to the point where no living creatures can survive. Once a certain level of personal annual income and accumulated wealth is achieved, any surplus generated needs to be gladly handed back to the society that enabled that income and wealth to be generated in the first place. Attitudes need to change about this topic . . . immediately.
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  1842. Wow, total gibberish.
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  1843. ROBERT KELLY - No problem then. We have 15 billion gallons of mercury and trillions of tons of methane that will enter the air and water once the permafrost has melted. Well . . . one problem actually. This is going to wipe out all but 5% of life on the planet. Stay tuned, life form reset on a geological time scale to ensue.
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  1844. Esteban Baez Mauricio - Well now aren't you intelligent. That is pretty much what Marx laid out, yet the communism of Stalin or the Chinese was warped and not at all what Marx was talking about.
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  1845. Matthew Johnson - With all due respect, you sound sincere however it is you who is mistaken. I've been studying this phenomenon along with other possible "stories" that might be told of humanity's future. Not my entire life, to be sure. This is a recent development that was out outgrowth of a research project I did on our economy. I am 57 now and I began the aforementioned research project when I was 55. Before that time I thought myself well versed in economics, but I was very much incorrect in that assumption. Point of fact. We give up a certain amount of freedom no matter what we do to feed ourselves, to cloth and house ourselves . . . you must know this. I have never claimed that we should go a "socialist route". The reason why? There really is not any set path with one ideology that can be viable, the past forty years outline that fact. The economy and society are one entity, we will solve our problems with a mixture or recipe of ideas and actions. Speaking of recipes, have you ever tasted a perfectly good meal that was spoiled by in injudicious use of spices? I have, so I will claim that the economy and society we have now is rather sour. We need a better recipe. One thing I have not been able to turn up in my research is an overall view of what resources we have here in the USA. We do need a plan for our future, one that is agreed on by our people, We just cannot keep barreling down the economic highway with every mile marker . . . simply marking more growth. If you stop to think about it, exponential growth is not possible . . . . yet every GDP report that shows growth does not separate out the growth from the previous report. Every gain is added to the base from which growth will be measured for the next report. It it apparent that our economic growth is outstripping the resources of this world. Like it or not, something is going to change. If we choose to act, we can moderate whatever discomfort or pain accompanies that change. If we squabble and fight, the change will happen and we will be helpless to do anything but go for the ride. Personally I want humanity to survive and prosper, so all viable alternatives such as socialism, a resource based system, a market system, or a viable mix of systems must be on the table. I could go on, bringing in such topics as supply, monetary inflation, energy use and production . . . but those topics require a dialog. The Fox News crowd is not known for their capacity for dialog . . . . but one can hope. To be honest, I also come here to vent my frustration upon those very people who are most responsible for our moving in the wrong direction. That is you folk, and I come here to squabble with you.
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  1846. Matthew Johnson - You are playing fast and loose with the truth with regards to your comment about AOC and the use of aircraft. Both AOC and Bernie have to work within the system we have now. What do you expect here, for Bernie to walk to and fro from Vermont to D.C.,? What you are doing is demonstrating your lack of capacity to think for yourself. All changes to a system come from within a system, using the system rules that exist in that moment. You are not coming up with your own solutions or proposals, you are just mocking those who have the bravery to do so. When you act in this manner, you are helping our country slide further toward fascism. This is exactly what Rupert Murdoch wants from you . . . and you just meekly give it to him?
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  1847. Misty Hall - I'm racist based on what remark exactly? Or are you just slinging mud because it makes you feel good? Be specific.
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  1848. Useless Shoe - Kid huh? This kid is probably old enough to be your father or grandfather. Since you gave no reference to which comment you are referring to when talking about keeping and spending your money as you choose . . . , and since I don't wish to read 70 some odd comments to in order to guess, I take it you are referring to taxes. I wonder if you know what taxes are supposed to do. Common wisdom says the federal government runs off our taxes, that is incorrect. However I could be wrong about what you are referring to . . . so how about you tell me what " principles" you are referring to and we can then have a discussion about it.
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  1849. Eli Mr173 Morris - I'm not going to review a month old post with 75 replies to find information for you that is a matter of public record. If you had asked for something specific, I might be inclined to be more accommodating, but really now . . . you are just wasting my time.
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  1850.  @ExPwner  - Really! Pray tell, do enlighten us oh wise one. If not through labor, how else is wealth created, by divine hand then?
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  1851.  @ExPwner  - One out of three is not good. Your only viable example was exchange. Time value of money is an artificial construct tied to compounded interest, which is the largest scam ever pulled on society and the real driver of inflation. Natural resources require labor to extract and/or refine into usable products. Score is 33%, which is an "F". Try again and do better this time.
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  1852.  @ExPwner  - Ah, I may be a moron but you are clearly brain dead since you accept accept the treatise of right wing propaganda without question or doing your own research. The first tell is you excepting the story that more money chasing fewer goods creates inflation as real, which is actually a myth sold to people that are too stupid to learn they are being shafted. The second tell is using the word communist to describe anyone, a word you cannot possibly define. Your ignorance is deep and profound, made certain by your lack of actual examples of wealth being created without the involvement of labor. Even exchange, which I gave you partial credit for, involves labor. Try again brainless.
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  1853.  @bluewater454  - Sometimes I wonder at the universal ignorance exhibited by those such as yourself and James Adams and how completely you have been bamboozled by what can only be called brainwashing. "Universal principal"? In what universe? Interest, compound or otherwise has nothing whatsoever to do with labor. Do you people research anything, or do you simply believe everything you are told? And why bring up Marxist theory? That is not even a thing, except what has been made up by con artists.
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  1854.  @bluewater454  - Ooooooh, I can't believe you used such a "corny" example! The farmer is not getting those extra seeds at maturity without doing a hellava lot of labor, planting, watering, tending, weeding, keeping away the crows and insects. Those extra seeds don't just magically fall into his lap, unlike those who benefit from compounded interest who do nothing whatsoever to earn that money. Take into account that the corn must use energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil over a season of time to create extra seed, nothing is free. Those extra corn kernels come at a price, a price the farmer pays with toil, sweat, tools and patience. What happens in nature is work, energy and nutrients converted into abundance over time through work to insure survival, which is not at all what financialized compounded interest is. Your theory is trash. Compounded interest is money stolen, taken from the labors and accumulated wealth of everyone who is not getting compounded interest. It is a virus, a parasite, a long con game, feeding on the body of the economy. Simple math shows this to be true. Now let me lay out where you get into trouble with your "theories" about compounded interest. If wealth comes strictly from the productive economy, then shortages of labor and materials will cause inflation. This is something we have all heard of. What most people do not take into account is the affect of compounded interest on the economy. Shortly after World War Two (1947 specifically), the sum of financial assets equaled 2.88 times the size of the economy as measured by GDP. Over the next 70 years, financial assets grew at an average rate of half a percent (0.5%) faster than the economy. Twenty four years later (1971) the US Dollar was taken off the the gold standard so that the amount of dollars printed would no longer be restrained by the amount of gold the USA had on hand. This was necessary because with such a restriction as the gold standard, wealth could no longer grow the way that con-artist economists like Eugen Ritter von Böhm-Bawerk expressed that it should. Taking us off the gold standard led to an expansion of money printing and ten years of inflation, cause and effect right? The problem with that assumption is that we were led to believe that too many dollars were chasing too few goods. In some small part that was correct (gas shortages, etc), but that was not the main driver of inflation. Financial assets had grown so much over the preceding 24 years due to compounded interest, that the gains could no longer be supported by the productive economy. That is the simple truth of compound interest. Keep in mind that financial assets (a non-physical asset such as bank deposits, bonds, and stocks), are artificial constructs whose value is derived from a contractual claim. In a contract, any number can be assigned as interest, regardless of the feasibility of that assignment. From the time they were invented, financial assets have always been assigned an interest rate higher than GDP growth, and therein lies the problem. How do you pay for an annual interest rate on an aggregate sum of financial assets that is greater than the entire annual economic output of a country? There are generally three actions to be taken, and all three have been used over the ensuing decades. The first is to simply roll over the interest into the principal so that the total investment amount grows, with no additional money outlay required at that time, it is simply a bookkeeping action. Since we expect to get paid for our investment at some point, this first action will only work for a short period. Keeping in mind that financial assets grow faster than the economy, the second action is to borrow money to pay the interest (taking money from future earnings). The third action is to raise prices on goods and services, hence inflation that is not connected to any actual shortage of goods and services. This last action is the real cause of inflation over the decades, it is a wealth transfer from society to the holders of the financial assets. Most people are simply not aware that the greatest amount of inflation over the years has nothing whatsoever to do with the availability of goods and services, the inflation we suffer from is necessary to pay for the withdrawal of capital from growing financial assets. Over the decades, financial assets have grown from the 1947 multiple of 2.88 times the size of our GDP, to a multiple of 5.46 times the size of our GDP (108.7 trillion divided by GDP of 19.9 trillion). When people take money out of financial assets to live on, it causes inflation. To sum up, all wealth generation should realistically be confined within the shell of a productive economy. In the late 1700's a mathematician named Richard Price, calculated that a penny let out for 5% compounded interest at the time of "our Saviour’s birth", would result in a sum greater than 150 MILLION earth size globes of solid gold at the time of his writing. Compounded interest is an artificial construct, not based in any realistically achievable method, yet we use compounded interest in our finances as if it were realistic to attain, but it is pure fantasy to base any part of our economy on compounded interest. This, in today's economy, is the real source of inflation, not the over printing of money. That particular belief is fostered by the well ingrained propaganda of those who wish to hide the folly making "money for nothing" from the general public, a public that is kept busy with a multiplicity of diversions and distractions. Now what is the word I am looking for? Oh-yeah, BOOYAA! References: Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis: Total Financial Assets https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis: Real Gross Domestic Product https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four-Thousand Year Overview Part II https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1855.  @bluewater454  - Hooo! You are inferring that compounded interest is a process of nature. What a hoot! Obviously you cannot comprehend mathematics, and if you think the average investor researches anything, I have a bridge to sell you. Most investors use index funds or "financial advisors" and very rarely invest in individual companies. You are perpetuating the con, so you air either a mark who believes the propaganda or you are in on the scam. Also, you repeatedly evoke "Marxist theories", which actually indicates that you are a mark, a rube, ripe for the conning. I have never studied Marx and don't care to. The Professor is the one who likes to talk about Marx, not me, so attaching that phrase to every comment has no actual bearing on what compounded interest is or the detrimental effect it has on society. Also, you use the word "brainwashed" like you are standing in front of a mirror talking to yourself, it is very apparent that you are projecting. You have not done the math or tried to reconcile how financial assets can grow to such proportions within the boundaries of any economic system. At least nature is confined to an actual eco-system and cannot grow beyond that system. Wealth has grown far beyond the boundaries of our economic system, has been sucking wealth from future productivity and society itself for half a century, but you are fine with ignoring that as long as you get you share of the loot. Fine, be a pirate then . . . . oh but you can't do that because at least a pirate is honest about what they do.
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  1856. Cymon Cyrado - The need for immigrants goes back to the founding of the country. The current hullabaloo is something else. Immigrants from the South America's are "enemies" now, but our businesses and politicians actively encouraged illegal immigration from the southern countries during the 1960's and 1970's. The purpose behind this encouragement was to undermine both wages and unions in the USA because workers in the USA has accumulated too much wealth and political power. That was then. Now . . . those same illegal immigrants are political scapegoats for the same businesses and politicians who invited them to come to our country in the first place. It was republicans who started this process, but democrats jumped on board when the immigrants who gained citizenship tended to vote democrat.
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  1857. Chris Walker - I have no fight with you, I actually agree with the sentiment that you are expressing. The history taught in schools is not the real history of our country. Yes, this land was ripped from the original inhabitants, people who knew how to live in harmony with the land and nature. Howard Zinn, Peoples History of the United States . . . teaches a more accurate history than any we learned in school. We cannot turn back time, but we can do something now to keep the rich bastards from killing all of us through the continuing rape of our mother home planet. Our mother planet is going to kill us all if we cannot find a way to curb the excesses and reel back the lifestyles that are literally dumping poisons into the air and water we need to live. Mother Earth is getting too warm, methane is escaping at increasing rates. Soon we will cause an extinction event to rival any that has come before, except maybe the Permian Extinction.
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  1858. The word "shall", and the word "will" are not open to interpretation. Both indicate an inevitable action. There is no room to squeeze in a "maybe" or "maybe not", both words are definitive modal verbs. They are not "could", or "may", or "might", or "should". The word "shall" is as powerful a definitive modal verb as the word "must". There is simply no room for interpretation, which is why that particular law is written the way that it is. Both Trump (by ordering) and Mnuchin (by obeying the order) are breaking the law. If the Supreme Court finds that Trump and Mnuchin have the latitude to reinterpret that law to fit their own will, that will be the day the USA breaks for good.
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  1859. The Everyday Liberal Show - Yasmine Steinbauer has, quite by accident I'm sure, already substantiated your axiom. She lives in an alternate universe!
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  1860. Yasmine Steinbauer - That line you wrote: "Of course I can't rule it out 100%, but everything we know today speaks against it being real experiences." is probably the least pompous and most relevant contribution you have made to this conversation. If humanity manages to survive another 2500 years, what is known now will be quite comparable to what Democritus knew compared to knowledge of the present day. We are adolescent children who know virtually nothing at this stage of our development. Thank you for finally making a contribution that deserves merit. As before however, you immediately resume with the grand pomposity we have all come to expect. Axiom: The first two sentences which started this comment thread are a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. You have been participating in axiomatic arguments against the subject of this conversation. You have grounded your arguments in what seems to you . . . to indicate the only potential truths. You have consistently ruled out other possibilities based on the fact that you-yourself have never experienced anything supporting what "The Everyday Liberal Show" has postulated, which is not a reasoning approach. As history has shown, that is an extremely short-sighted posture for a supposedly scientifically minded person (the "I can rule it out to 99.9%" remark). You have no yardstick for which such a remark can be compared for accuracy, so declaring "I can rule it out to 99.9%", would be the same as declaring you know exactly where the universe ends. This is why I made the "you live in your own universe" observation. Reality . . . My Dear Lady, is not made entirely of what you are able to perceive . . . reality is far grander than your limited perception. My advice, learn to be humble before the universe . . . after all, it made all of us and everything else.
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  1861. Yasmine Steinbauer - Everything you wrote is just bullshit. I'm getting tired of playing these games with you. You use absolutes when there is always a possibility that your absolutes do not apply. You are not looking at this objectively, instead you are saying absolutely that your frame of reference is the only one that counts. My wife has always claimed she is a witch, how on earth can I possible know for sure that she is not? I don't necessarily believe that she is a witch, but I know better than to contradict her because . . . I DON'T REALLY KNOW FOR SURE THAT SHE IS NOT! Ok, so keep living in your bullshit bubble version of reality, I'm done talking to you.
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  1862. The word "shall", and the word "will" are not open to interpretation. Both indicate an inevitable action. There is no room to squeeze in a "maybe" or "maybe not", both words are definitive modal verbs. They are not "could", or "may", or "might", or "should". The word "shall" is as powerful a definitive modal verb as the word "must". There is simply no room for interpretation, which is why that particular law is written the way that it is. Both Trump (by ordering) and Mnuchin (by obeying the order) are breaking the law. If the Supreme Court finds that Trump and Mnuchin have the latitude to reinterpret that law to fit their own will, that will be the day the USA breaks for good. The section that applies to Congress is distinctly clear. In "closed executive session" of the "Ways and Means of the House of Representatives" or the "Committee on Finance of the Senate" or the "Joint Committee on Taxation", the chairman's of these committee's have the absolute right to view any taxpayers information. Here is the exact wordage: 26 U.S. Code 6103 (f) Disclosure to Committees of Congress (1) Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Finance, and Joint Committee on Taxation Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.
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  1863. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
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  1864. Jo John - Can you tell me what percentage of Medi-care's operational funding is spent on administration? Next, can you tell me how we find out the answer? I you cannot, then it is you who needs to stop the bullshit. If you can, why are you not looking at that information instead of spreading out bullshit theories? Either way, you seem to be full of crap.
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  1865.  @norsefalconer  - When I finished reading "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins, I was appalled and beside myself with apprehension. I had no idea that U.S. foreign policy had gotten so corrupted . . . or why. Then I started coming across segments of speeches given by U.S.M.C General Smedley Butler in the 1930's. I have not yet read his book, "War is a Racket", but I listened to General Butler describe that he and others in the military were essentially being used as "High Class Muscle" to strong-arm countries into letting in U.S. Corporations to plunder that country's natural resources. I have also listened to Eisenhower's departure from the Presidency speech where he warned us about the "military/industrial complex. When I was a lad and a young adult, I could not be prouder of being an American. This attitude started to erode in my forties. When I was 55, shortly after Trump was elected, I decided to do my own in depth research project into our economy. That has been one very frightful voyage. I had no idea that we as a country were so corrupted,and it explained a lot about why we are so disliked around the world. It took John Perkins book to stitch all the parts together though, there is a small element in our country that has turned us into the thieves, pillagers and looters of the globe. We must put an end to this, and that means taking on our own establishment on both sides of the political spectrum. I'd like to read your opinion on the following. Please feel free to agree or disagree with any part . . . only by doing so can we really get a cross-partisan dialog going which MIGHT be able to save our nation before it collapses. We need six major reforms in the USA, 1) disband the Federal Reserve and put currency control back into the hands of Congress, 2) put the U.S. Treasury under the control of Congress, 3) eliminate fiat currency by once again tying U.S. currency to a gold standard or a combination of precious metals, 4) put a hard cap on accumulated wealth at $10 million per adult and strictly enforce inheritance and family wealth distribution laws to keep the cap in place 5) put a hard cap on how much cash or accumulated profit any corporation can hold, and finally . . . 6) eliminate overseas holdings and non-domestic ownership holdings for U.S. citizen individuals and U.S. registered corporations alike , all holdings must be inside the USA. This means the elimination of multi-national corporations. Global trade is necessary. Trade should be accomplished through currency exchange, not just the U.S. Dollar. The same set of criteria should be applied to all countries across the globe. Looking forward to reading your response.
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  1866. Yes we are . . . a banana republic. Nothing to be proud of.
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  1867. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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  1868.  @Bonanzaking  - The Federal Reserve charts show the intense money printing, over $11 trillion in 2020. That is not simply hyper-inflation, that shows a system in imminent collapse.
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  1869.  @rainsong7327  - Time to remove the tinfoil hat my friend. You are directly quoting from old propaganda, the least you could do is update your gas-lighting to fit the times.
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  1870.  @rainsong7327  - Deep down, you know that you are a fraud. Try selling your snake oil elsewhere.
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  1871.  @dancerjim  - Yes, that is already happening, their consumer market is growing very fast. The Chinese government keeps very tight controls on all business and does not let their currency out of the country. All foreign business conducted in China requires a Chinese partner. Under those conditions, not all business can move their labor to China.
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  1872.  @spir5102  - I'm going to start exactly where you ended. "If only a handful of us could get organized and start the work." Most of what you wrote is interconnected in some manner, and at the core of it all is wealth. Someone today reminded me that it is already too late to save ourselves from eco-disaster. She is correct. Whether we want to admit it or not, we humans still live in a "might makes right" world. Not to be too dramatic, but if we are going to organize to do anything, it must be to deal with wealth, because that is what is driving us toward extinction. To do so, we must array ourselves with a mightier force than wealth, and with a better plan than wealth. I want to relay to you, the end of a discussion about the "free market", where "Petunia" and I exchanged a few comments. First her final response, then mine. Petunia: "Honestly, not to be a wet blanket, but time is up, now it's a matter of how bad how fast with climate change disasters. Today the temp in the arctic is "Mediterranean". Already we have extreme weather everywhere. And we are proceeding full on with fossil fuels. The earth won't be as it was, and with the feedback mechanisms won't stop getting worse even if we stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow. But we can slow the increasing progress of the severity and speed. But we are not." Coolmodelguy: "We do not, yet. I agree with you fully. My background is engineering, everything is about systems. Our ecosystem is heavily damaged and will not recover in our lifetimes. Yes, we are proceeding with the fossil fuels. To change our trajectory is the best we can hope for. After looking at every variable I can get, with the limited time I have, as an engineer I must get to the core of the problem and make it simple for people to understand. Wealth is the core problem. Humans are obsessed with wealth. But even open systems have boundary limits. Allowing unlimited wealth and abject poverty are two system breaches we can fix. We just need to see it as a priority, which is why oligarch propaganda works so hard to obscure our collective vision. If an oligarchy is to be toppled, taking their wealth is essential to eliminating their power. I want to see a wealth cap, something substantial but never high enough to alter politics. Once that happens, we will get real political representation and can start to mitigate and eventually plan a recovery from this epic disaster. But if we let them continue to rule, I estimate our extinction within 200 years, give or take a decade." This is where I stand. We must change our ways to survive. Wealth must be capped. Abject poverty must be eliminated. We must mitigate climate disasters and prepare for massive human displacement. Then we must make a thousand year plan to restore our planetary climate systems balance. There are thousands of details to work out and a power base to build, one that wealth will no longer be able to corrupt. Here is what I know. The wealthy make very bad decisions, their decisions have historically never worked out for long term survival of a society. Therefor, the wealthy cannot be trusted with our futures. Furthermore, their decisions get people killed in massive numbers. In the past, the wealthy could never really affect their local or global eco-systems. Now they can and they do, resulting in catastrophic misalignments with feedback mechanisms causing massive economic and personal damage. The wealthy are not being held responsible and they are not going to stop. They must be stopped. "If only a handful of us could get organized and start the work."
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  1873. Just after World War 2, the pool of wealth for the country was over 2.5 times the size of the economy. So wealth started out larger than our economy, and has grown faster than our economy ever since. Now the pool of wealth for the country is over five times the size of our economy. This is a fraudulent economy, designed to keep the wealthy ruling class firmly on top. A real economy would not devote all of its annual gains to growing a pool of wealth, and a real economy would not let a large pool of wealth grow at a faster rate than the economy. We have been had people, it is time to take it back. Every system has limits built in. Civilizations fall because we make the mistake of not placing limits on personal wealth, so that is where we need to focus our fight. No More Billionaires! Every new billionaire created by this fraudulent economy (one new billionaire every 30 hours) forces almost one million people globally into poverty (one million people drop below the poverty lines every 33 hours - new Oxfam report).
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  1874. professorplum88 - Those tax rates from the 50's not only helped to pay down the war debt, they also shaped the behavior of the rich so they would reinvest their capital into the USA economy. Not so today, when the rich get away with extracting wealth from the population with impunity.
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  1875. The republican have sold us out big time, just as they have been doing for over 100 years. History shows this very clearly. Just look at what has happened to us as the result of Reagan and Bush over the past 30 years. The statistics are there for everyone to see but usually people do not ask the correct questions. Even with a 300.3% growth in GDP per capita, the American people have been taking a continuous "income cut" every year for over thirty years because our politicians have been taken over by the corporations and wealthy interests. The economy is not doing well, the fundamentals are off the tracks. Stocks are going up because of corporate buybacks, not because people are buying. The corporate media is lying to you. The economic outlook over the past 30 years is not good for “We the People”. Here are the baseline statistics: The United States GDP per capita rose 300.3% over the past 30 years. Median wages for men rose by 1.05% over thirty years. Median wages for women rose by 151% over thirty years. Median wages for women remains 35% lower than men’s median wages, even though women median wages have risen far higher than men’s over the past thirty years. In 1986 median wages for men were standing at 185.2% of per capita GDP. By 2015 median wages for men had fallen to 66.2% of per capita GDP, that is a 64.3% loss in earning power over 30 years. Median household income rose 236% over the past 30 years. Since the growth of median income of men and women combined is only 152.5% over thirty years, it is a fact that there must be three or more earners per household in the present day. The days of single and dual earner households are gone. Median household income in 1985 was $23,620, well below the men’s median income of $35,324 which points to the fact men did not head most households at that time . . . or since then. With a 64.3% erosion of men’s earning power over thirty years, the modern household must have three, four or five working people in order to have an increased median household income of 236% over thirty years. New homes have gone up 335% over thirty years. Existing homes have gone up 292% over thirty years. Rents have gone up 299% over thirty years. Energy has gone up 177% over thirty years. Transportation has gone down 3% over thirty years. The cost of public college gone up 305.2% over thirty years (not including the costs of boarding, books and supplies). Of these items listed above, all except for two items fall within a range of growth similar to the GDP per capita growth over thirty years. The two anomalies are energy which has risen only 60% as much as the other items. The real sore thumb is transportation, which is the one thing everyone notices when price changes occur since we are a commuter culture. I smell something foul here, prices being fixed as to not draw attention to other giant cost increases within our economy. Don’t piss off the commuter or you will have revolution! However a steady upward creep of prices against diminished earning power will continue beyond our ability to pay, all happening very quietly so no one will notice or complain. Here is the list of items where the capitalist corporations are really sticking it to us, this is the wealth extraction economy at work. The cost of childcare gone up 546% over thirty years. The cost of healthcare gone up 601% over thirty years. The cost of pharmaceuticals gone up 894% over thirty years. And finally: The federal student loan burden being carried by our youth has gone up 14,800% over thirty years. In conclusion, the median earning power of American workers cannot keep up . . . and has not been able to keep up with basic living costs for decades. This is forcing all of us into eternal debt. You cannot have a GDP per capita going up and pay the workers less, while at the same time increasing basic necessary living costs at GDP per capita rates (or double, even triple that). Sources: https://www.census.gov/const/uspriceann.pdf https://www.census.gov/const/uspricemon.pdf https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/uspriceann.pdf https://www.realestateabc.com/graphs/natlmedian.htm https://ycharts.com/indicators/sales_price_of_existing_homes https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/grossrents.html https://www.zillow.com/home-values/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household-bills/9892984/How-prices-changed-over-30-years.html http://traveltrends.transportation.org/Documents/CA08-4.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/30/us/spending-for-health-care-in-1985-rose-at-lowest-rate-in-2-decades.html https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/new-peak-us-health-care-spending-10345-per-person http://www.in2013dollars.com/Tuition,-other-school-fees,-and-childcare/price-inflation/1986-to-2016?amount=20 https://www.statista.com/statistics/184914/prescription-drug-expenditures-in-the-us-since-1960/ https://college-education.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005532 http://www.onlinecolleges.net/student-debt-in-the-u-s-part-2-a-brief-history-of-student-debt-in-the-united-states/ https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/ https://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-156.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/acsbr15-02.pdf https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/usa?year=1986 http://statisticstimes.com/economy/north-american-countries-by-gdp-per-capita.php
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  1876. Matt cash420 - Ok Buddy, you are not to be taken seriously if you cannot answer a question without diverting or pivoting. So before we go any further, Do you ACTUALLY know what the definition of socialism is?
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  1877. I can't figure out my fellow Americans, are you too scared, or do you just not care? In 30 years, 10% of Americans will OWN ALL WEALTH. Today Donald Hump proposed rounding up homeless in California and putting them into internment camps costing over $700/day/per individual . . . paid for by the Federal Government. Fox News has been drumming up support for this policy idea all week. For the cost of this "internment" plan, all homeless could easily be housed without losing their freedom. More people are on their way to homelessness and it will include people that used to think it would never happen to them. The 1% in this country have $30 trillion in accumulated wealth they are not spending, at a mere 2% interest it would take all the GDP gains for 2018 plus an additional $40 billion to pay. Yet when I look at S&P500 index funds, they have been paying over 9% since 1994. Look at a more moderate 5% rate of return, that comes out to $1.5 trillion which eats all 2018's GDP gain plus 1/20th of the entire economy. Thom reported on the U.S. Treasury report in August 2019 which spelled out in detail that in 33 years, the top 10% will own ALL wealth in the USA. The bottom 90% are all going to end up in internment camps. So what is wrong with all of YOU, that whenever I bring this topic up of the wealthy eating our economy whole . . . I hear nothing but silence? Are you all too scared to react, to horrified to take serious action, or even to think about what must be done? Is fighting a racist agenda more important to you? These wealthy people don't care at all if you are white, black, brown, yellow or purple. They are distracting us on purpose with everything under the sun, do you simply not care that soon you and your children, your entire families will be homeless or worse . . . in internment camps?
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  1878.  pammens miss  - Don't forget, unless we install a wealth cap for individuals and businesses, all reforms will be eroded and eliminated.
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  1879. A wealth tax is the wrong approach and is fraught with problems. There is a solution to wealth and income inequality that will function wonderfully while not changing the capitalist economic model, that solution is a hard cap on individual wealth. A hard cap on wealth is easily enforced when no one is allowed to exceed the cap. Under a wealth cap, capital will flow horizontally instead of vertically. Just think about the evolution of the steam engine. In the beginning, boilers blew up and engines burned up. Eventually, boilers got release valves and the steam engines got governors. Both devices when subjected to a hard cap became reliable and profitable. The same thing must be done to wealth because wealth inequality is the same thing as an exploding boiler.
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  1880. AOC is a REAL American, unlike the Gang of Putin, the fake GOP. To everyone in the republican party, you are being conned by traitors that love only wealth, not the United States of America.
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  1881.  @ryan7864  - My wife and I took a closer look at that section, it appears that the president can only adjourn the Congress if Congress itself is in disagreement about the "Time of Adjournment", after the president himself has adjourned them. "he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such a Time as he shall think proper"
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  1882. @Voice of Reason - Your comment has too much dissonance to be reasonable, check yourself before you lose your voice.
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  1883.  @matthewlaw5107  - Capitalism in it's true form has resulted in almost $200 trillion in financial assets seeking a rate of return greater than 5% annually from an economy that is only $22 trillion in size and has not been able to average more than 2.6% growth over the past 30 years. The "free markets" are a myth. "Productivity and personal endeavor" have not earned profits in decades. Bottom line, capitalism is nothing more than a Monopoly Game, and those who espouse capitalism as anything but a monopoly game have given themselves over to the worship of the Oligarch's Propaganda Handbook.
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  1884.  @vDrgn  - Oh c'mon man, why should I give you anything? You are just going to continue being in denial. When Trump bends himself unto an ugly origami to keep his tax returns secret and launches Twitter attacks at everyone testifies against him, that screams GUILTY. If he had nothing to hide, he would not spend so much time obfuscating.
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  1885.  @vDrgn  - I base guilt on the totality of Trumps actions and behaviors. He blocks oversight of the executive branch, he blocks document subpoena's, he blocks witness testimony, he hides his tax returns, he mocks the American people and insults the American people. That is evidence enough. The president is supposed to uphold the law, Trump mocks the law. The evidence is right in front of your face.
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  1886.  @Raineygoodyears  - The president is supposed to represent ALL Americans. Trump insults Americans while using his office to line his pockets. He does not give a damn about you. Trump is a bottom feeding, lazy, do-nothing who inherited his fortune and squandered it so fast he had to turn into a criminal drug runner and money launderer in order to keep up appearances. Only idiots and sycophants still believe Trump is not a criminal.
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  1887.  @Raineygoodyears  - The President is sworn by oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States. All he has done is become the "most wretched of lawlessness that lives among us". Sorry, you don't get to cherry-pick what a U.S. President can or cannot do, only the lawless, the uneducated or the stupid get to live in that fantasy world.
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  1888.  @vDrgn  - "the Democrats are the only people in this impeachment process that have blocked witness testimony". You live in a fantasy world and you are a liar to boot. When someone calls 911 to report a fire and there actually is a fire, the person who made the 911 call has done their duty and is no longer relevant. The whistle blower is completely irrelevant now, all the witness testimony including from Trump's own people have substantiated the whistle blowers complaint. Trump is guilty of bribery and extortion. Who dialed the call and reported his crimes is irrelevant.
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  1889.  @Raineygoodyears  - You people never check anything. It was republicans who invited in the illegal workers, so that they could undercut the wages of real Americans. Then the republicans turned around and blamed the immigrants for the drop in Americans wages. It was the industrial capitalists who moves all of our manufacturing jobs offshore, supported by both republicans and democrats. Talk about stabbing us in the back, that is what the republicans did. You believe their propaganda. It was republicans who started the homeless problem by giving massive tax breaks to millionaires, thus creating the billionaire class who actually runs the government now. The have run up asset prices (homes) because they ran out of productive means to get their free money on their fake investment schemes. It is because of republicans and democrats both that we have heath care and education costs going through the roof, because they both put Wall Street in charge of our infrastructure. It is because of losers like you that we are stuck with this mess, because you vote these criminals into office. Bernie Sanders 2020!
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  1890.  @vDrgn  - You are not sorry at all, because you live in a world of fantasy without need for facts. Constitutionally a statutory crime is not required to qualify for impeachment, yet bribery is specifically mentioned in the Constitution as an impeachable offense. Trump committed conspiracy, extortion and bribery. You claim I want something for free. That is a right wing talking point and a lie. It was the conservative right wing in this country that pawned off trickle down economics on us, which has lead to the greatest wealth extraction scheme in history. What you don't understand is that between tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of banks and corporations, the top 20% has extracted $50 trillion from us citizens. You cannot have $50 trillion getting free money in the form of "interest" or "rate of return" in an economy that does only $20 trillion per year, without cannibalizing that economy to make the interest payments. This is theft from all of us and you defend it. You probably don't understand what I just wrote, because you cannot do simple math. Why do you defend it? I don't know . . . . could it be that you live in a fantasy land contained in a bubble of hot air coming from all the propaganda you listen to coming from republicans and billionaire oligarchs? Must be, because nothing else explains how stupid you are.
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  1891. You are an idiot.
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  1892. the teach - Preach! This is a story I will tell over and over . . . about 18 months ago I had enough of the vitriol and decided to dig in and research our economy. The information is there, though it took me awhile to compile a big picture. Bottom line, we are being lied to and mislead by the corporate news media . . . which is in league with the republicans and the corporate democrats who are gutting our country and feeding the carcass to the billionaire class. The vote. Never again vote for a candidate who gets their campaign funding from corrupt sources. If campaign funds do not come from the citizen people in small donations, then the campaign is corrupt. Simple guidelines.
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  1893. Since CNBC is a financial educator, please explain something to me. The U.S. GDP lost 2.3 percent, or $500.6 billion in 2020. Yet privately held financial assets gained $9.867 trillion in 2020. How is it possible for financial assets to gain so much when the real economy lost ground?
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  1894.  @seneca983  - The economy climbs at a more or less set rate. The "market" climbs on an exponential curve. Your answer has insufficient information to explain this.
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  1895.  @seneca983  - You are still providing insufficient information to answer my question. I'll provide you with two charts from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis (FRED) covering the same time span (Q1 of 1947 to Q4 of 2020). One is of "Real Gross Domestic Product (GDPC1)" and the other of "Households and Nonprofit Organizations; Total Financial Assets, Level". The scales of these two charts on the left hand side show the disparity between the two charts, so too does the charted line of growth. There is just no way that financial assets can continue growing at the rate shown without massive money printing and literal "give aways" to the wealthy . . . . which is exactly what tax cuts and bailouts are meant to accomplish. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO Put those two charts up in adjacent tabs and study them. There is simply no way that a financial asset growth rate larger than GDP growth can be sustained for those levels of wealth, or sustained when wealth levels are so many times larger than the economy itself.
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  1896.  @seneca983  - Whether it is the amount in new savings or in reinvested yield, the growth in financial assets in one year (from Q4 2019 to Q4 2020) is $9.867 trillion, nearly half the size of our GDP. That type of growth simply does not appear out of thin air, yet it appears to have done so. Some of that growth is also associated with price increases that those of us without financial assets pay as a necessary price of survival. Some of that growth is QE from the Federal Reserve. Some of that growth is remnants of the 2017 tax cut as tax savings are plowed into financial assets. Regardless of the source, this growth is placing an unbearable strain on our population. That was really the point of my original question here and elsewhere, which of course, no one really understood.
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  1897.  @seneca983  - Growth in housing costs. Growth in healthcare costs. Growth in energy costs. Growth in costs regarding every aspect of requirements for sustaining our place in our society. All of those growths in cost do not reflect a greater value being gained. Instead these cost increases are going to sustain profit growth, which in turn is reflected in the numerical growth of asset values. To put it simply, the ownership the majority of financial assets is concentrated, so all of this cost and asset growth places a strain on our population just to feed the insatiable appetites of those who have too much wealth already.
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  1898.  @seneca983  - Your original answer was incomplete and that is putting it kindly. To put it more succinctly, your original answer was a side step, a typical avoidance maneuver. When I filled out more detail about the market gains, you asked two questions: "What?" and "How?", then you made an inaccurate statement: "It's not a strain." Your final comment was a diversion. It's ok, seems fairly obvious that you are more interested in protecting a rigged economic system than providing answers or engaging in a dialog, so go back to whatever you were doing before you read my comment.
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  1899.  @seneca983  - This is typical. Rationalizations up the kaazoo. Rationalization is just another word for dishonest. My original post was posed as a question, one that virtually anyone could answer honestly if they looked into the situation carefully. Most of those gains in financial assets were from the stock market. Most of the gains in the stock market were not due to a forward looking market. Most of the gains in the stock market over the past decade were not due to a forward looking market, any comment trying to answer my question which includes such rubbish is using rationalization, which in turn is just dishonest, or worse still, naive. If you would have been on the level, the words "tax cuts", or "stock buybacks", or "Federal Reserve", or "borrowing via corporate bonds", or "Fed balance sheet" would have been somewhere in your answers. So thank you seneca983, for doing exactly what one would expect from a dishonest person.
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  1900.  @seneca983  - You know when someone is on the ropes when they ask you to do research they should be doing on their own. I have bookmarks for hundreds of articles, plus scores more of graphs with data points from FRED and private financial data firms. Taken singly they provide data, taken in aggregate they provide enough backing to support many economic hypotheses. One thing you can count on is that mainstream publications will never directly undermine the goose that lays golden eggs, however sometimes they will skirt close to the truth. So I did a short search for you and came up with a reasonably sensible article from MarketWatch, which skillfully walks the line between truth and falsehood. You're welcome by the way, you're previous comments are as good as a flashing neon billboard advertising either financial illiteracy, willful ignorance, or the participatory gaslighting of someone working in or profiting from the financial trades, which means you could have looked this up for yourself or you already know better. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-much-lower-would-the-stock-market-be-without-corporate-buybacks-2019-05-02
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  1901.  @seneca983  - The mechanics of stock buybacks dictate that buying back shares increases the value of existing shares, since the market cap of the corporation remains the same. (The market cap does not include taxes, which are paid by the individual stock holder on any capital gains realized through dividends.) By taking shares off the market, each share now receives an increased dividend, which is why stock buybacks are a thing. Our entire conversation has been caught up in technicalities. Whether or not you meant it this way, technicalities are used as a diversion from the overall big picture. We are entering into an age of "Techno-Feudalism", where each American family sends a $5000 "wealth tax" directly to the oligarch class each year. The direct historical comparison is the serf's producing on the lords land, produce tithes for the lord first and then existing on whatever excess the serfs can produce that year. There are four Federal Reserve (FRED) charts that show exactly how screwed we are right now. The first one shows that the wealthy gained $9.8 trillion in financial asset value in 2020. The second one shows that real GDP dropped by $459 billion in 2020 (yet the stock market went up). The third one shows that money printing shot straight up in 2020, with $13.73 trillion in new dollars created (over 90% of that went straight to the stock market). The forth one shows the velocity of money, which has dropped to the slowest in history, because ordinary people don't have any money to spend. The last two graphs show something extraordinary, tons of money being printed and none of that money getting into the hands of ordinary people. The first graph shows where all the money went (into the stock market), to those who already have more than enough. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1V
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  1902.  @seneca983  - It is exasperating to converse with someone who does not seem to be acquainted with some very basic statistics, like for instance that 86% of stock and bonds are owned by the top 10% of households, and that the financial assets of non-profits are held in the main by think tanks funded by billionaire oligarchs. In addition, you have repeated the phrase "I don't see" so many times, that I can literally visualize you wearing blinders. The problem here is that either you don't do financial research, or that you simply want to see things the way you already understand them. Either way, that is not good for either one of us or the financial health of the country at large.
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  1903. @Anthony Landowski - That the top 10% pay the majority of taxes is an old right wing talking point promoted by oligarchs. The tax burden has been pushed off of the wealthy and corporations, onto the wage earning population. Stop spreading their lies, it is hurting you as much as anyone else.
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  1904. @Sash Akashi - After reading your comment, all I can say is this: Stand in front of a mirror and reflect on your own words. "It’s absolutely staggering to me how people in these comments could be so unbelievably detached from anything even bordering on objective reality." You really need to ponder those words and how they apply to you directly. This is not just the matter of Trump being a criminal before and during his time in office. This is about the past many decades since Nixon and Reagan, how our economy was reshaped so that the wealthy could simply loot the country directly. The past two years of financial asset gains alone equal a full year of GDP, courtesy of the Federal Reserve and the government/corporate revolving doors. The majority of Americans have great difficulty paying their bills from month to month, while you are engaged in massive projection, believing in outright lies and misinformation. Good luck with that.
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  1905. Animal Farm - Corporate democrats are republicans. When Thom speaks I automatically translate because I know the dems and reps are the same thing now. Yet it would be nice to hear Thom talk for an entire session about Democrats as office holders. Compare their records to their republican counterparts on each important set of issues.
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  1906. Yup, and this year Venezuela is the President of OPEC.
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  1907. Amazon feels that pointing out that 42% of American workers earn under $15/hr is a point in their favor? Thanks Amazon for substantiating that corporations are truly hollowing out the American Economy. We are the wealthiest nation yet 42% of workers don not get $15/hr? Time for a wealth cap folks, that is the ONLY way we are going to get a stable economy and society.
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  1908. Last year (2018) the 1% consumed at least 7.5% of our entire GDP just to get a nominal 5% rate of return on $30 trillion. That is not including the Trump tax cuts. Capitalism is eating democracy, while Moscow Mitch is seeding the judiciary with judges who are out to end democracy. If we don't recognize capitalism as our foe and place a hard cap on wealth accumulation, DEMOCRACY IS DEAD.
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  1909.  @widewinger1454  - Yes, and how do you think that happens? The politicians certainly don't "earn" enough at their job to become wealthy.
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  1910. Guo Mashi - You are likely correct about this: "Everything Trump has was handed to him on a silver[sic] platter by Bush and Obama." However, it is unwise to dismiss "imagined future problems" as hallucinations. To do so is short sighted and objectively dangerous. This president has bundled his bungling into the legacy of all presidents since Reagan . . . and the future created by Trump's contribution looks increasingly toxic perhaps even with an extinction surprise ending. To dismiss this potential is . . . reckless.
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  1911. @yojames2011 - Wow, that spew was it's own version of bubble talk. Too bad you get your information from propaganda sources.
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  1912.  @OhOkay5565  - Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1913.  @petunialuna4801  - What you outlined is exactly why we must enact a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. Humans as a species could survive these cycles of oppression, upheaval and revolution while the species was young and could do relatively little harm to the local or global ecosystems. Now it is different. If we cannot get a handle on this cycle, our own industry and technology will insure our extinction as a species. To survive, we must fundamentally change how we conduct ourselves as a global society and that begins with wealth distribution, specifically cutting off the top and putting a hard floor on the bottom. We don't even need to change capitalism, just cap wealth at a reasonable level that it rewards merit and make sure no one falls below a socially acceptable foundation or floor. Crime will almost vanish if wealth is capped and no one is in danger of hunger or homelessness.
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  1914.  @petunialuna4801  - I am having a curious problem posting a reply to you, having repeatedly tried over the past day. This comment will contain none of that content, I just want to see if this reply will stick or not.
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  1915.  @petunialuna4801  - I don't know the cause, but I am repeatedly getting blocked from replying to you with my intended content. This is a algorithm thing, no one could be that fast at reporting my comments, as I have tried repeated experiments over the past day to repost my original reply. Censorship is alive and well on YouTube.
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  1916.  @petunialuna4801  - The longer one?
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  1917.  @petunialuna4801  - Hmmm. This subject is entirely off topic, but it concerns me. Even now, the longer paragraph size, nine line reply post I made to your "wet blanket" comment, is still not visible to me here. I reposted it a half dozen times, none have appeared. The content was applicable for a reply to another persons question on a much older video, so I copied it there, where it is still posted (as part of a larger reply). I would like to know if this happens to other people, because I would like to understand why this happens. Thank you for your responses. Love the moniker, Harry Potter inspired?
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  1918. You know, the comments here are rather strange. Yes, there are more homeless people here than in any other state. Why? Because the weather is survivable all year round, it has nothing to do with political ideologies. California roads are not the best to be sure, yet as my daughter departed her state due to divorce, she noted that the roads that were not interstate highways were exceedingly bad in every state until she arrived here. I'm going to point fingers here, "you people", who write all the snide comments about "Commieforna" and the democratic politicians here, yet you are blissfully unaware that you are being manipulated. This video is manipulating you. John Stossel is not an unbiased reporter. His Fox Business show "Stossel", aired viewpoints on individual freedom, free market capitalism and small government, all very common in the American media. Yet what most people seem unaware of is these are the talking points of billionaires, whose purpose is to use propaganda in pursuit of power. The homeless issue is not a product of political positions, because it happens regardless if a democrat or republican is in power. Homelessness is a product of growing wealth, when large corporations buy up whole neighborhoods, driving up costs of home ownership for everyone and driving those less able to cope onto the streets. The wealthy cleaned up in 2020, with financial assets gaining almost ten trillion dollars. I believe the entire reason Trump never responded to the Covid pandemic is because corporations wanted to fire millions and re-hire some of the fired workers at lower wages. Stop blaming the politicians and political parties, while they are not saints, they are not the ones in the drivers seat. Use your common sense people, wealth cannot get bigger while millions lose everything, not unless something fishy is going on with our "elite" wealth holders.
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  1919.  @michaelfranzgarcia7769  - Did that make you feel better?
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  1920.  @AnOriginalYouTuber  - Too many people actually fall for these "divide and conquer" tactics, not even realizing that they are not the ones winning from these tactics. Strikes me that most people have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . do people enjoy being used like toilet paper? Blue or red, makes no difference, they all have the same masters, which put a lot of money and effort into confusing people. I don't agree that the rich are complacent, they are the ones funding these media narratives, which means they are focused and driven to accomplish their goals. We need to stop fighting and hating each other and look at who is paying the bills for these kind of narratives, because they are the true architects of our discomfort and there must be a reason why (a reason that is not good for all of us, which is why they want to redirect our attention).
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  1921.  @mas_mos424  - In what manner? How do we fix our state? If you read the post just prior to your reply, the one addressed to Michael Franz Garcia, I went into detail about what caused the homeless problem. This all about economics, not politics. Read that post, then tell me how we fix our state without fixing the underlying economics that underpin the whole thing.
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  1922.  @mas_mos424  - Los Angeles giving money to poor towns to take on their homeless solves nothing. You write that I should go talk to politicians because "no one cares here". Well, there is your problem. You think this is a political issue. You want to turn this state red? And you think that will solve problems? No, it will not. This is about the form our economy takes, it is governed by wealth and wealth owns the politicians. When I wrote, I used facts, not "feelings". There is nothing "woke" about anything I have written. The problem is, you and many others are allowing your emotions to steer your mind, which in turn allows you to be taken advantage of by the wealth driven propaganda like what Stossel puts out. Get real man, what you do and think affects me and my family . . . and I don't like "stupid" or people that drink the "stupid juice", because you hurt yourself and everyone around you by allowing your emotions to steer your thinking. Oh, and just so you know, I was born here in California, lived here all my 60 years except for eight years as a child when we lived in Colorado. I'm native here, are you?
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  1923. Yes, all of the big oil corporations. They knew this was coming and covered it up for decades. Now their commercials say they are helping, so they should be held accountable.
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  1924.  @TheDiamond2009  -I don't accept the notion that you are not guessing, I even gave you another hint by stating that the answer had nothing to do with "point of view". Others are waiting also, I would hate to keep them in suspense for too much longer. With regards to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she is a bright young lady, with an emphasis on "young". She has not had enough time yet, to understand economics outside of her college education and her career experience. AOC does have a grasp on elements of predatory capitalism through personal experience and a working grasp of what national fiscal policy can achieve.
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  1925.  @TheDiamond2009  - A great number of very intelligent people, whom I respect for their opinions, think as you do. If I were not after one piece of information from you in order to demonstrate what you have learned about economics, I would debate you on any number of specific subjects you have written about. Concerning the numerous economic subjects you brought up in your latest post, it is remarkable that you named so many and have yet to come close to hitting the target. Just to refresh, the question was: What is the one element of our current form of capitalism, that will cause the most harm to the economy? Hint number one: The answer consists of two words. Hint number two: The answer has nothing to do with "point of view". The answer is "compounded interest". This is elemental knowledge that is simply deleted from our collective consciousness because we are being bombarded by so many diversionary topics, very much like the answers you gave. You mentioned twelve different subjects in your latest reply, all of which are shoved in front of our awareness on a daily basis in order to distract us. This is so extremely simple to understand. Take 215 of our current U.S. dollars and invest them at 5% compounded interest for 1800 years, the sum total would have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. The math for this equation was worked out over 245 years ago, and not for the first time. The rulers of Ancient Babylonia knew all about the destructive nature of compound interest and had a policy of forgiving all private debt when a change of rulers occurred. "Socialism" or "Capitalism" are just names used to divide our attention, like so many other "names" that get bandied about these days. My belief is that capitalism works just fine, but like every other system in Creation, it must have top and bottom end limits applied to wealth. NO system, either artificial or natural, has the ability to survive if too small or immunity from destruction if grown too large. If you disagree with that assessment, then name a system that has no limits. Meanwhile, a bit of reading would help you understand compound interest, its history and ramifications. Michael Hudson: The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four-Thousand Year Overview Part II Link: https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1926.  @TheDiamond2009  - Thank you for your thoughtful reply. As a matter of course, I dislike labels except as accurate descriptions of what the labels refer to. References to democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives, socialism, Marxism and even capitalism are very often either meaningless or misapplied. You mentioned Marxist principles in one of your comments. Most people seem to think that "Marxism" is an economic system, a common and not accidental perception. Karl Marx wrote three books as a critique of capitalism. These three volumes are collectively known as Das Kapital and were not written to be a replacement economic model for capitalism. A Marxist economist is an economist who is critical of capitalism, but do not offer a replacement economic system to take the place of capitalism. To think otherwise is a common practice put forward by those who wish us distracted. David Harvey, who is a Marxist economist, has put forward two observations I found to be relevant and useful. The first observation is that few people look at the "mass" of our economy, or the "mass" of accumulated wealth. People tend to think in short term definitions, as in this years GDP output or how much a 401k account has grown over the past year. The "mass" of any system is of vital importance relative to the system performance. The second observation by David Harvey is that capitalism is too well entrenched world wide, to be uprooted by revolution. The French Revolution cannot be replicated successfully in modern times. I am a retired mechanical engineer, with keen interests in cosmological physics, aviation, geology, fluid dynamics, economic systems and lately gold prospecting along rivers. My entire career has dealt with systems, all of which have upper and lower limits of operation. When talking to ordinary folk about systems, I prefer to use an automobile engine for reference because almost everyone is familiar with a car. When asked if one would lower the factory settings for engine idle RPM, most people say no. When asked why, I often get incredulous looks as they explain to me that lowering the idle RPM would make the engine quit most of the time, and they are correct. Conversely, tampering with the upper RPM limits would most likely result in a blown engine. People innately understand upper and lower limits as applied to a car engine system, but fail to understand that upper and lower limits must also apply to an economic system. That failure to understand economic system limits is no accident, we have been taught to accept that being wealthy or poor has no intrinsic limits. This begs the question, why have we been taught to accept this antithetical notion? I have referred often to distraction. Simply put, those who have wealth wish to distract from the methodology of attaining greater wealth. We have often heard that Bill Gates is wealthy because he formed the company/corporation of Microsoft. That Jeff Bezos is wealthy because he formed the company/corporation of Amazon. That Elon Musk is wealthy because he sells electric cars and builds really cool rockets that land themselves. How each of these men got their start is one thing, how they attained their great wealth is mostly due to compound interest on "investments". I have put the word "investments" in quotation marks because that is another label whose meaning is no longer accurate. The billionaires David and Charles Koch were masters of manipulative distraction in order to hide the sources of their wealth accumulations. Those two were directly involved in funding and directing a number of so-called "conservative" think tanks whose actual role is to saturate the media landscape with probable, yet misleading ideas, in order to distract and dilute our attention. If people really understood how they gained a majority of their wealth and comprehended the "mass" that privately held wealth has attained, no billionaires would actually exist. I'll leave you with four charts from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis (FRED), which tell a tale of impending economic system failure. The first chart is a graph of privately held financial assets, the growth of which in the year 2020 was 10.4%, or $9.8 trillion. You can use the first chart to compare $104.7 trillion in privately held financial assets to the real GDP, which is under $20 trillion for that year. How is it possible that a $20 trillion GDP, falling 3.5% year over year, could furnish $9.8 trillion in financial asset growth? The third chart shows new dollar creation for the year at $13 trillion, which combined with fiscal stimulus of over $3 trillion, provided the majority of the power needed for financial assets to grow in 2020. The final chart proves that most of the money creation and fiscal stimulus went directly to the wealthiest among us, because the "velocity" of money is at a historical low, meaning a vast majority of all that money never made it into the productive economy. The chart shows monetary velocity dropping off a cliff in 2020, from 5.247 Q1 to an all time low of 1.221 for Q4. My summary? It is the "entitlement" of "compound interest" on "investments" that is directly responsible for the economic situation we have currently. Wealth and debt always grows faster than the economy, which is why the Ancient Babylonians reset both, when a new ruler took power. Not us, we must either be stupid or we are being misled. I choose the latter, because I don't think people are that stupid. How much money is the Federal Reserve going to "create" as "QE" for 2021, just so that financial assets and other forms of wealth will continue to accomplish 10.4% annual growth rates? Will it be $15 trillion this year? $20 trillion? How about 2022? The system we have now exceeded its upper limits for wealth creation over a decade ago, and there are no lower limits so millions will fall into destitution. This is no way to run an economy. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1V
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  1927.  @garyhatten8812  - Please be more specific.
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  1928.  @garyhatten8812  - When I was out and about today, YouTube notified me about one of your comments, but not the first comment you addressed to me in this comment feed. Now that I am home and can easily read the entire comment thread, I can see that you were specific. "Unregulated capitalism" are your choice of the two words and I commend your choice. As my background demands that I be very specific, I am going to reprint the question here: "What is the one element of our current form of capitalism, that will cause the most harm to the economy?" The word "element" is the key word to pay attention to here. To be very specific, there was no argument between TheDiamond2009 and myself to win. He was being critical of AOC and I wanted to test his economic knowledge. There is a great deal of propaganda and misinformation about, some of which TheDiamond2009 used in his comments. I was looking for his answer on a particular element of capitalism that causes the most harm. Growing wealth beyond the capability of an economy to support is the harm, and compound interest is the mechanism through which that harm is achieved. By the way, I will not claim to be an expert on any subject, however I have studied our macro economy in great detail. One thing I can state with absolute certainty is the following: Accumulated wealth erodes and then eliminates all reform, including regulations. Therefor, if any lasting change to the economy is going to take place, the first thing to accomplish is to place limits on both the upper and lower thresholds of individual wealth accumulation. Without those limits in place, no economy can escape self destruction.
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  1929.  @TheDiamond2009  - It is a rare pleasure for me, to be able to read a lengthy and knowledgeable comment, or in your case a trio of comments. Thank you for that. Since I have several manual labor projects on my plate today, I must endeavor to keep my reply somewhat shorter. You are correct, there is a delineation between income streams and the market valuation of financial assets (capital). Very few people are going to sell off all of their financial assets for cash, especially after a lifetime of accumulation. Taken individually, using the examples you laid out, none of those you have assisted with their wealth management are threats to the economy. The real threat comes from the aggregation of all of the high end individual wealth accumulators. Add to the mix, the modern behavior of corporations, who are now borrowing vast sums of money from the Federal Reserve via corporate bond instruments, for the sole purpose of repurchasing and retiring shares of stock in order to drive stock prices higher, the sheer mass of capital demanding a rate of return is staggering. Those graphs from the Federal Reserve for both GDP and financial assets are a visual representation of an "exponential growth curve". The financial assets graph, if the line is projected into the future, show the curve bending into the vertical within forty years. The ramifications of a vertical growth line is that wealth will be concentrated to a very few individuals, who will hold power over billions of humans. The GDP graph, which is growing substantially slower, still shows an exponential growth curve. The real problem we must face is that exponential growth, or infinite growth, is impossible on a finite planet. All systems have limits, even the planet we depend on to keep us alive, which is something we must "learn to live with". I personally do not see our current form of capitalism being able to adapt, without placing serious regulatory limits in place governing both lower individual wealth allocations and upper individual wealth accumulation thresholds.
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  1930.  @joebechtold7657  - I am quite frankly baffled by your comments and I would like to hear your point of view. Just for your information, at home we run things a certain way for stability. We use careful budgeting and thus have a reasonable life. This is what I call being conservative. Community is something different, something we have almost lost entirely because we must work so much. There is no time for community after work and family, this creates a weakness that can be manipulated. I don't know why you feel excluded, but I think most of us feel excluded and don't really know why. What is it that you need so you don't feel excluded? It seems to me an epic fight against a common foe is reason enough to be allies, and that means excepting some pretty big differences among us. I'll reckon once we are able to get to know our neighbors again, acceptance will be a lot easier than it is right now with those bastards plotting against us.
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  1931. Francesca Fiorentini hits the ball out of the part with the suggestion of a maximum income, home run! We will not make any progress solving the runaway economic AND political problems for the majority until maximum income and wealth caps are put into place. What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what Bezos and the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day.
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  1932.  @Jan-qq9xc  - Faux News Headline translation: Lair and criminal tells more lies to the American people in front of corruption stained White House.
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  1933. Could it be that the Trump administration thinks they have the Covid-19 pandemic under control, because they are controlling the information about infections and deaths? Taking control of the infection information from hospitals on July 15, 2020, the Trump administration can now cook the numbers and convince themselves of anything they want to believe.
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  1934.  @paulgibby6932  - The simple root of all of our problems political and financial this this . . . accumulated wealth. The oligarchs will obscure this fact in shrouds of propaganda fog, yet there it is. It is time for us to place a hard limit on wealth accumulation, a wealth and ownership cap. No reform, not $15/hr, not medicare for all, not even Social Security, can survive the onslaught of wealth power pitted against these reforms. So we must remove the tools of power from the oligarchs by getting rid of them. Cap everyone's wealth at a set limit, failure to do this will cost us our future as we go extinct from the excesses of the oligarchy.
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  1935. SylemGistoe - Finally. Words of wisdom to heed instead of just knee jerk reaction statements mostly fueled by an education based on propaganda (on most sides).
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  1936. SylemGistoe - Totally agree with what you are saying. From my point of view, I grew up in the 1960's being taught how great the USA is. Most people are still stuck in that, so they are not prepared to listen or consider that there are better systems of both economics and government. I love aircraft. My favorite era has always been WW2 aviation and I've built at least a dozen flying models of WW2 aircraft. As a byproduct of my hobby I spent considerable time learning about the history leading up to WW2 . . . . little did I know until recently that my USA was in danger of sliding into the very same fascism that we spent massive treasure and blood to defeat over 70 years ago. What I have learned is almost unknown to my peers and our children today. It seems the education system has been working overtime to wipe out the memory of fascism and the danger it represents. It is not the time for revolution with so many people ignorant of our history.
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  1937.  @PathfinderHistory  - The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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  1938. David Beaulieu - After I wrote this comment reply, I did copy and paste it as a main comment. Please feel free to copy and past my comments any time, the message is far more important than who gets the credit. Besides, if I see these ideas gaining traction, it will make my day and warm my heart . . . because we need solutions to these entrenched problems!
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  1939.  @georgefurman4371  - George, I've read your other comments and your heart is in the right place. I had a rather extreme reaction to your comment here, since edited. What you wrote here, it may have been true three decades ago, but it is not true now. There is a record number of billionaires now. The combined net worth of the 2020 class of the 400 richest Americans was $3.2 trillion, up from $2.7 trillion in 2017. As of October 2020, there were 614 billionaires—a record high—in the United States. Furthermore, the combined value increase of financial assets for 2019 and 2020 is equal to a full year of economic production, $20 trillion in two years, a feat that is impossible given the premise that "wealth is work". The wealthy are now looting our country wholesale and there is no mechanism in place to stop them.
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  1940. What piqued my interest is two videos: 1) All the missile parts laid out for a news conference, apparent "malfunctioning" cruise missiles that crashed in the desert. These caught my eye because I have built, flown and crashed fiberglass composite r/c aircraft and these missiles looked more like they were torn apart and smashed by hand tools rather than crashed. In addition, one of the missiles had "cobwebs" inside the open spaces between the fin and the sheet metal braces (shown in the longer video not this short clip). . . not something that would have survived flight at several hundred MPH. 2) The towers in the oil refineries were not hit by missiles. All missiles pack warheads that explode, blowing all non-armored metal structures they hit into shards. These towers were hit by short range artillery rounds, not missiles. This means the Saudis did this to themselves and all this is a set up. Even the parts shown in this video where whole panels with holes, square holes, panels that should have been greatly disfigured due to catastrophic explosive force . . . even the smallest missiles with a 50 pound warhead would do greater damage than that which was shown. This whole thing stinks of collusion between the Saudis and Trump to cause a war with Iran . . . .my fellow citizens of the USA, beware.
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  1941.  Tobby Isiba  - You want to deal with Soros as well as the remaining Koch Brother . . . and all the other billionaires who run our government? Then what you really need to do is promote and support a "wealth cap". We have laws for everything except to limit wealth. There is no reason a person who works hard does not deserve to become a millionaire, on the flip side every billionaire got that way by theft. We need six major reforms in the USA, 1) disband the Federal Reserve and put currency control back into the hands of Congress, 2) put the U.S. Treasury under the control of Congress, 3) eliminate fiat currency by once again tying U.S. currency to gold standard or a combination of precious metals, 4) put a hard cap on accumulated wealth at $10 million per adult, 5) put a hard cap on how much cash any corporation can hold, and finally . . . 6) eliminate overseas holdings and ownership for individuals and corporations, all holdings must be inside the USA. You want to improve the situation for all citizens and stop all of the nonsense we have had to go through over the last five decades? That list is how we do it.
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  1942. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  1943. Reece Beauchamp - Tinfoil hat working ok?
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  1944.  @wesleygordon1645  - We are in agreement about one thing you wrote, the unscrupulous super rich do abuse capitalism. What people are experiencing with China and their allies, have been described by journalists and scholars as authoritarian socialism. Russia on the other hand, is not a socialist country. There are other wings of socialism, which is not a "one size fits all" economic system. What you wrote "Socialism first creates poverty, then starvation", clearly references the authoritarian model. That model is highlighted in our propaganda, which conveniently leaves out other wings of socialism. Venezuela has a successful version of socialism even under duress, that country has has vast resources with which to support it's people. Venezuela is under siege warfare and blockade by the USA and it's allies, yet even under that duress the people of that country are not starving or living in squalor. What you hear about Venezuela in the USA is pure capitalist propaganda or the result of the use of financial and military force being applied against that country, which puts Venezuela outside your narrow interpretation of socialism.
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  1945. The better question is: Why do we need the wealthy elite at all? They will always screw things up for the majority, history shows this to be true without exception. This time, if we even have a chance to make changes, we must bring the wealthy down to our level, thus eliminating the most destructive "class" of human beings. If we do not or cannot, they will cause our species extinction.
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  1946.  @jgalt308  - Michael Hudson is top notch, I often refer to his papers on the history of compounded interest to drive home points about finance capitalism.
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  1947.  @jbweld6193  - Seriously? Have you examined the merits of your claim? I'll lay out two points, the wealthy already pay far less in taxes than at any time in history. Then there is this, so because you are in a snit about a wealth cap, you are going to uproot your family and move them somewhere better? Where?
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  1948.  Jeremy Shaffer  - Sorry, but your statement was completely inarticulate and unreadable. Please try again.
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  1949.  Jeremy Shaffer  - Not apologizing you dumbass. Your statement was unreadable so no one owes you any explanation.
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  1950.  Jeremy Shaffer  - Ok, how about making some sense now Sweetheart.
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  1951.  @onomatopoeia162003  - Keep in mind that every regulation or reform is undermined and eventually eliminated by wealthy interests. We have no reason to believe that the outcome of regulations or reforms will be any different this time around.
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  1952. Mein Kampf is Trump's go to political reference guide.
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  1953. Jeffrey Robertson - Thanks, they are a chore to deal with.
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  1954. Pnp6408 - If you are calling the behavior of the democrats disgusting, then you ARE playing the blame game. I remember Mitch McConnel and his disgusting behavior during the democrats "supposed" eight years, do you? Trump take gold for bad and hateful behavior, if that is what you mean by different. Both parties are corrupt. We have only one way to purge them, vote for those candidates who SWEAR OFF raising campaign contributions from PAC, wealthy donors, corporations, banks, unions, or any other lobbying source. WE the People are not corrupt.
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  1955. Jeffrey Robertson - Gee, I wonder why they hate themselves. (tongue firmly in cheek!)
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  1956.  @Abshir1it1is  - Indeed. Its seems that in order to protect ourselves, a personal wealth cap must be imposed. That will cut down a majority of undue influence our government suffers from today, taking away the ability to hire lobbyists and fund right wing anti-government think tanks. Most especially to defund and disband organizations like the Federalist Society, which has had an unwarranted role in choosing our judiciary.
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  1957. John Stewart - For your first question, yes these are inflation adjusted numbers. The answer to your second question is this: The value of all of our work is being stolen by something I call "extraction economics". The sources for my information are included at the end of this comment. Here are the baseline statistics: The United States GDP per capita rose 300.3% over the past 30 years. Median wages for men rose by 1.05% over thirty years. Median wages for women rose by 151% over thirty years. Median wages for women remains 35% lower than men’s median wages, even though women median wages have risen far higher than men’s over the past thirty years. In 1986 median wages for men were standing at 185.2% of per capita GDP. By 2015 median wages for men had fallen to 66.2% of per capita GDP, that is a 64.3% loss in earning power over 30 years. In 1986 median wages for women were standing at 82.3% of per capita GDP. By 2015 median wages for women had fallen to 42.4% of per capita GDP, that is a 51.5% loss in earning power over 30 years. Median household income rose 236% over the past 30 years. Since the growth of median income of men and women combined is only 152.5% over thirty years, it is a fact that there must be three or more earners per household in the present day. The days of single and dual earner households are gone. Median household income in 1985 was $23,620, well below the men’s median income of $35,324 which points to the fact men did not head most households at that time . . . or since then. With a 64.3% erosion of men’s earning power over thirty years, the modern household must have three, four or five working people in order to have an increased median household income of 236% over thirty years. New homes have gone up 335% over thirty years. Existing homes have gone up 292% over thirty years. Rents have gone up 299% over thirty years. Energy has gone up 177% over thirty years. Transportation has gone down 3% over thirty years. The cost of public college gone up 305.2% over thirty years (not including the costs of boarding, books and supplies). Of these items listed above, all except for two items fall within a range of growth similar to the GDP per capita growth over thirty years. The two anomalies are energy which has risen only 60% as much as the other items. The real sore thumb is transportation, which is the one thing everyone notices when price changes occur since we are a commuter culture. I smell something foul here, prices being fixed as to not draw attention to other giant cost increases within our economy. Don’t piss off the commuter or you will have revolution! However a steady upward creep of prices against diminished earning power will continue beyond our ability to pay, all happening very quietly so no one will notice or complain. Here is the list of items where the capitalist corporations are really sticking it to us, this is the wealth extraction economy at work. The cost of childcare gone up 546% over thirty years. The cost of healthcare gone up 601% over thirty years. The cost of pharmaceuticals gone up 894% over thirty years. And finally: The federal student loan burden being carried by our youth has gone up 14,800% over thirty years. In conclusion, the median earning power of American workers cannot keep up . . . and has not been able to keep up with basic living costs for decades. This is forcing all of us into eternal debt. You cannot have a GDP per capita going up and pay the workers less, while at the same time increasing basic necessary living costs at GDP per capita rates (or double, even triple that). Sources: https://www.census.gov/const/uspriceann.pdf https://www.census.gov/const/uspricemon.pdf https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/uspriceann.pdf https://www.realestateabc.com/graphs/natlmedian.htm https://ycharts.com/indicators/sales_price_of_existing_homes https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/grossrents.html https://www.zillow.com/home-values/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household-bills/9892984/How-prices-changed-over-30-years.html http://traveltrends.transportation.org/Documents/CA08-4.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/30/us/spending-for-health-care-in-1985-rose-at-lowest-rate-in-2-decades.html https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/new-peak-us-health-care-spending-10345-per-person http://www.in2013dollars.com/Tuition,-other-school-fees,-and-childcare/price-inflation/1986-to-2016?amount=20 https://www.statista.com/statistics/184914/prescription-drug-expenditures-in-the-us-since-1960/ https://college-education.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005532 http://www.onlinecolleges.net/student-debt-in-the-u-s-part-2-a-brief-history-of-student-debt-in-the-united-states/ https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/ https://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-156.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/acsbr15-02.pdf https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/usa?year=1986 http://statisticstimes.com/economy/north-american-countries-by-gdp-per-capita.php
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  1958. Edward Dodson - I did review your data, clearly things are worsening for the American people. One thing in particular I picked out . . . if the wealthy and corporations have so much capital that they can gamble on derivatives, then obviously the latest tax law is a complete scam. With so much money going into derivatives, there is absolutely no excuse for cutting any federal program designed to assist the American citizen. A massive increase in taxes is an absolute must.
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  1959. Verification makes trust irrelevant. This is why Bitcoin will become the world's reserve currency.
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  1960. Ever since the final business quarter of 1980, the sum total of financial assets (from which IRA's and 401k's are derived), has been greater than our GDP. This happened because Congress gutted company funded pensions in 1974. At the end of 1980, the sum total financial assets was half a trillion more than our GDP. By 1990 that gap was enlarged to $6.9 trillion. By the year 2000 the gap had widened further to $21.2 trillion. Today that gap is $93.684 trillion or 4.8 times the size of our GDP. Today the gap has widened so far that extraction from the population is simply not enough to fuel a 12% annual growth rate, so the government is now being looted. The money to grow IRA's and 401k's is stolen, not earned. Furthermore, to blame the individual for irresponsible spending without saving for a rainy day is simply part of the propaganda used to justify the theft. What gives anyone the right to take money they have not earned?
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  1961.  @mach1gtx150  - Even though we cannot ditch the money yet, we (wife and I, 62 and 58 respectively) agreed that if I could not find full time employment of sufficient pay as NOT to put us into debt just to keep the job, that self actualization would be the better path. As of four years ago we have gone minimalist and basically dropped out of the consumer culture. It is a strain at times, yet it has become a much better life without dealing with all the expenses and time consumed by the perceived necessity full time employment. BTW, nice avatar . . . P-51? Just finished building a 1/12 scale r/c Douglas A-10 Havoc.
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  1962.  @mach1gtx150  - Yes, I heard about the 9-0-9, though I have not yet heard about why she crashed. It is a real shame when one of these beautiful war-birds are lost. I remember hanging out at the San Jose airport to watch the departure of a B-17 and B-24 that had stopped in for fuel, they both made a circuit of the landing pattern and came in for the fast low passes . . . Awesome! The Australian's have an airworthy A-20. The whole reason I chose the A-20 as a modeling subject is that it is a single seater combination of fighter and bomber. Would love to build a B-29, but we don't have the room for an airplane that large!
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  1963.  @mach1gtx150  - Envious! I've been inside a B-17 and a B-29, but not in flight. Went back into the tail gunners position in the B-17, there were no guns or ammo boxes but it gave me the chills thinking about those gunners in such a cramped position, the cold and the enemy aircraft trying to take a bite out of you. This view of history is why I fight back now at those who would spit on the graves of our brave solders and airmen who gave their lives to fight tyranny, imperialism and fascism. We have a huge problem world wide as those very same sorts who brought us both world wars are now trying once again to subjugate us. I have taken the position that we need a hard cap on accumulated personal and corporate wealth, the alternative is that power hungry sociopaths will burn down the entire world just to satisfy their need for greed.
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  1964.  @mach1gtx150  - Interesting, I did not know the origins of the saying "the whole nine yards"! I would love to have a copy of the actual accounts of of a WW2 B-17 crew member. If you go to my YouTube channel, you can find my direct email address there at the bottom right hand corner of the 1/100 scale Los Angeles Class submarine picture I use for a banner. Get in touch and we can chat by email if you like.
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  1965. Tell me how this is supposed to work. You got $100 trillion in "investments" trying to make 5% off an economy of $22 trillion that grows by 3% per year. Can we say . . . . schoolyard bully just took my lunch money?
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  1966.  Apache King  - Yeah, I know. That 3% was just to keep it simple. I say the economy is shrinking, just because housing and health care are going up does not mean we are getting more for our money. It is just a way for the wealthy to extract more money from us to pay their growing dividends.
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  1967.  @thunderflare59  - What an uninformed comment. Of every dollar in existence, 60 cents is unearned income based on existing wealth.
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  1968. Spring Time - You are correct, we have been betrayed. You are also correct about our own ignorance of the financial and political system. I am 56 years old and always prided myself about being an informed voter, then last year I started digging and researching on my own and found out that we have been lied to by our media and government. In response I have been activated, but our people have been adversely affected by the news-byte and seem incapable of absorbing critical information. To counter this I have been writing short byte commentary for the purpose of waking people up. Here is a sample: "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."  — John F. Kennedy, inauguration address, January 1961. While that speech was going on . . . in smoke filled boardrooms across the United States of America . . . the Captains of Industry looked about at the world opening up before them. They said unto themselves, why be Captains of Industry in the United States of America . . . when we can be Kings of Capitalism over the entire world! Screw JFK and The American Way, and by the way . . . screw the American people, who needs them when we have a planet full of cheap labor? That is when the national economy of the USA was abandoned in favor of a global economy that forever crippled the American worker. We should recognize this simple fact and devise a plan to extract ourselves from under the claw of predatory capitalism run amok. The wheels were turning on us even while us Boomers were being born. I was born later on in 1961 and I have never felt free for my entire life. While Kennedy was telling Americans to "ask what you can do for your country", the very few most powerful White Male Americans were turning traitor against all the rest of us. They even planned to promote illegal immigration to undermine the labor unions at the same time they shipped out our jobs, giving themselves an excellent scapegoat for future use. What we really need to do is not blame ourselves because we had so very little say in the matters. What we really need to do is rise up and say "Enough Already". Predatory Capitalism is not our king, nor are the perpetrators our kings. Yet Congress is treating them like kings . . giving them our money in the form of corporate welfare. When that speech was given by JFK . . . $1.50 was paid in taxes by business and corporations for every $1 paid by the individual. Remember also that in those days the top rate for individuals was above 70% before deductions. Today corporations and businesses pay 25 cents in taxes for every dollar the individual pays in taxes, with the top bracket just lowered to 37%. Wages have stagnated . . . but what is not reported is that those wages buy less than half of what was possible 30 years ago. Meanwhile expenses have risen at the same rate or higher than GDP per capita. We are being sucked dry and the schemers doing the sucking are following a plan cooked up by old enemies of Roosevelt . . who incidentally also brought us the GREAT REPUBLICAN DEPRESSION. What we need to do is to overthrow the capitalist system. Changing laws or making new regulations will not work, those mechanisms are undermined as soon as they are implemented. We need a Green power grid, we need corporations to be abolished or if not, then labor and women need to make up 50% of the Board of Directors of every corporation BY LAW. It is time to make changes that are a permanent from the male dominated hierarchies in government and business.
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  1969. We the people have never controlled this country. It was a slogan then and it remains a slogan today.
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  1970.  @shadow_of_thoth  - BUT WHEN . . . there is a wealth cap, the inevitable chemical reaction will result in most companies evolving into worker owned cooperatives, without the need for the abolishment of private ownership. Additionally, the tax system would be automatically simplified with a wealth cap in place. No more need for all those lobbyists who generate tax deduction loopholes. Woo! With all that capital not being absorbed into gigantic wealth funds with a wealth cap in place, universal health care, tuition free education at every level and a UBI become excepted norms in a civil society. You see, it is really not that complicated. The oligarchy and corporate interests just want to make it seem complicated, plus thy DON'T want you to see how easy it was for them to get the free wealth for all these centuries.
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  1971.  The Irish Italian  - In your comment the word "dictate", followed by the words "no matter what" are misapplied, such a declaration is almost certainly false. The "pareto distribution principles" may apply under certain conditions, or it may not. Alter the conditions and the outcome is often altered. Lets find out how well the pareto distribution principles actually apply to wealth when the conditions for holding wealth are altered.
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  1972.  @subjectively_objective  - Your King Louis observation is on target. I have been searching all through history and it seems that wealth and corruption has lead to the downfall of most societies. As a country with the worlds reserve currency, we are way out over our skis. This year alone, for every dollar in economic growth, financial assets (including stocks) have gained $14 in value. This is what Pelosi is protecting. At a whopping $9.9 trillion, gains in financial assets currently stand at 49% of our entire economic output. The choice now is quite stark. What we really must have is a hard cap on wealth accumulation, or we get extinction.
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  1973. Mitch is playing . . . as in manipulating . . . the Fox News crowd. This is his way of setting up the field so that when no "bi-partisanship" materializes . . . he will blame the democrats for being uncooperative. Playing the base while raping them, that is the Mitch game.
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  1974.  @amarie9676  - Yes, the welfare system has consumed the great United States economy. That is because the economy is so much smaller than the sum total of financial assets that draw their interest and dividend payments from the economy. The ownership of those financial assets resides mostly with those who have the most unearned wealth. Translated, the United States economy supports a huge welfare burden, welfare for the wealthy. Now, I can hear the protests already, yet if you can do 4th grade math, you can see the truth for yourself. There are over $100 trillion in financial assets which exclude real estate, so if we just use $100 trillion and an average of 5% capital gains, that comes out to $5 trillion in capital gains. Measure that against an economy that only gained $66 billion in 2019, then capital gains ate all the economic gains of 2019 plus 20% of the economy itself. The math speaks for itself and it is only getting worse.
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  1975.  @SteveM-gj2vy  - Tool.
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  1976.  @retn1122  -Tool, puppet and fool.
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  1977.  Dan Ryan  - Everyone who invests, has a 401K or an IRA is an accomplice to the looting of the United States Treasury. Of course "investing" is a gamble, the productive economy cannot pay for the growth of "investments", which is why the Treasury is needed to "bail out" "investments" that are "too big to fail". Those who are not oligarchs do not know when to bail out, their ride is up and then straight down. Right now, the stock market run up is fueled by unwarranted exuberance fueled by propaganda. The ads running here on YouTube featuring investment services or advice reek of manipulation and desperation, that is a sure sign that "investments are about to go south. However, the wealthy will have already gotten theirs because they rigged the market and they own the government. The entire setup is a 50 year old scam.
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  1978. Want to blow your mind? Financial assets gained $13.277 trillion in 2021. That sum is equal to 66.98% of our entire GDP.
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  1979.  @Gamenetreviews  - You have a very shallow argument there Game. Bill Gates 2% annual wealth tax on $20 billion would be $400 million. No one of his stature would settle for less than a 5% rate of return on his invested wealth, so even after he paid the 2% his net worth (at 5% RoR) his fortune would still grow by $600 million. The problem no one is talking about is this: The 1% have over $30 trillion in idle wealth which they "invest" for a rate of return. There is also $28 trillion in retirement savings which is also invested for growth, which must be a RoR over inflation and fees. I don't know how much of an overlap there is between the retirement savings and the 1%'s accumulated wealth, so for the sake of simplicity, lets ignore the retirement savings in the following math which illustrates the problem few seem to grasp. Our U.S. economy is just shy of $20 trillion in annual GDP with a growth rate (in 2018) of 2.56% The 1% are "investing" at a RoR of over 5%, (S&P 500 index funds have paid over 9% since 1994). That is $30 trillion seeking a rate of return in a $20 trillion annual economy. The economy GDP grew by $560 billion in 2018. The RoR on $30 trillion at 5% is a trillion and a half dollars ($1.5 trillion) Can you see the problem yet? To pay the 1% their RoR, all of the GDP gains for 2018 are eliminated, plus an additional $940 billion skimmed directly out of the economy. This is done by raising the price of health care, housing and whatever else can be used by financial institutions to extract wealth from us, all the while calling that extraction "product" or "production in the economy". That extraction from us is actually counted by these criminals as part of the economic growth for the year. In reality the economy is shrinking, the numbers are being skewed to hide this from us. What we really need to do is dump this 2% on wealth tax, instead we need to put a hard cap on accumulated wealth for individuals and corporations. This much . . . no more. This whole "incentives" argument is bullshit to cover up the scam they are pulling on us. I say we cap wealth accumulation at $10 million, that is plenty to live a life of luxury and it will stop wealthy people from buying our politics and shaping government policy.
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  1980. ​ @Gamenetreviews  - Infinite growth is a fairy tale, or o put it bluntly, a scam. You have not giving any obvious reason for a wealth cap being a horrible idea, looking at France hardly counts. Put some brain cells into the task man! Come up with real reasons against a wealth cap, and for each reason you give I think there are many valid counter arguments. I'll give you the first one for free. A wealth cap would put an end to housing speculation, therefor interrupting the so called "growth" in the housing markets which is deleterious and unhealthy. Banks would no longer be able then to create new money out of thin air for new mortgages, thus slowing the devaluation of the dollar which has afflicted consumers for the past 40 years.
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  1981.  @Gamenetreviews  - Nice job completely ignoring the math. You are very smart.
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  1982.  @Gamenetreviews  - Still failing to address the inescapable math. Pivot all you want to, you cannot run away from the fact that infinite growth is a fairy tale. You talk about nightmares, what we have right now is the mother of all nightmares and you are failing to address that fact.
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  1983.  @Gamenetreviews  - Growth carries on even when resources are finite, just in different ways. However, growth of pollution, growth of population, growth of concentrated wealth in the hands of less than 1% of the population, these cannot be infinite. You really don't have the intellect to think these things out, as shown by your "one line" approach here. When confronted with a wall of math you cannot refute, you seek refuge, pivot and hide. Don't have children, they won't survive with you as a parent.
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  1984.  @Gamenetreviews  - All that education from a high ranked university and your top "low" school has not taught you how to spell. The word is "taunt", not "taught". You, my friend, are brainwashed. You have swallowed all the capitalist propaganda furnished by "high ranked" universities that rely on endowments and gifts from the libertarian leaning Koch's and their ilk. It appears I have several decades on you in the "real world", which have taught me far more than your vaunted university education. You should try it sometime, you certainly are lacking real world credentials. Strong or even weak capitalism is not required for future growth or technological innovation, in fact capitalism is an extreme detriment to both growth and technological innovation. A majority of technological innovations have been birthed due to socialism, not capitalism, especially here in the United States. I could give you lessons, but in order to not waste my valuable time, you would have to prove that your brain has not been too far rotted by the propaganda you have absorbed.
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  1985.  @Gamenetreviews  - You are spouting right wing libertarian talking points (propaganda), not actual fact. It bears repeating that you still have not addressed my original comment, which shows how weak your intellect really is. You cannot have capitalists with $30 trillion seeking a 5% rate of return from a $20 trillion annual GDP growing at 2.5% annually without cannibalizing the economy. One trillion dollars is skimmed of the annual GDP to pay this RoR to the 1%, yet instead of calling it skimming, capitalist's rebrand this looting as productivity. I'm calling out the lie that is capitalism and you, the aspiring lawyer, cannot counter my facts. Objection overruled. Meanwhile, if you are too lazy to check your spelling, then you are also too lazy to check your facts. You lost your case.
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  1986.  @Gamenetreviews  - How can anyone have a genuine debate with a liar? You have pivoted again, this time with outright lies. You want to believe what you have written? Then prepare for a pitchfork right up your ass my friend, because the people are not going to be fooled by your lies or Bill Gates lies for very much longer.
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  1987.  @Gamenetreviews  - Once again, you are in to big of a hurry to divert. Must be difficult to have such a huge inferiority complex, especially when you are outmaneuvered by a superior intellect. No wonder you chose law school.
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  1988.  @Gamenetreviews  - You know, it is so funny that you libertarians are so predictable. Every time you lose because the facts don't align with your preferred outcome, you resort to calling people failures. Heard it a thousand times and not once has your ilk had actual facts to back yourself up. What a sad loser.
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  1989.  @Gamenetreviews  - The core fact here and now is that you lied. "American billionaires have higher rates of returns because they grow the economy more and cause more innovation." That is a lie. American billionaires have those billions because they take more out of the economy than they put in. "Most of the growth in our economy is done by Billionaires companies." Another lie. Most of the "growth in our economy is wealth extraction which is rebranded as "growth". You simply cannot accept the facts, so you lie. Typical capitalist. Easy to goad. Try being honest, you will not melt.
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  1990.  @Gamenetreviews  _ Funny how you keep assigning a source in order to justify your corrupt beliefs. What I wrote about is common knowledge and straight forward math, not a reference to Marx or Picketty. What you are referring to when you cite Google, Facebook or Koch Industries are capitalist monopolies, which is another name for the executioner of small businesses and innovation. The billionaires that have resulted from these monopolies exploit labor and extract wealth from the rest of us, that is not growth, it is cannibalism. Furthermore, the trope that capitalism is the source of innovation and invention is entirely incorrect. The U.S. taxpayers paid for the research and development of the internet, the computer as we now know it, and most of the technology that goes into cell phones. In other words it was socialism that developed the tools of our modern society. Capitalism merely exploited those technologies and made monopolies out of them. Capitalist only care about quarterly profits, they cannot make long term investments because they only think about their short term bottom line, so they steal the results of our long term investments paid for with our tax dollars so they can be exploited. All you have to justify your support of the capitalist system are lies and propaganda. Keep it up and get used to watching your back, the people will not stand for this bullshit much longer. If you keep going down this blatantly dishonest path, the modern equivalent of the pitchfork will be your reward.
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  1991. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  1992. Christophe S - Unfortunately you may be correct. I wonder how much it matters, because the right has taken it upon themselves to steal elections and supreme court justices . . . in my view that is of much graver concern because tens of thousands are dying as a result of right wing politics. Just because the right wing politician did not wield a bicycle lock or acid spray as a weapon, does not mean the political decision and legislative pen are not also instruments of mass death and suffering.
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  1993. Enk Ryzov - Regarding your comment/question toward Aszhara . . . . "Is it okay if I beat you up? . . . . etc", Of course it is NOT ok, nobody wants that. However there is something you are completely missing here. The Antifa crowd is doing some damage and hurt to be sure, yet what they are protesting and calling attention to is a huge, prolifically spreading and ongoing hurt being inflicted upon us by the hate/exclusion/racist crowd. How can you compare the two? Antifa are BB's by weight and mass . . . and the groups they protest against are planetary objects by weight and mass. Huge difference in the amount of harm being done if you look at the real damage each group inflicts proportionally.
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  1994. Saint Kimbo - Why are you here? Where have you been? You want details? Start with Reagan and Friedman, move on to wage stagnation, Citizens United SCOTUS decicision, wealth inequality . . . and that is just a start. Then compare it to the three republican presidents in the 1920's, how the USA crashed the world economy and pushed Germany into fascism. Now in the age of tRump it has come to flower when the KKK and nazi's can come out in the open and proclaim a president's support. All of this is fueled by a long burning righteous hatred in the hearts of racists, bigots and those who feel they have the right to rule. Additionally, fascism ends as a one part rule, however that is never the way it begins. Are you so ignorant of history that you do not see all the warning signs? You are dangerous in your lack of understanding. Don't even dare to say none of this is connected to this day and age, I've read your comments and to quote you yourself "For chrissake do some research, Bonehead".
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  1995. Kyle - You have this wrong. Trump is doing exactly what Putin wants . . . this treaty covered intermediate range missiles, the ones that threaten Europe. Trump will turn a blind eye now to Putin as he threatens Europe, our allies, with the new generation of Russian nukes. Putin does not care, when Trump claims that Russia never honored the agreement, because anything to get the treaty gone is ok with Putin. The USA will not be in a New Cold War with Russia, the USA will sit on the sidelines as Russian plans to subvert democracy in Europe solidify.
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  1996. catt ya - No. Trump is in Putin's bed and does everything Vlad wants . . . but they are not allies. Either you are unbelievably naive or another one of Vlad's trolls, Trumps actions are so transparent the entire world sees what he has done and is doing for the benefit of Putin.
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  1997. You people want real answers? Then you must first look at the real problem. We have a $22 trillion economy, but $5 trillion of that is interest payments on over $100 trillion in financial assets (the wealth of the 1% mostly). Those interest payments are the reason our housing and healthcare costs keep going up. You want real solutions? Then get it through your thick heads that a wealth cap for individuals and businesses is the only solution to most of our problems. No reform, no law can hold up when wealthy people and corporations can simply dismantle the reforms. Get real for once in your lives and stop chasing petty idealistic ideas.
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  1998. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just said on TYT "the republicans are afraid I will send their kids to college". Priceless!! I certainly wish we had a JD win out here in California, but I'm so happy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her district.
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  1999. loki the jokester - What you do not seem to understand is this . . . nobody pays. Not you, not me, not the republicans kids. Why? Because the USA has a currency not fixed to gold or any other currency. All the wars, the current 200 billion dollar increase in military spending and the bank bailouts of 2009 were accomplished by printing money out of thin air. There is no reason free college, medicare for all and housing all the homeless cannot be accomplished in the same manner. All this talk about the federal debt and deficits have been hype ever since Nixon took us off the gold standard. That is why the republicans were not worried about giving their rich buddies a tax cut and increasing the debt by 1.5 trillion dollars last year . . . because the debt is simply a number and not something we ever have to pay back . . . because in the end the USA has a monopoly on the manufacture of new dollars and new dollars will be available the instant Congress appropriates them. Thus it will remain until the Constitution is thrown down.
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  2000. loki the jokester - Yes, someone does have to pay. The people who lost their homes and pensions to the bankers. That is who pays. So you think the heath insurance industry is some kind of advanced social welfare program for white collar workers? Meanwhile the insurance corporations make ours the most costly medical system in the world. What is going to happen when millions of truck drivers lose their jobs to self-driving trucks? What about the current army of middle aged workers who are discriminated against in the job market and have simply stopped looking? What about them? Are you ok with telling those folks they never have jobs again in their lifetime? Because that is the way of things now, but adding billions to the over bloated defense budget and giving tax cuts to billionaires is ok?
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  2001. loki the jokester - White-collar worker. ... White-collar work may be performed in an office or other administrative setting. Other types of work are those of a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor and a pink-collar worker, whose labor is related to customer interaction, entertainment, sales, or other service-oriented work. I can't believe you did not know what a white collar worker is! Do you go to school in a place where K-12 education has been gutted by the republicans?
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  2002. loki the jokester - Paying your fair share of taxes at the state and local level is necessary. Everyone paying a fixed percentage is crazy though, all taxes need to be progressive . . . the more you make the greater percentage of your earnings go to taxes. Fixed percentage taxes are discriminatory toward low income earners. However paying federal taxes are unnecessary, since the Federal Reserve can fund the entire federal government without out tax money. Federal taxes have been a scam for almost fifty years.
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  2003. loki the jokester - You have a warped sense of what is fair. Reasoning like that is what has caused industrial capital to flee the USA in search of cheaper labor. That kind of reasoning get really skewed when capital gains and unearned income taxes come in lower than earned income taxes. Yeah, work hard to get less while the person who does not lift a finger toward actual work reaps huge benefits. You are regurgitating conservative taking points, but you seem to have little understanding of the economic mechanics of our current tax scheme. Conservative talking points seem to make sense to the lay person, but in reality it is the same as taking a obsolete junk box of Nissan, Ford and BMW spare parts to build a working engine with. Don't worry though, you are in good company. I'm 57 years old and until two years ago . . . I understood the economy the same way you currently understand it. You and I have both been conned, the difference between us is that I spent the last two years doing solid research. The average Joe is too busy on the hamster wheel to do what I have done, but I am one of the no-longer-needed ghosts in this economy . . . so I have the time. Our economy is a shell game, the old myths are still around because they serve to pacify an economically illiterate population. You are repeating mythology my friend.
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  2004. loki the jokester - I am glad to read that you enjoy the conversation, that is a welcome break from what I usually read in responses! Ok, the fixed tax. When you have necessary expenses to live and operate in the economy, that has to be deducted from your earnings. To make things easy, lets compare two annual salaries . . . one at $20,000 and the other at $50, 000 per year. Both workers work full time, both work very hard, both live in the same neighborhood and both have the same level of education. With a 10% fixed tax, the take home pay is $18,000 and $45,000 respectively. Lets say that minimum annual expenses to live are $15,000. So one worker ends up with $3,000 annually for disposable discretionary income, while the higher salaried worker ends up with $30,000 annually for disposable discretionary income . . . ten times more "wealth" than his neighbor for the same amount of time spent working. "Nothing wrong with that" you might say, but if the higher income worker was taxed progressively higher at 20%, that higher income earner would still have $25,000 . . . way more than the $3000 his poorer neighbor has. The poorer worker is being penalized simply for making less money, because "fixed" taxes require a greater percentage of his gross income after expenses. What you are advocating for puts an undue burden on the lower income household, while those who can afford to pay more taxes receive an undue benefit from a fixed tax rate.
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  2005. Agreed. Biden will be a disaster. Here is what a Biden win is going to do. First, it is going to put Americans to sleep. Everything is fine, we got rid of Trump. Cool, we can stop paying attention now. Four years is going to tick by while the country goes back into Obama daydreams. Meanwhile, nothing gets done on climate change, four years gone from the clock. Moving on, the little know time bomb of financial assets will continue on its merry way. Just paying interest and dividends on financial assets takes up a quarter of our economy, which is the hidden reason why Trump won in the first place. All that interest and dividend money has to be well hidden in the economy, so housing will go up, health care will climb faster and interest rates on credit cars will exceed 35%. All of this sets the stage for a new, smarter version of Trump to run on the republican side for 2024, saying truthfully that the democrats simply cannot do anything right. Ok, you are so into getting rid of Trump, you just screwed the entire human species. Happy now?
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  2006.  Christopher James McCaul  - That IRA comment was worth a grin!
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  2007.  @theflyingpotato5601  - So you believe that when someone has money, they deserve more free money. They don't have to work for that free money, it just comes to them because they already have money. Sorry Buddy, but that just does not wash anymore. Love the way you spell Bud, clever is now "cleaver"! Ha ha!! Now, lets get down to business. I don't have a problem when Bill Gates creates Microsoft and makes several million dollars. However, I do have a problem when he puts millions into a so-called "investment" account which pays out an interest rate that is higher than annual economic growth. Nor is it good for the economy for Bill Gates to charge "rent" on every single financial transaction that uses Microsoft software, especially since users have to buy that software in the first place. You don't know very much about the "rentier class" evidently. Here is the description: Rentier capitalism is a term currently used to describe the belief in economic practices of monopolization of access to any kind of property and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society. Your head if filled with the propaganda these oligarchs put out to confuse poor souls like you into defending their thievery. Every year wealth is drained from you, me and every family in the world, just to pay free money to those who already have too much. Times are changing, so if you want to continue this futile defense of the indefensible, just make sure you have some padding so you don't damage yourself while hitting you head against that stone wall.
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  2008.  @theflyingpotato5601  - In reading your comments to others in this thread, plus you reply to me, I believe that you are naive or simply not as informed as you believe you are, across multiple thresholds. Credit is a driving force behind behind wealth redistribution and a prime factor driving the cost of housing up beyond affordability for most people. Executive pay that includes stock options is another driving force behind wealth redistribution, as the boards of corporations buy back their own stocks it inflates their own stock prices without contributing anything to the economy. Furthermore, stock buybacks are incentivized as a method of increasing executive and board member pay. Finally, did you actually read and understand what I wrote? I don't think you understand the math. With the mass of financial assets being at least four times larger than the economy and "earning" at a rate larger than economic growth, what you wrote in your opening sentence is simply not possible. You have written some reasonable things, but you must reexamine the ways and means in which wealth is generated to understand that we are in an economic crisis like no other in human history, not to mention this crisis will cause our extinction if it is not resolved in short order.
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  2009.  @theflyingpotato5601  - You are correct of course, but this system has lead to the downfall of every empire in history. The problem we have today is that capitalism must always grow. Because of this, the savings people have is no longer in hard currency or precious metals (actual metals, not paper based assets). Instead, savings are inextricably tied to ever expanding debt through asset securities and this binds up the market. Free market capitalism really does not exist any longer. Debts cannot be forgiven because those debts represent someone else's savings. The problem is, with the exponential growth of both debt and wealth, at some point in the next century, the entire earth will be owned by one person. Have you read Michael Hudson's paper on the history of compounded interest? My favorite passage demonstrates the folly of our finance system: "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. _One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold_. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” In his Observations on Reversionary Payments, first published in 1769 and running through six editions by 1803, Price elaborated how the rate of multiplication would be even higher at 6 percent: “A shilling put out at 6% compound interest at our Saviour’s birth would . . . have increased to a greater sum than the whole solar system could hold, supposing it a sphere equal in diameter to the diameter of Saturn’s orbit.”" Every fallen empire or nation in our world's history has fallen because of compounded interest, the Roman Empire being a prime example. The same will happen to our own empire, unless we make changes, but that will rely on people like you and I to understand what has happened before us. The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four-Thousand Year Overview Part II https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  2010. Kevin Allen - Wow . . . projecting much? Any actual brains in that head of yours? Lets see if you can wrap your brain around some real information. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  2011.  nicki wilson  - I have been following and writing on the comment thread stated by "Constitutional Socialism", in which there is a tire shop worker named "Kyle Watson", to whom you have made several replies. Kyle seems to be unaware that our government has been bought out and is now run by those who hold wealth. You are correct, the government printing presses are running at full capacity, not to fund the government, but to pay the wealthy to stay wealthy. The entire system has become one corrupt mess. Capitalism has been unsustainable for over 30 years now, having exhausted all the potential of actual productivity to produce a constant flow of profit. "Rate of returns" on "investments" can no longer be met by the "markets", but instead must be met by looting the government treasury directly. It astonished me when listening to Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on the "Renegades Inc." show, say (paraphrasing here) "the new Occupy Wall Street, when it forms, will have competent leadership. The failure of the government to act will result in the new Occupy Wall Street finding the wealthy and their families, pulling them out of their mansions into the street and shooting them in the head". He said this (I believe), because he recognized that the wealthy will never voluntarily give up their power, and they will destroy all organized human society in the pursuit of more wealth. They will have to be stopped by by force. Scraps of paper with president's portraits on them are an artificial construct, and the wealthy are willing to destroy our planet just to have a bigger pile of paper than everyone else.
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  2012. Obama or Trump . . . who cares! That $23 trillion in federal debt was not because we went on some kind of spending spree, it is because the politicians are bought and paid for by the 1% who need their "investments" in Lockheed and Ratheon to pay off year after year. Right now we have $30 trillion in accumulated wealth chasing a 7.5% rate of return in a $20 trillion dollar annual economy. That means the 1% are consuming all of our GDP gains plus another $1,000 billion . . . just in interest (that is "free money" people)! Who says either party is against socialism? They both support privatizing gains and socializing losses, that is why we have a federal dept this high. We the People . . are being cannibalized for parts.
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  2013. About the leaked call between Trump and the governor's, most people are rightly singling out Trump's authoritative "dominate them" narrative. My curiosity is piqued by something else Trump said; "If you don't dominate, you're wasting your time," said. "They're going to run over you. You're going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate." I wonder, to whom are the governor's going to look like "jerks"? Who is Trump trying to impress?
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  2014.  @PierceKeaton  - Yes, we are all sick of that quote.Thing is, no one pulls back the curtain to see the men behind it. Reagan's administration ushered in the era of wealth transfer, which could only happen with a minimized government.
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  2015.  @kingjaz7708  - You have made probably the most salient and cogent comment in this thread.
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  2016.  @KaiserS0ZE  - And yet, Reagan was the one who opened to door for our country to be taken over by oligarchs. Freedom? What freedom? We are being hemmed in by rising costs on every front, not because of "homeless people" but because the wealthy have been manipulating us. Just this year the wealthiest grew their fortunes by over TEN TRILLION dollars, at a time when the economy was shrinking. Who is buying up all the houses right now? It sure as hell isn't us, it is big corporations coming in with all cash offers. All Reagan had going is a good speaking voice and a talent for the big con.
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  2017. You know, the comments here are rather strange. Yes, there are more homeless people here than in any other state. Why? Because the weather is survivable all year round, it has nothing to do with political ideologies. California roads are not the best to be sure, yet as my daughter departed her state due to divorce, she noted that the roads that were not interstate highways were exceedingly bad in every state until she arrived here. I'm going to point fingers here, "you people", who write all the snide comments about "Commieforna" and the democratic politicians here, yet you are blissfully unaware that you are being manipulated. This video is manipulating you. John Stossel is not an unbiased reporter. His Fox Business show "Stossel", aired viewpoints on individual freedom, free market capitalism and small government, all very common in the American media. Yet what most people seem unaware of is these are the talking points of billionaires, whose purpose is to use propaganda in pursuit of power. The homeless issue is not a product of political positions, because it happens regardless if a democrat or republican is in power. Homelessness is a product of growing wealth, when large corporations buy up whole neighborhoods, driving up costs of home ownership for everyone and driving those less able to cope onto the streets. The wealthy cleaned up in 2020, with financial assets gaining almost ten trillion dollars. I believe the entire reason Trump never responded to the Covid pandemic is because corporations wanted to fire millions and re-hire some of the fired workers at lower wages. Stop blaming the politicians and political parties, while they are not saints, they are not the ones in the drivers seat. Use your common sense people, wealth cannot get bigger while millions lose everything, not unless something fishy is going on with our "elite" wealth holders.
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  2018.  @KaiserS0ZE  - So you took a half million dollars out of the market this year. Bravo. I'm going to guess based on your the contents of your reply, that you don't follow financials very closely. You probably don't care HOW the financial assets gained so much, just happy that they did.
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  2019. Its not "Party over Country" . . . . . its "Oligarchy over Citizens". The republican party represents only the wealthy.
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  2020. bluewater454 - Oppressed? How about explaining this smart guy, the median wage of today buys lass than half of what the median wage purchased 30 years ago. That is a fact, even though the median wage has risen somewhat. That is how we are being oppressed, half the population of the USA is being pushed into the mud. Tell me Smart Guy, how is self reliance supposed to work when capitalism is cutting off your legs at the hips and removing the resoureses one needs for self reliance?
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  2021. bluewater454 - Who needs a study when we have the Koch Brothers, Putin and Donald Trump? What more do you need? In addition, the fear you have over government control will be eased when these rich people are unable to influence government any longer. Come up with solutions bluewater454, stop pretending that its all the governments fault.
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  2022. bluewater454 - This is not at all about the "devaluation" of the dollar, it is about stagnant wages. Yet I will agree that the dollar has been devalued because massive private financialized risk laden debt has been shifted onto the public books. The Koch Brothers, Putin and Donald Trump are just the latest manifestations of an economic system that has long ago stopped being a healthy system. The shifting of private debt onto the public books (aka the federal deficit) is a confirmed diagnosis that capitalism has turned cancerous and is now eating the host body alive. You wrote: "...and then explain to me why greedy rich guys like Trump and the Koch Bros would devalue their own wealth." Your inquiry is a red herring, everybody knows that the devaluation of fiat currency does not affect the wealthy. However anyone close to or under median wage earnings is drastically affected by currency devaluation. Furthermore, since 81% of all new wealth created goes to the top 1% . . . how can you even put forward such a ludicrous lie and then be taken seriously in a debate? Now to your: "I can give you charts on the value of the US dollar all day long. I dont(sic) need to see yours." statement. How arrogant of you, just like the standard supporter of predatory capitalism in its present form. If you deigned to read and actually understand my statement on wealth, no where am I advocating that capitalism be abolished. What I have written is about the transitory stage between capitalism and socialism that must in fact take place if humanity is to survive. You do want your grandchildren to not go extinct, correct? Finally, if you want me to see your comment then please address it correctly to coolmodelguy. I did not receive a notification of your latest comment from YouTube because you neglected to do this.
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  2023. bluewater454 - Do you have any data to support your supposed solutions? I ask because I have the data to back up my statement about the median wage. You capitalist supporters have no plan or solutions . . . but I really want to read what your supposed solutions are.
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  2024. bluewater454 - This I must say, we seem to share a great deal of the same historical knowledge base so far. Since I'm pressed for time at the moment I'll just say this, I agree with a majority of what you wrote with some add ins later on. . . and do not disagree with any of it. Fantastic!
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  2025. bluewater454 - Perhaps you can shed some light on this vexing question: Why did the USA go from having a fully functional indigenous national economy after World War 2, to having an economy after the 1960s that required the U.S. Treasury to start devaluing the dollar? What was the cause of that shift?
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  2026. bluewater454 - You wrote in conclusion: "US deficit spending is therefore directly linked to the devaluation of the US dollar." You and I agree on that point. There is more to add to that statement, because the devaluation of the U.S. dollar is not the only reason for U.S. deficit spending over the past forty years. To bring those items into the discussion at this point however would take the focus off the question I put to you. Taking the dollar off of the gold standard was not the answer I was looking for, yet it is a vital part of the equation (a nod to you for that). . . so please let me add that into the mix. Same question rephrased: Why did the USA go from having a fully functional indigenous national economy after World War 2, to having an economy after the 1960s that required the U.S. Treasury to abandon the gold standard and start devaluing the dollar? What was the cause of that shift?
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  2027. bluewater454 - Before I begin my main comment I want to make this statement. I have greatly enjoyed reading your comments and have come to respect you knowledge, indeed I have learned from you about the FR dollar and its devaluation. It is indeed a rare thing when someone in the comment section with adversarial economic viewpoints actually contributes to my education in a meaningful manner. Thank you. Your reference to the Titanic is an apt one and a good metaphor to use. In like vein I am going to use nautical metaphors to illustrate points I will be making . . . because they work so well. The reference also fits into an area of interest for me, as a model ship designer I have more expertise on the history of ships than I do on the history or workings of the economy. In your valiant effort to answer my question, you have highlighted by many examples of what I will term "damage control" attempts. None of these attempts were effective, in fact they made the problem worse. Your comment subjects reminded me of two segments of naval military history. 1). In the Battle of Jutland, Vice-admiral Beatty is reported to have remarked "there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today," after two of them had exploded within half an hour during the battle. His crews had started to disregard safety procedures during the battle, in an effort to fire their guns faster. This bit of history reminds me of how banking regulations when removed, seems to result in future disaster for the associated economy. 2). In the WW2 naval aircraft carrier engagements, the Japanese inflicted heavy damage as did the American forces. We were outnumbered 2 to 1 at the beginning of the war, yet our carriers prevailed over and over again. Both the British and Americans had excellent measures of containing any avgas fires (seawater annulus fuel lines, carbon dioxide filled lines, extinguishers readily available etc) and every sailor was taught on how to fight fire. Not so with the Japanese, and they paid dearly for that oversight. The British had learned their lessons from the previous war and did not repeat their mistakes. We have an economic system that does not learn from previous disasters and whatever safe guards that have been developed are being shredded and destroyed on purpose by this economic system. Can you imagine what would have happened to the British and American navies in WW2 if lessons from the previous war were ignored? A). Going off the gold standard, B). Devaluing the FR note, aka the U.S. dollar, C). Pushing sub-prime mortgages, D). Debt based economy, E). Sustaining household income requiring women and children to work, F). Deregulation G). Tax cuts. . . . . these are examples that I would liken to "damage control parties" which are doing ineffective work, . . . but were is the damage, what is the nature of the damage and what caused it? You have done a great job pointing out many of these thing yet the core question still remains unanswered. How can we do damage control and repairs, not to mention go on sailing when we don't understand what happened to us? I have come to understand it this way. We did not hit an iceberg or have shellfire score a direct hit on our powder magazines. That would be clearly understood. What has happened, the cause of the economic shift which has in my opinion doomed our economy . . . was the death of 1000 cuts. Our demise was not in any of the items you brought up, they all happened after our 1000 cuts were administered. Our demise was brought about during the 1960's when I was a child, when our leading capitalists abandoned our national economy and labor force. One by one and then by the hundreds, our U.S. industrialists who owned the means of production here in the States, sought to abandon the overpaid U.S. labor market because (dramatic pause), thanks in part to WW2 . . . . the entire world of labor had opened up to them and was beckoning seductively (come hither you profit seeking and very handsome men of capitalism . . . ). There was no conspiracy to do this, it was capitalism taking advantage of market conditions. Yet due to this action and the fact that they basically kept it all hush-hush at first, the citizens of the USA and the U.S. economy (that WAS working for workers) . . . began to bleed out all over the floor. Our representative politicians reacted by painting the floor red and whistling a jaunty tune that with the lyrics "I can't see so, nothing to see here". When our industrialists abandoned the national economy, they royally screwed us over. Everything else since then has been ineffective damage control. Earlier on you wrote: "Like most socialists, you are long on rhetoric and short on accurate information." Well now, I am not an expert on the economy and never wanted to be one. I actually trained to be a capitalist machinist, then retrained as an capitalist architect, then retrained again as a capitalist pizza delivery driver. As a 56 year old, what capitalist job set do I retrain for now that I am broke and broken? There is currently a 62% labor participation rate, and I have not participated in the jobs economy since 2008-2009. There are so many my age that are "ghosts" in this economy, we are not wanted any longer. So now I am doing what you advocated for, trying to attain the means of production and become "self sufficient". The economic headwinds are horrendous, and thus I began to doubt what the old timers in business were telling me about how to succeed. That is why I made it a project two years ago to find out what the hell was happening with our economy. Being an accomplished and proper "capitalist project manager" and the kind of person who takes projects all the way from design to completion, I brought that knowledge and research capability to bear on "my economic research project". My biggest discovery was that all of us workers are "short on accurate information" as you stated, because our news media/representative government has been lying to us and misdirecting us. I felt betrayed. Naturally I started seeking alternatives to the economy we have, and now here we are talking about true Marxism and Resource Based Economies, not that propaganda bullshit lies the government and media have been feeding us about what "socialism and communism" is. So . . . how do you think we get out of this disastrous economic conundrum?
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  2028. bluewater454 - Humans are an inventive species. Tell you what, how about if you bend that significant intellect toward the creation of a society in which that uncertainty does not result in a starving homeless population. I'm certainly game . . . your turn now. Show me what you've got.
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  2029. bluewater454 - Yessss . . . please continue.
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  2030. bluewater454 - So your real point is this: No matter what is attempted, nothing will work so why bother making the attempt. You will really have to explain that one to me in greater detail. With that kind of attitude, why bother to but a red Tesla sports car into orbit and land the reusable rocket boosters onto the launch pad . . . because obviously the genius who dreamed that scheme up is just a dreamer lost in fantasy land. Too many examples contradict your displayed and dour attitude. You know that phrase, "looking at only one side of the coin"? What you are doing is much more selective and subjective in nature. You are looking only at one side of one little ridge . . . on the very thin edge . . . of a very small U.S. minted dime. Your summation represents only a small shot glass in a ocean of human potential. The obvious part of this is that you have chosen that very hidebound position because it suits your perspective. When you wrote: "If that does not describe some of what is coming out of our millennial, and even our "generation X" Americans, I don't know what does." . . . you gave away your prejudged position, which is entirely political in its economic nature. The economic and political leaders of today have been fully aware (as you are also fully aware) for decades of the consequences of capitalism abandoning the U.S. national labor force. That sentence is your cutesy and sickening way of transferring decision making consequences from those who made the decisions . . . onto the backs of their chosen scapegoats. The same game is played with immigrants and the homeless. What you have done here under the guise of your own opinion . . . is spout propaganda. Not even your own original thought. I could spend all night dissecting what you wrote and exposing more of the same, but I what I want from you is some original and out of the box thinking. I don't buy the no-win-scenario, so put on your thinking hat and lets hear something that will actually help us without condemning us to some dystopian nightmare.
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  2031. bluewater454 - Prosperous for whom? Certainly not for I or My Lady. Build on it in what fashion? Do better for whom exactly? Do you have a plan, or is your plan to follow the mindless market where nothing is planned? Certainly you do not believe the status quo is sustainable, so I am asking you . . . what is the plan you believe in . . . for going forward? Let us see a rational non-utopian plan, show us what you've got.
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  2032.  @xandro2445  - Respectfully Sir, the military will eventually be used to keep the capitalist oligarchy in power. It does not take much research to find out that our economy is being cannibalized. Here is how that cannibalization is being done. The top 20% of the USA are holding 2.5 times our annual GDP in financial assets (over $50 trillion). The interest on those assets is five times greater than our economy can support and that is supposing that the entire GDP growth is used solely to pay interest. As they say, the facts on the ground are are these, GDP growth in 2018 was 2.56% or $560 billion, while the interest on the top 20%'s financial assets topped $2.5 trillion. Simply put, you cannot have accumulated wealth that is greater than the entire U.S. economy without gutting our country. Since the oligarchy has gone to great pains to demonize socialism, the only course of action remaining is to sic the military on our people when the serious social unrest begins . . . and that will not be long in coming now. The only thing keeping the lid on things now is active propaganda measures which are being disseminated by republicans and corporate democrats alike. The current economic situation has been a long time in the making and as long as our people remain ignorant of the truth, they will remain governable. The oligarchy know the tide is turning however, that is why they spend so much on propaganda lies, to get our own people to turn on each other rather than on them. Marshall law will not be that far into our future, unless we have a sea change in our politics and our economic system.
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  2033.  @keirfarnum6811  - Thank you for the correction, I'll try to remember that!
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  2034.  @robertl.fallin7062  - I did a Google search to learn more about Mike Goldburg and found nothing useful. Could you offer some clarification about this person and gun control?
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  2035.  @ronpage101  - As a fellow Californian, I wish you the best of luck wherever you go. One thing I can tell you, this country is on the decline. We are going to start a war with China, which we will lose. Things are going to be worse than we could ever imagine, and we did this to ourselves.
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  2036.  @ronpage101  - I also hope that I am wrong. However, when we get to this place, where this year alone financial assets have increased $14 for every one dollar in economic growth, we are in trouble. The knuckleheads running the country don't work for us anymore, have not for quite some time. I can't see things getting better until we can remove financial interests from governing our country. In any case, Happy Trails to you, hope you find that better place. I'm staying put, at least until fires or floods force me out.
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  2037. Nancy Pelosi's donors love Trump so she is certainly never going to act on our behalf and even allow an impeachment inquiry to take place.
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  2038. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  2039. The real problem we have is this, interest payments on the 1%'s wealth exceed three times our annual GDP growth. The 1% are eating us alive.
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  2040.  @Nutrollio  - I do make my own money and I'd rather not have millionaires and billionaires taking chunks of my money without working to earn it.
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  2041.  @freetrailer4poor  - Considered and rejected on the merits. Nobody forced corporations to abandon American workers and go to China, corporations went to China hat in hand and agreed to the Chinese terms . . . which included disclosing the technology and intellectual property Trump is accusing the Chinese of stealing. Furthermore, the reason real estate and rents are too high is because when banks lend for a mortgage, they are not using existing money from account holders to capitalize those loans like we were all taught. They are creating new money with a keystroke and with all that newly created money flooding into the economy is diluting the money supply, they must make bigger and bigger loans to make real profit. That is the core foundation of the rental problem and the LA politicians are in bed with the banks. The real issue is this: Every system has limits . . . every system except one that is. We never talk about placing limits on wealth . . . why do you think that is? The ability to grow unlimited wealth creates every economic and social problem we have. Want to stop the corruption? Then support a wealth cap.
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  2042.  @freetrailer4poor  - When I read your comments, I have the feeling that your information gathering is either incomplete or the information is tainted. I've had the same frame of mind earlier in my life so I recognize it, at that time I did not have sufficient knowledge and it affected my outlook. Here is my reasoning. You gave an example of a solar company. Such a company is a fairly recent type of endeavor. The move to China started decades before solar power was a thing, so the patterns of global employment had already been established. I remember a solar company in my neck of the woods that went belly up because China could undercut their prices. That was two decades ago, when we did not have a comprehensive picture but were aware that outsourcing was becoming a problem economically. With the banking and real estate arenas, your observations betray a complete lack of knowledge about those economic sectors. I'm not saying that to be harsh, what I'm saying is that you must dig in and study real estate and banking more in depth. Those two sectors make up 2/3rds of the FIRE Sector of the economy, their entire basis for existing is to extract economic rents. The banking sector is supposed to serve the productive sectors of the economy, but they do not. Instead they are extraction specialists, taking wealth from most and funneling it to the upper echelons of our societies. (FIRE Sector consists of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate . . . all of which serves no purpose except to extract wealth.)
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  2043. Roadmap to psychopathy. What a load of BS.
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  2044. I voted for Hartson in the primary and I hope she runs again. For the mid-terms I will definitely vote for De Leon. That pretend democrat has got to go.
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  2045. What we really need to do is cap accumulated wealth and top 1% incomes. There is absolutely no reason Bezos needs 150 billion dollars in addition to having the federal government pay medical and food supplements to his employees . . . or why the State of New York should be subsidizing his new HQ2 for billions when he can easily pay the construction expenses out of pocket. Too much concentrated wealth cuts demand for goods and services . . . plus it breeds the great arrogance of the oligarchy.
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  2046.  @jgalt308  - In the U.S and as of 2019, the top 1% of household net worth starts at $11,099,166. That seems like a reasonable place to start with a cap, then shrink the cap over a span of years as the value of real estate and equities peaks and then starts to decline. That leaves all of the space occupied by the lower 99% intact as "incentive."
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  2047.  @jgalt308  - We must go with what we have now for value, not a what was. No use muddying the water, that is just an excuse for not doing anything, including thinking.
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  2048.  @jgalt308  - How about if I buy you one pièze of hot air? A dollar is simply a current unit of measure, one that evaporating due to being part of an open ended and dying system. What is your point? My point is simple, if you want a system to work properly and be reliable, there must be limits. In this fiasco of an economy, an upper limit is the first and most vital requirement to prevent an inevitable system failure.
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  2049.  @jgalt308  - How about you get to the point, you obviously have something to teach here, so teach already.
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  2050.  @jgalt308  - There now, was that so hard? Your teaching shores up and reinforces that limits must be in place. Fiat currencies collapse because there are no effective limits on individual wealth, not now and not in the societies of antiquity during and after the Greek and Roman periods. Earlier times had the wisdom and sense to erase debts and shuffle land usage periodically to prevent oligarchies from emerging. No such common sense exists today, which is why (fiat or gold standard) restrictions must be placed on individual wealth accumulation of we are ever to exit from the era of rampant crime and ever increasing poverty and homelessness. All systems have limits without exception, that is the lesson.
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  2051. I don't know why Krystal does not see this. . . all of these machinations are deliberate. The expiration of the unemployment benefits was deliberately exceeded to put pressure on democrats. Here, take this piecemeal approach while we negotiate? That is a ploy which will be used over and over again to enable the republicans to deny the states anything! That is the whole point of this, starve the people, starve the states, then at the last possible moment offer up just enough to stop bond defaults but then demand the states hand over assets for privatization. Give corporations the leverage to lower wages. The republicans are just like a protection racket, don't want to starve or default on bonds? Then pay up!
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  2052. The simple root of all of our problems political and financial is this . . . accumulated wealth. The oligarchs will obscure this fact in shrouds of propaganda fog, yet there it is. It is time for us to place a hard limit on wealth accumulation, a wealth and ownership cap. No reform, not $15/hr, not medicare for all, not even Social Security, can survive the onslaught of wealth power pitted against these reforms. So we must remove the tools of power from the oligarchs by getting rid of them. Cap everyone's wealth at a set limit, failure to do this will cost us our future as we go extinct from the excesses of the oligarchy.
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  2053.  @reddoggie554  - "In a capitalist society individuals control capital and accumulated wealth" . . . only as long as there are no laws that dictate otherwise. There is nothing at all to prevent us from creating new law that caps wealth, income and ownership in a capitalist society. Furthermore, you are incorrect when stating that "in a socialist society the state controls the capital and accumulated wealth". That statement is oligarch propaganda and patently false. Do you due diligence and research the subject of socialism, do not just regurgitate mythology that serves the oligarchs interests . . . not your or ours.
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  2054.  Frederic Bastiat  - You are correct that you produce more with your tractor than I do with my shovel, and that it is due to capital investment. What you are incorrect about is that capital drives increasing standards of living. You are on the baited hook, and it is so obvious as to be depressing because you think you are educated . . . . but instead you are being used as a tool. Because you can prove to yourself that your capital investment in your tractor brings you greater yield, you are susceptible to propaganda which tells you something you hold as self apparent. With the propaganda in play, you are convinced to support the machinery of systematic deprivation that accumulates through dispossession. More production does not equate to increasing standards of living, that statement is a lie you have been sold. Do the research, actually dig into our economy. Start on this decade, then move back decade by decade until you reach the years 1917 to 1919. Take into account what was happening in the global economy during the periods you study. What you will find, if you make an honest assessment, is that a majority of what you now believe is true . . . is actually propaganda.
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  2055.  Frederic Bastiat  - All that you have done here by binging up "Basic, basic econ" is miss my point entirely, and use a basic tool of propaganda to do so. The irony would be amusing if the consequences of you stomping around with a blindfold on was something the human race could tolerate at this dark hour. Everything you have been taught in basic economics was relevant to the economy during the first 150 years of capitalism, now it is a propaganda tool. As I stated already, do your due diligence and research. Otherwise, you will continue to be a tool . . . a weapon to be used against your own self interests and ours as well. Man up.
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  2056.  Frederic Bastiat  - Rebut your point? When housing, transportation, health care, college education and daycare move up in price, it does not matter how cheap your sandwich or your clothes are. When wages stagnate and those core prices simultaneously triple or more, tell me how that has improved our standard of living. Who cares if the trifles are cheap when the essentials we need to survive move beyond our capability to pay? You are being played for a fool and that is no laughing matter.
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  2057.  @MrHigherplane  - Which higher plane are you operating out of? Are you sure there is enough oxygen for your brain up there? Better check your life support system for leaks, because ground control is registering your feedback on this channel as nonsensical.
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  2058.  @lcr2382  - If there is honesty in your comment, then it is also honest to note that you are mistaken. To say "only" elite leftists will go out and use government money is to ignore how our government is set up and who set it up that way. To ignore something on purpose is one thing, but to be convinced to ignore something is the result of propaganda. In this country, it is right wing propaganda that is well funded and organized. Also, to use the words "elite leftists" together is kind of an oxymoron, because elite leftists are an extinct or even imaginary species.
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  2059. Republicans . . . projecting much? I've never seen such hypocrisy as spewed out by so called conservatives these days. Disgusting.
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  2060. Does Megan McCain understand that republican corporate socialism has run up almost the entire federal debt of 20 trillion dollars? What benefit have the people of the USA gained via the federal debt? Endless wars were charged to the debt. The Wall Street bailout charged to the debt was a double edged killer, millions had their homes taken, retirement plans were devastated and pension fund were raided. If she thinks the government would be so bad under socialism, she should take a real good look at what her daddy and the republican party has done to ruin our citizens lives.
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  2061. Two things have to happen if we are to emerge from this nightmare. 1) Corporations must be decapitated and made illegal, so that the free enterprise written about in the Constitution can once again take their place in the economy. The Founders were anti-corporation because they had vast experience dealing with crown sanctioned monopolies like the East India Trading Corporation. 2) There needs to be a minimum income and . . . a maximum income, along with a cap on the accumulation of wealth. All of humanities problems with each other stem from the power hungry wealth hoarders. Face it, we human beings simply do not function in the best interests of all people when we accumulate more than what is needed to live a luxury lifestyle. Hunger for power takes over and we are living in the nightmare that results from 12,000 years of trickle up economics feeding the megalomaniacs. Any excess income and wealth generated by individuals and companies has to flow back into the society which enabled that wealth to be created. Experience has shown that the "free market" makes horrible decisions, far worse than what right wingers accuse the government of making. (Plus if you think government has made horrible decisions you are correct, and if you look deeper you will find in every instance private corporations were behind the scenes pulling the puppet strings. So really, the free market corporations are always responsible for government decisions.)
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  2062. What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb.
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  2063. Kevin is annoying, and either an idiot or a propagandist. There is an unspoken reason why a majority of our citizens do not understand what is happening to them, which is the very people these pundits are fawning all over themselves for are sucking us dry like parasites. Overall, the value of financial assets grew by $13.68 trillion in 2021, an 11.58% increase over 2020. That value increase is just over 66% of GDP for the year. When financial assets increase in value, it is not because of savvy investment planning. That increase represents a vacuum cleaner that is sucking wealth straight out of the paychecks, wallets, purses and bank accounts of the bottom 90% of households in the USA.
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  2064. What is happening with our economy is actually quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. Capitalism in its current form is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
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  2065.  @gdiaz8827  - Everything you are writing comes straight from the Oligarch's Propaganda Handbook, specifically the chapter on "Divide and Conquer ", which is how they divert your attention from real problems. You cannot refute the math. Privately held wealth with guaranteed growth is draining our citizens and government treasuries, as shown by all the government bailouts over the past two decades. If you cannot do the math or simply don't care to try, then you are the problem. Just try to tell me that I'm wrong. Oh wait, you are going to tell me I'm wrong regardless, because people like you never research what you are told is true. In 2019, privately held financial assets were greater than $90 trillion. Growth of these assets was minimum 5%, which on $90 trillion is $4.5 trillion in wealth growth. If just 19% of the wealth growth was converted to capital gains, that sum eats all of the economic gains for the year. In fact, the top one percent alone holds more wealth than the middle class. They owned 29 percent—or over $25 trillion—of household wealth in 2016, while the ENTIRE middle class owned just $18 trillion. This has not always been the case. Before 2010, the middle class owned more wealth than the top one percent. Since 1995, the share of wealth held by the middle class has steadily declined, while the top one percent’s share has steadily increased. The acidic demolition of wealth owned by the bottom 90% is destroying our country more efficiently, than socialism/communism has done to any other country.
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  2066.  @gdiaz8827  - No escape, you have completely humiliated yourself and succumbed to mind rotting propaganda. Proof is that you cannot refute the math I laid out for you in easy to understand form.
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  2067.  @gdiaz8827  - Just proving that you would rather wallow in ignorance, preferring the idealistic dreams of resisting socialism to the reality that your mind is occupied territory. You cannot face the math my friend.
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  2068. It is not just that republicans don't want to spend more money paying people to stay home. Schools must open because they want parents back at work in order to protect trillions in financial assets belonging to the 1%. If some kids and parents die to protect the financial assets of the 1%, oh well.
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  2069.  @TwoOffTheTeeGolf  - No difference at all. When I pay an increased private cost that has no tangible benefit for me, an increase in cost whose sole purpose is to pay free money in the form of interest on already existing wealth, that is a tax. Gunpoint or not, at least with my government taxes I am getting something in return.
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  2070. What I see here is this, capitalism is gasping for air. Economies around the world are in stagnation. Growth is only happening through the extraction of wealth from common citizens and the manipulation of the stock markets by the central banking system. Here is the USA and elsewhere, the votes are being manipulated to keep the democratic socialist wolves at bay. We are witnessing a dying economic system at the same time we are witnessing our planetary life support system under duress. Change is inevitable.
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  2071. One might think that stock buybacks are the largest swindle in our economy, but that is incorrect. The entire system of stock "markets" and financial assets is a con job and those who participate in the "market" through retirement plans like "IRA's" and "401k's" are unwitting accomplices in the con. The entire concept of a "stock market" has only one purpose, to drain wealth from the economy, the government and workers, and to gift that stolen wealth to people who have done absolutely nothing to earn it. Money not earned is either a gift that is given willingly, or it is stolen.
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  2072. Thank you Trump for wasting so much time tweeting and playing golf.
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  2073. So, the Saudis behead 37 people in a public execution and the United States president and Secretary of State are ok with that. The United States conducts siege warfare against Venezuela, a country that did nothing to the United States, and then blames socialism in Venezuela for people there not having enough food. Trump is deliberately creating the refugee crisis in south American countries, then using those refugees as a political tool to wind up his supporters. The republican party supports the outright slaughter of innocent people in Yemen . . . and they want us to vote for more republicans? Sorry folks, if you support this then you have no business calling yourself good christians or good Americans . . . how can you when you have no longer have anything resembling morals?
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  2074. At the end of 2019, households and non-profit organizations held nearly $100 trillion in interest bearing financial assets. By comparison, the entire national 2019 GDP for the USA was under $22 trillion. Now consider that investments making under 5% annually are not worth having, once inflation and taxes are factored in. Also factor in that over the past 30 years, annual GDP growth has been less than 3% annually (2.56% for 30 years average). Five percent growth on $100 trillion is $5 trillion, so here is the question everyone should be asking: The entire economy of the United States grew less than one trillion dollars in 2019, so where does all the profit come from, to pay $5 trillion in capital gains for those "investors" holding almost $100 trillion in "financial assets"?
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  2075. Given that the media supplies very little accurate information, the Australian health care system never gets mentioned. I read in the comments section of a progressive YouTube channel that the tax paying for your health care system is 1% tax on earnings. Is this accurate?
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  2076. R R - You are being far too simplistic, I fear that you have succumbed to too much propaganda and not enough hard research. You are correct however stating that politicians work for corporations. We have begun to correct this, here in my district we kicked out the republican representative to Congress and elected a democrat that refused political campaign contributions from PAC's and corporations. His entire campaign was run on small dollar individual donations, that is our ticket to a truly representative government. You can start this for your own district by taking a personal pledge not to vote for candidates who accept corporate money.
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  2077. nuvisionprinting - Just in case you have not met her yet, I would like to introduce you to Dr. Stephanie Kelton, who is giving this talk in Australia on the YouTube channel called GetUp! Australia. This video is current, where she talks about national budgets and the myth that your tax money funds the federal government. Given what you told me about your countrymen having an adverse reaction to "communists" . . . I wonder how they would feel if they knew that their government is regularly handing out money to the rich folk. Here is the video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ8ejYqVPGU I've bookmarked this video even though I have listened to a great many of Dr. Kelton's talks, because there is some very pertinent information she lays out for which I want to do some follow up research on. She really helped me to understand how the government is funded and how it is all paid for.
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  2078. J N - Another voice of ignorance. Crack open a book or do some research and educate yourself instead of regurgitating what the oligarchs want you to think.
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  2079. Matthew - Wow. Yet another voice of utter ignorance. What you describe is utter propaganda nonsense or in your misguided example of San Francisco . . . . caused directly by capitalism.
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  2080. Jake Tapper - The cowards will never reply, because they know you are correct.
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  2081. Charles keeps talking about research and development as an corporate entitlement to intellectual property. The basic research done over decades which make these vaccines possible was not done by these big pharma corporations. What Pfizer put in ($2 billion) to quickly develop its version of a Covid-19 vaccine, came after a long chain of research and development. When I just did a cursory search, I came up with the names of the research scientists (Dr. Uğur Şahin and his wife Dr. Özlem Türeci), followed that to Uğur Şahin's career history, where I selected University Medical Center Mainz to follow up on, where he became head of the junior research group. Following the funding for University Medical Center Mainz showed they were funded by EUR 32 million by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. This was but a small slice of information, yet I wonder of what share of Pfizor's profits go back to the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research? This is yet another example of how "our money" does the major funding for basic research and then the positive results gets "handed off" for free to a private corporation and we get nothing. So Pfizer put in $2 billion, they should simply do that as a public service. In the first quarter of 2021, Pfizer sold $3.5 billion of the Covid-19 vaccine, 20% of which will be profit. They will make their money back in nine months, but my view is they should not make any profit from a pandemic, they already make enough profit from their other products.
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  2082.  @ncpublicwatch7816  - This is a high school kid, not a boxer. It does not matter if your hands cover your eyes while being pepper sprayed, that spray has velocity and goes right around fingers. Use some common sense man. I'm 60 years old and have plenty of experience with kids of all ages. The police were out of line and violent. I watched the beginning of this video several times. The student who was tazed was not shown to be attacking anyone. Is there some other video of this event showing what happened prior to the start of this video? In any case, the police are big and strong adults. They can handle situations like this without resorting to pepper spray and especially without using tazers. The young man who was tazed never got up. The officer who did the pepper spray and tazing also did a lot of aggressive shoving, looks like he has anger management issues. Sounds like you have issues as well.
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  2083.  @ncpublicwatch7816  - So that is what the problem is, a lack of respect for authority? Bullshit. The police have a duty not to over react, which was clearly the case here. If you worked in corrections, you are trained to view everyone as a threat, which is where your problem begins and ends. Too bad your training does not include physics, because velocity and surface tension is at play with any kind of spray, so to claim that pepper spray does not go around fingers is ignorance at best. Trying to blame these kids for the officers bad judgement is highly irrational. Perhaps these kids see how the adults react and can judge for themselves that these "authority figures" do not deserve "respect", just like I do not respect them for using force in this situation. No wonder almost a thousand citizens per year are killed by police, and no wonder that respect for authority is lacking, these officers clearly do not deserve to be respected.
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  2084.  @ncpublicwatch7816  - If the police were called to calm things down, this video is an example of the police having the opposite effect. There are several problems with what you are saying here. First is the situation that resulted in the protest. This was a sexual harassment situation. The school administration handled this very poorly and quite unfairly, letting the boy off and punishing the girl, hence the protests. This video did not show a confrontation between students groups, not at all what you describe. The students were clearly upset at the officers conduct and the officers were escalating the situation, this much is very apparent. Frankly, the use of force is what is wrong here, there was no deescalation and use of force in this situation with these students is completely uncalled for. If the majority of people killed by police are trying to kill or injure officers, then why is it that no other country has a record of civilians killed by officers that even comes close to the United States? No, the problem is with use of force being the first action used by police, rather than deescalation. With regards to spray, very few people can close their fingers an not have gaps between the fingers. Spray passes between fingers, some of which changes velocity and direction. I do a lot of painting and over spray must be accounted for when masking, because paint will always find its way onto surfaces it was not intended for. You cannot tell me that pepper spray has its own unique behavior that is different from all other spray. You seem to have contradicted yourself, did he deliberately set out to attack the officer or did he react with fight or flight? Either way, these very large and supposedly well trained officers used force on teenagers in an unwarranted and uncalled for fashion, what I observed was violent action from the police. What I have also observed is that in the courtroom, officers are treated as trained observers, which is essentially a license to be dishonest, causing victims of assaults and other crimes to be further victimized by the very establishments which are supposed to protect, serve and provide justice. Just how many victims of police violence have the opportunity to record and document the assault, or have the means to file and sustain lawsuits? The answer is very, very few in relation to the number of incidents. So basically, what you are trying to sell here is a crock of BS, which perhaps explains the lack of respect for authority you were complaining about.
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  2085.  @ncpublicwatch7816  - Right. As if the conservative control measures of the past 50 years have actually worked to do anything except generate more and deadlier violence. Since 2014, over 7000 people have been killed by police. All that killing has only hardened hatred toward the police and authority figures, it has done nothing whatsoever to engender respect or law and order. The problem you conservatives have is no capability for self reflection, you never learn from your mistakes.
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  2086.  @ncpublicwatch7816  - As usual, conservatives have things backwards and inside out. Every other country has millions of police interactions without killing thousands of their citizens. You have no excuse for the use of excessive force except that you like it. The deflecting and blaming, that is a conservative thing and as usual, you are projecting. Over the past 3 or 4 decades, conservatives have cut civics, math and physics out of education in order to dumb down the population so your brand of politics would be more appealing, just look at the insane mobs who follow Trump the Grifter. For conservatives, proper discipline is corporal punishment, causing PTSD among our children and creating monsters. Your methods are harmful and have never proven to be helpful. The victim, mentality is a conservative staple, "oh, no, I'm being harmed by gay people and transgenders when they want to use the bathroom, and those black people scare me". Pathetic. Then to top it all off, conservatives rigged the economy so that the wealthy gain without earning and everyone else has to pay more for less . . . . which is the root cause of social unrest in our country. Face it Bub, you people have ruined this country, not only for us but for yourselves as well. Your claim that "this country's best periods in the last 50 years have been under republican administrations" is a crock of shit, you made things much worse and what you are seeing in this video proves that point. Want to try again, Karen?
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  2087.  @ncpublicwatch7816  - First thing you wrote was a lie. The wealthy are the reason people are earning less. You can prove your case with one simple question: How is it that in the first half of 2021, financial assets gained $8.7 trillion, when the economy as measured by GDP (a measure of all goods and services sold) had generated only $10.48 trillion in the same period? Just to make it easy, $8.7 trillion is 83% of GDP. The wealthy own 92% of all financial assets, so they received a shit-ton of money for doing no work at all. So how is it Gary, that the wealthy "earned" four out of every five dollars our economy generated this year, without stealing from us? If you can't answer that, how can you expect anyone to believe your crap? As for the rest of the tripe you wrote, I'll wait to read your wise economic answer before I address any of that.
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  2088.  @ncpublicwatch7816  - Oh, my, my. You really think you know what you are talking about. Sadly, you have been made a fool of. You get your news and information from outlets owned by billionaires, where they spoon feed you false information. A profit of 80%. That is what you think is real. In the real world of business, corporate and private business profits are usually less than 10% after expenses. It is very apparent that the organized dumbing down of The United States of America has worked wonders for you, because you believe all the dressed up propaganda they feed you. You know how I can tell? You did not bat an eyelash at the numbers. Trillions, not billions, not millions, but trillions of dollars just flow into the coffers of the wealthy, and you think they earned that money? Here, let me help you out. The Federal Reserve put out quarterly reports, hopefully you are literate enough in math to read charts and graphs. I'll give you the financial assets graph and the real GDP graphs. I asked you a question before and you ignored it, as conservatives often do. So again, how is it Gary, that the wealthy "earned" four out of every five dollars our economy generated this year, without stealing from us? The answer you gave was propaganda bullshit, not a real answer. Do better this time, or all that you have accomplished here is to indicate that the "M" in Gary M, stands for"Moron". FRED-Households and Nonprofit Organizations; Total Financial Assets, Level (TFAABSHNO) | FRED | St. Louis Fed https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO FRED-Real Gross Domestic Product (GDPC1) | FRED | St. Louis Fed https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1
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  2089.  @ncpublicwatch7816  - You see, here is the problem Gary. You have been conditioned to believe things that are not true, and I just spent the last few days setting you up to show exactly that. Your opening statement in your previous comment is proof, there is no way you could make this statement and believe it yourself (" your graphs don't show or prove any of what you claim"), unless you had not bothered to look into what I asked of you. The sad fact is, you did not look into the matter at all, you just wrote what you believe. All the talk about "freeloaders sitting at home collecting welfare, unemployment, foodstamps, etc. While contributing nothing to anyone", that thinking comes from the same place as the idea that in half a year, trillions in asset values were created by profits from businesses. You have been conditioned to believe these things, the wealthy depend on you believing them, so they can continue to loot and pillage our economy and government at will. I've had a lot of experience dealing with people like yourself Gary. I can provide you with all the proof you need to learn what the real facts are, but you will ignore them or claim it proves nothing. Just like that 1999 movie, "The Matrix", you are so enamoured and indeed dependent on the construct of conservative lies you live in, that you will fight to protect the very establishment that has you fooled. I know you did not understand the charts I showed you. It is a sorry state of affairs when a grown man is not capable of understanding simple math. The modern cell phone has a calculator function that easily deals with trillions, if you could read the charts, it would take you less than a half hour to do enough math to have any rational person wondering how these numbers could be true. There is more, the M2 money supply showed more money created in two years than all of our previous history as a country. The Monetary Velocity chart, showing how many times a dollar changes hands in a given amount of time, is the slowest it has been in all of our previous history as a country. If what you wrote was true and profits from business fueled financial asset growth on that chart, then that is a really neat trick when the money created is not making it into the consumers hands for spending on goods. But somehow that money is making its way into asset holdings, funny that, isn't it? Let me connect the dots for you. There is no respect for authority, because the authorities have let down the people over decades by rigging the game so only the wealthy benefit. This is a conservative achievement. It was a conservative who "opened the door to China" the first time (US Secretary of State John Hay). The second time was the 1972 "Visit to China" by Nixon, which opened the door for conservative industrialists to export virtually all of our manufacturing to China and other low labor cost countries. It was a conservative, Reagan, who started busting up the unions which made this country great for the middle class. It was a conservative, (George Bush Sr) who drafted and negotiated NAFTA, which further degraded our industry employment. The kids these days know they will be saddled with debt going to college and most of them can only look forward to menial employment. This situation, which conservatism was intimately involved in creating, is the reason the police run into "volatile situations" at schools and why gangs of "flash mob" thieves are looting stores these days rather than take slave wage jobs. You will deny all of this, to be sure. You are after all, a faithful cog in the conservative grift machine, believing every lie as truth, while they milk the life from your very marrow. Sad really, because with all the effort you put into this "discussion", you showed that you have the potential to break your chains. Meanwhile, like a lot of good people, we who are not believers in the conservative bill of goods, will oppose you and call you out when you repeat lies fed to you by the wealth propaganda machine (Fox News and basically every conservative media venue).
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  2090.  @danielj6899  - For those of you who are commenting one way or another on the merits of investing, I would like to ask a question or two. When the sum total of financial assets ( "investments" ) in the USA top $90 trillion and the economy as measured by GDP is around $21.5 trillion, how do "investments" make 6 to 7 percent while the GDP only grows by 2.56% annually? With wealth being larger and growing faster than the economy, how does the economy pay off the dividends wealth earns?
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  2091. Taxation should be much higher than 80%. I for one do not believe that any sane person needs more than a set amount of money to live fabulously. Work hard and earn a lot more than others . . that is ok. Yet when you reach a certain point, society will be better served by your excess earnings going directly back into the society from whence it came. Then mankind will be able to do the BIG things, the stuff a healthy, robust and profitable private industry would just never tackle. Personal, business, corporate . . . tax it all so no one is holding excess profits "offshore" anymore. No one needs THAT much money unless POWER is what they really crave. For that reason alone, excess wealth should go back into the society from whence it came. That would stop individuals from adversely affecting all of mankind with stupid and deadly decisions. We can see first hand how dangerous it is for mankind to have so much wealth and power concentrated into the hands and limited minds of so few.
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  2092.  @artirony410  - BASED? As in the center of operations? A naval base? A ship is BASED at a port . . . BASED?
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  2093.  @Vinny_Havoc  - Most people don't realize that in the USA there is over $90 trillion in financial assets which are "earning " interest. Just take an average interest of 5%, that is $4.5 trillion, which is over 20% of the entire GDP just for interest payments. The math shows that this trend is unsustainable, we must place a cap on accumulated wealth or face the inevitable collapse of the entire global economy.
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  2094. Not going to happen. Mitch McConnell is going back to appointing unqualified federal judges, no more legislation until he fills every vacancy, said so himself on the Hugh Hewitt Show two days ago.
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  2095. Summary of the Trump Presidency: "It's not my fault, it's not my fault. Save yourself, I'm not going to do my job."
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  2096. Tucker says that republicans often voluntarily relinquish power, but democrats never do? Has he ever met democrats? Has anyone met a republican who willingly relinquished power? Usually when a republican loses an election they go bat shit crazy over it. Tucker's projection is full on propaganda.
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  2097.  May Day  - I am impressed, and quite honored. You are correct, I probably know less that 1% of of the theoretical knowledge that you have on the theory of socialism/ Marxism/ communism. I am not an academic at all. For lack of a better term, I am a mechanical engineer and not an accredited one, I'm self taught. My qualifications as an economist are as follows, none. What I am qualified to do is analyze systems, design and build machines. For fun, I design and build functional remote control scale models, submarines, boats and aircraft. These recreational projects favor military and science fiction subjects. Scale models demand research and I have completed many different projects successfully. So when I turned my attention toward figuring out why our economy was so strange, it became a research project, just like the initial stages of a scale model project. Keep in mind, at the time this project started, the only thing I really knew about the economy was media reports on the stock market. What I felt about the economy was this, there was something wrong. I did not know what, but I wanted to find out. This project started about five years ago. The first year was spent gathering information and reading histories. The second year was much the same, because there was so much to learn, this was taking up a lot of time. By the third year I was seeing distinct patterns and the structure of the economy was starting to make sense. When I say "make sense", I meant in the manner that a malfunctioning automobile makes sense to a mechanic. While on this journey, I bumped into all the names and "isms" that populate economic jargon and history. I paid attention, but I am not smitten with any particular economic theory or historical figure. I started to understand the system. The system is horribly out of tune, running without logical and necessary regulators. I've seen mechanical system that run this way, on race cars, racing airplanes and racing boats. The power plants are run at full capacity and even though they get stripped down and overhauled regularly, when pushed too hard they blow up. Our economy is going to blow up. No system, whether it be natural or artificial, can grow infinitely. Our economy grows on an exponential curve. Wealth accumulation grows on a steeper exponential curve. Money printing is a vertical line going off the charts in 2020, compared to the decades before this, 2020 stands out as a monument to fiat currency printing. The wealth is not generated by producing anything. The growth is a manipulation which is played like a game. The stunning thing is, with all that money printing, all those trillions are not going anywhere except the stock market, a casino. The velocity of money has dropped to the lowest level in our history, because most ordinary people are tapped out, far into debt with no money to spend. As an engineer, the answer is obvious. The economy is a system, name it whatever you want. I will not allow an engine to rev up RPM's past a certain limit, so I make a mechanical regulator for the carburetor . The economy is the same, it needs an upper limit. I will not allow an engine to drop below a safe idle speed, to keep the engine from shutting itself off while in use. The economy needs the same, a threshold below which people cannot economically pass. The real problem is that unlimited wealth accumulation by individuals has been accepted and enforced for 12,000 years, yet that is the the one feature of the economy that must change. I look at the economy like a huge manifold. The current flow patterns are destructive. The solution is, change the flow pattern to something efficient and sustainable. That last part is a political issue and that is where change goes to die. The wealthy have so much, they want to keep the present system. They bend all of their wealth and assets toward creating narratives, diverting the attention of the public away from charts and dials, all of which are currently flashing disaster alerts.
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  2098. Fully half or more of our GDP goes to pay interest, dividends and other forms of unearned income. The worse news is that due to effects of compounding, it is just going to get worse. "Unearned income" derived from every source, reached critical mass over two decades ago, which means that "earnings" demands, will only become greater each year.
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  2099.  @redtra236  - Oh Boo Hoo, big police officer can't take on a teenager without pepper spray and tazers. I did not see any attacks. One teenager in custody (black teenager, go figure) and no attacks from the other teenagers that could not simply be shrugged off. I'm a small man and I've been hit by teenagers, they have no power, no real battle dicipline. This event was a massive over reaction, but par for the course with today's police, who are basically racist cowards these days. That is why over 7000 citizens have been shot and killed by police since 2014, a record unmatched by the top ten closest countries in the world. What in the hell is wrong with you people?
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  2100.  @cxarhomell5867  - You wrote: "He got put down", like an animal. I can clearly sense where the problem is.
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  2101. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  2102. Yup. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  2103. Boomer here. If the DNC does not select Bernie Sanders as the democratic candidate for the general election, I will be writing Bernie in even if my ballot does not have a write in space. Can't trust the DNC.
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  2104. An actual rational observation, a welcome sight. Financial assets have gained $8.7 trillion in the first six months of 2021, which is 83% of GDP. We should have air raid sirens going off, but no one has really noticed this looting.
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  2105. Dom Verdi - So speaks the voice of ignorance.
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  2106.  @HermenusMora  - Tell me something, are you as equally concerned about the millions in taxpayer money wasted on Trumps every week golf outings?
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  2107. Tony Kelly - Your programming code is showing my lad. Better get that fixed. Nobody here is more brainwashed than you are my friend, you are thoroughly propagandized and it is such shallow propaganda at that. No one who has done even the scantiest research into the economic history would believe the drivel you are spouting.
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  2108. Here are the latest figures released by Oxfam. Globally 54% of all wealth is owned by the 1% and also globally, the top 20% own 94.5% of all wealth. With the bottom 80% holding only 5.5% of all global wealth, stagnation is either already here or will set in for all global economies. The wealthy elites are well aware of the situation, yet will do nothing to change their behavior. My belief is that we need a global hard cap on the wealth an individual or business can accumulate.
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  2109. Here is one thing we all need to take a closer look at, and it includes what is happening with our health care costs. The top 20% have over $50 trillion in financial assets in interest bearing accounts. The economy is only $20 trillion strong and it cannot stand the weight of $50 trillion sitting on its head, demanding 5% rate of returns. The national GDP only grew by 2.56% in 2018 ($560 billion), while 5% interest on $50 trillion equals $2.5 trillion. After eating all the 2018 GDP gains, the balance due on 5% interest is $1.94 trillion, or 10% of our national economy. What this means is that 80% of our people will never get out of debt or get ahead, because we are stuck paying trillions in "free money" to those who already have more than enough. This is why we cannot have Biden, or Booker, or Bootyjug, or another republican as president, all of these so-called "centrists" are simply protecting the assets of the top 20% while screwing the rest of us. Our economy is being cannibalized in order to feed the fat cats who occupy the top 20% of the economic ladder.
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  2110. When our self respect and our incomes are tied to our jobs, then our jobs are eliminated . . . there will be push back. This young lady adapted to the current job market by creating her own job and income, then YouTube demonetized her channel. The rage boils over and this is the result. Mental, emotional and economic reasons seem to top the list of motives for shootings, mass shootings or events like this one. Amending the 2nd Amendment is a must, so is dealing with capitalism's deepening crisis within the USA.
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  2111. KITN KittilsVogel - Hey Mega-Troll . . . Trump is Constitutionalist only when the Constitution is ashes.
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  2112. MC - You might find this to be a positive response in these trying times, when I clicked on the video link you provided and looked at the column of suggested videos, there were seven videos directly relating to your recommendation. I had already watched five out of the seven. Now on to the serious observations, I've been giving a great deal of thought to this "out of the box" idea and the concepts involved. They are good concepts and need to be used in practice, but the supporters have a public relations car boot attached by right wing haters. Green-Peace suffers a similar advanced version like a malicious attack virus. Getting conversations started about "out of the box" ideas are getting taken more seriously these days. When I use the ideas that I have learned from watching these videos it is because they are good ideas, but I rarely reveal the original source of my information. Instead I let the ideas stand on their own and the debate ensues. From my developing point of view, cities like the one I live in need to start looking at becoming self sustaining by providing their own electrical power through wind/solar and creating vertical farming to feed the population with locally grown food. Not every city has the ideal locations or required resources, but I think my city can and should do this because sooner or later, localities will have to become self sustaining and self sufficient to survive.
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  2113.  John  - If this was not so sad, reading the two of you would have been hilarious. Democrat or republican, it makes no difference because neither political party has any say about how the economy is run. What you two are doing is bickering while walking the plank in a fog. What you really should have looked for while you had time, is who is at the controls of the fog machine.
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  2114.  John  - "Lol, you don't know what is going on." You must have been standing in front of a mirror looking at yourself when you wrote that.
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  2115.  John  - You are no expert. The naivete you have demonstrated here attests to that.
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  2116. Gayle Day - I will have to ask My Lady about this, but my perception from talking to her is that she was reduced to $15 per month in food stamps since before the 2016 elections. Still, I am on board for blaming the criminal who currently occupies the Presidents office.
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  2117. Nancy Pelosi understands the rules . . . donors rule.
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  2118.  @jameshumphrey9939  - Maybe that is the way some what you to think the economy works, but you should really do the math. What is happening with our economy is actually quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. Capitalism in its current form is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
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  2119. I did an Excell spreadsheet to see if our economy could actually pay for all the rentier capitalists. Imagine my surprise when after entering 70 years worth of GDP and financial asset data, when it showed me that wealth has been growing faster than the economy for all that time. The economy cannot keep up with wealth extraction. Since 1947, the economy has averaged 5% growth annually. Financial assets have averaged 6% annually, and started 1947 at over twice the size of the economy. Last year the growth of financial assets was greater than 66% of our GDP. A few more years of this and we will all be debt slaves with no means of getting out of it.
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  2120. The "elites" are a system malfunction. We should have learned by now, in 12,000 years it is always the ever expanding greed of the elites that brings repeated destruction onto the masses. A "system" is defined by boundaries and the elites have none of those. What we really need to do, to save ourselves and everyone else, is to eliminate that class altogether. Ever expanding wealth is a system malfunction, no system can maintain operation with such a malfunction, so the answer is to but a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. Do that one thing, make it stick across the board and let no one escape, then we will have a chance to avoid extinction.
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  2121.  @richardowens9061  - Hey Richard, nice to see you here on Thom's comment section. I'm finding myself in agreement with you regarding Pete, I don't trust him either. Aside from his say-nothing platitudes, he just comes across as smarmy to me.
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  2122.  @timberrr1126  - Even if what you are saying is true, none of it matters while 52% of all new wealth creation goes to the top .1%, and while we are at it . . . none of that new wealth is being recirculated back into the economy. When the morbidly wealthy sit on their wealth demanding a rate of return that cannot be met by the productive economy, it means that ordinary folk are being bled dry with rising costs and stagnant wages. Vampire economics, wealth creation by dispossession, extraction economics, call it what you want but all it means is that things are not getting better for the median household in the USA.
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  2123. Cheryl, I am 60 years old also. After doing hard research for the past five years on the economy, I am simply appalled. The better question is: Why do we need the wealthy elite at all? They will always screw things up for the majority, history shows this to be true without exception. This time, if we even have a chance to make changes, we must bring the wealthy down to our level, thus eliminating the most destructive "class" of human beings. If we do not or cannot, they will cause our species extinction.
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  2124. Exactly! Bernie is getting my vote in November no matter what.
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  2125.  @remy1728  - Its not for a win, the write in is meant to kill the existing democratic party. I'm not letting them dictate my choices anymore, I've had 40 years of that. No more.
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  2126. Who cares about what our GDP is doing? Does anyone talk about how so-called "investment income" is multitudes larger than our GDP growth? NO, they don't. Look, for me it is a simple math problem which exposes a wealth scam in our economy. You cannot have immense wealth whose "earned" interest rate is growing faster than the economy, without also draining the citizen population and the government. This was true of the Roman Empire and it is true of the American Empire. Our people need to learn that financial capitalism is a long running con job, simple to understand. The problem as I understand it is this, our people are too freaking lazy to do simple math. Households and non-profit organizations hold $97 trillion in financial assets which "earn" at least 5% annually. Those holdings dwarf our economy which is $21.5 trillion growing at 2.56% annually over 30 years. The "interest" from those financial assets is more than 22% of the entire GDP. The trend is wealth grows faster than the economy, which cannot be sustained and in fact is the single leading cause of our national distress over the past 50 years. People need to get off their asses and think hard about this, or simply watch Netflix as our country go the way of the Roman Empire.
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  2127. The "investment" model of economics is no longer viable. What astonishes me is the following: The top 20% because they have wealth, have gotten $2.75 trillion in free money in 2019. That is over 13% of the entire GDP. This mode of financial capitalism is unsustainable, not only is it creating record poverty here in the USA, it is literally poisoning our life giving planet. I'm currently 58 years old, born in 1961 and I have never been able to make it out of poverty regardless of my education and skill set. This economic model must end, capitalism can continue but only if a wealth cap plugs the gusher that makes so few people well off.
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  2128. Simpler way to see the problem: Anywhere wealth accumulates, democracy falls.
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  2129. Yes, we need a wealth tax. As a first step a wealth tax is fine, however what we need to set our sights on is a "wealth cap" and that cap should be very low . . . no more than 50 million dollars. Without a wealth cap, we will never solve the homeless problem. Our California governor just put one billion dollars into solving the homeless problem . . . a useless exercise unless there is an end to housing speculation. Putting a wealth cap in place will eliminate a great deal of speculative behavior, which in turn will increase the health of many market arena's.
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  2130. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  2131.  @edbuckley1670  - Most people don't realize that in the USA there is over $90 trillion in financial assets which are "earning " interest. Just take an average interest of 5%, that is $4.5 trillion, which is over 20% of the entire GDP just for interest payments. The math shows that this trend is unsustainable, we must place a cap on accumulated wealth or face the inevitable collapse of the entire global economy.
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  2132.  @JRMCNEA  - My thoughts are echoing yours. Good comment, I agree.
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  2133. The funding for Trump Tower Moscow was coming from VTB Bank . . . Putin's Bank. VTB Bank agreed to finance but they are a sanctioned bank that US citizens are barred from doing business with. Trump knew this well beforehand, and he knew the sanctions would have to be lifted before he got his tower. Then Trump denies having any business ties with Russia. Can we say KOMPROMAT?
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  2134. I'm with you until your last line about Larry Summers. You must have missed what Yanis said about wealthy people making money in their sleep. If 40% of wealth is owned by the 1% in the USA, that comes out to $38.8 trillion of household wealth (2019 household financial assets $97 trillion). Since that wealth is held in "financial assets", the interest at 5% is $1.94 trillion. That interest sum is 9.05% of the entire 2019 GDP ($21.43 trillion). I just demonstrated that wealth grows faster than the economy with just the 1%'s share of wealth, now look at the interest that all household wealth generates ($4.85 trillion) as a percentage of GDP (22.63%). There is just no way that wealth can grow like that without draining all of our citizens wealth and without looting the United States Treasury. The 2019 GDP was $21.43 trillion, which increased 4.1% over 2018 by growing $848.8 billion. The wealth generated by financial assets in 2019 far outstrips and outruns the economic GDP growth of 2019. We don't need a wealth tax, we require an individual wealth cap. Otherwise what we have is the economic equivalent of exploding boilers during the steam engine era.
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  2135.  @truecanadian8254  - Close. You are on the correct track.
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  2136.  Jimmy Jazz  - Close also. If we can't get this one . . . we will never win.
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  2137.  @streetteamtony2672  - You are getting cold. The previous two answers were closer to the correct answer.
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  2138.  @aidenwhiting5131  - Your answer reflects how we have been trained to think. The correct answer is embedded within your answer.
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  2139.  @switchlike  - Very close. There is one thing every answer given so far has in common.
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  2140.  @imporia  - Your guess is extremely close. Do you want to know what is more annoying than playing 20 questions in the comment section, beyond the fact that I asked only one question . . . ? It is when people are lacking very basic knowledge. I should know, because it took a year of solid research and going up many blind alleys before I latched onto the answer . . . and to top it off the answer was just handed to me by a professor on YouTube.
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  2141.  @imaseeker100  - Income tax is not a wealth cap. In the 1950's to top income tax brackets acted as a pressure regulator, but after the republican tax cuts of the past 50 years this is no longer the case.
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  2142.  @boggisthecat  - I have not read Chomsky, however I have listened to him speak many times. The greatest influences on my thinking have been Noam Chomsky, Richard Wolff, Chris Hedges, Mark Blythe, Robert Reich, Stephanie Kelton, David Harvey, Ralph Nader, Michael Hudson, Thom Hartmann . . . . There are others but that list is off the top of my head. To your point about beliefs and belief systems. There are simple one-liners that permeate deep seated belief systems. For instance, when you ask a room full of people if they believe in god they will answer with a simple yes or no. For those that say yes, the reasons why they believe in god vary but for the most part it is because that is what their parents believe and it was passed down to them. Once you start digging in with questions, it becomes very apparent that out of the entire room, very few if any go to church and almost none have read the bible. For most people there is no real reason why they believe in god, they just do because that is the accepted mythology passed down through the generations. Same thing with capitalism, when you ask the same room full of people if they believe in capitalism the resounding answer will be yes. When you ask why, most people will respond that capitalism lifts people out of poverty. It does not matter if that answer is true or not to these people, they are just regurgitating the mythology they have been taught. Unfortunately, most belief systems do not rely of facts, they rely on simple truisms whether the truisms be actually true or not. Capitalism has an entire mythos surrounding it like a protective shell, a set of beliefs or assumptions built up over time to preserve the capitalist power. For this very reason, I have been seeking the counter agent to this built up mythos . . . something simple that will act as the tip of the spear in order to pierce the mythos and render it vulnerable to attack. Now I'm going to swing back to my opening statement. No reform can stand over time because accumulated wealth (individual and corporate) will attack, erode and eliminate the reform. To defeat this menace once and for all, there must be a rallying cry which is also a weapon, something that is simple to wield and understand . . . which is also irrefutably true. The way our enemies operate is to dilute, erode and destroy. This is why the many battle banners such as "Fight for $15", "Medicare for All", "Climate Change", "Free College" and "Worker Co-ops" . . . .they are all incredibly vulnerable to attack via dilution, erosion and outright destruction by the powers of capitalism because capitalism wields its wealth mythos like a weapon. We must come up with an equally powerful weapon of our own to defeat the mythos of capitalism, a weapon of propaganda that is simple to understand and wield. In other words, we must create our own belief system based on a simple truth. The simplest truth I have been able to distill from all of my research is that wealth over-accumulation is toxic, just like alcohol is toxic in too large a quantity. Therefor it stands to reason that this simple truth must be the tip of the spear and all other reforms are part of the spear . . . but they must follow the tip. A spear is useless without a sharp tip, so also are these many reforms useless without the tip of the spear which creates the opening to deal the fatal blow to capitalism as we know it.
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  2143. The country is already collapsing. Most people are simply unaware that financial assets gained almost half of what our economy output was just last year. The money used to accomplish this miraculous deed was borrowed from the Fed or squeezed out of us, because the economy lost the capability to support wealth growth almost two decades ago.
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  2144. As a Boomer, I have already cast my primary vote for Bernie. Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  2145.  Nimbus Nimbus  - What, you need more? Trump is a criminal, trying to start a war as a smokescreen to hide his crimes. All deaths from this point forward are directly the fault of the moron Trump.
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  2146.  @lovemym16  - Not per the Constitution. It was the stupid "War Powers Act" of 1973 that granted the president limited war powers. Look what that got us, 18 years in Afghanistan, thousands of Americans dead and trillions of dollars wasted while our people have stagnant wages and a crumbling infrastructure.
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  2147. We can counter their lies, as a matter of fact we are better off facing off here in the comment section where their lies can be seen and scorned.
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  2148. No Name - One thing everyone needs to be aware of . . . reforms are always undone. Even if Bernie wins, and I hope he does, no reform that he can get placed whether by executive order or by signing legislation . . . will ever stand the test of time. There is only one reform that can protect all other progressive reforms over the long haul, and it is never talked about. Look back on history and ask yourself this one question: What single force stands behind the undermining of all progressive political reforms from the gilded age forward? Can any of you figure out what that force is?
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  2149. Agreed. Very well stated.
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  2150. Lehandra, I hope you understand that eliminating state taxes is a tasty bait, meant to lure and hook an unwary public. What happens after a state has reduced their income? It cuts funding and allows private interest to take over government run assets. Long and short, the tax bill for the state will be borne by paying higher costs to private corporations, for any number of previous government functions. This makes asset owners wealthy. Just this year, the value of asset ownership has increased by $9.9 trillion, in great part since government functions are being turned over to the "private sector". By the way, $9.9 trillion is more than 2/3's of our nations entire economic output for the year so far, all going into the pockets of already wealthy people. You are worried about what the democrats are doing? Worry instead about what all politicians are doing, because they don't work for us anymore. Just ask yourself, how is it possible that "profits" on asset values this year, is greater than 60% of our entire economic output? We were all set up, in a game where wealth grows faster than the economy. It is a rigged game, and also a house of cards.
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  2151.  @beautifully_scarred_lea  - Lehandra, I'm very sorry for your misunderstanding. No nation has fallen because their governments became too large. If that has ever happened, it has escaped being recorded in history texts. The Roman Empire fell because of their oligarchy. The British Empire fell for similar economic reasons. The American Empire is currently set to fall. Empires built on slavery have fallen. Empires built on capitalism are crumbling right now. This story you are telling is elitist propaganda, designed to fool you. The real question is why are the elites spinning the tales you believe in? My "tale" is factual, all taken from actual economic figures, which you also can access and look at for yourself, if you cared enough to do so. Oh, and by the way, the host Larry Kudlow is a failed economist and Newt is a clown.
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  2152.  @beautifully_scarred_lea  - I'm glad that we are seeing the same thing, even if through different lenses. I am going to make a blunt observation here, about myself. I am a 60 year old white male. For my own reasons, I started an in depth project to study the economy, starting a little over five years ago. This study project started with the U.S. economy, then expanded. What I have learned can be distilled into this very simple formula: we humans still live in a "might makes right" world. Unless we can change that, our species will not last another century. You are completely correct, we are ruled by the few who take everything and give nothing back, making them true pirates. Here is where I differ with you. I believe small government allows these elites to make all the rules we must live by, so I believe we need big government. However, the government we have now is staffed by those hand picked by the elites, for example I give you Joe Biden. The people wanted Bernie Sanders and he was winning, then over the course of a single weekend everything changed as the elites pulled on their puppet strings and pushed the loser Joe Biden into the winners circle. If we are to make a difference and save our own species from extinction, we are going to shove all elites out of power. I am now well versed in economic particulars, so what I can tell you is that unlimited grown happens nowhere in our universe. No tree, no mountain and indeed no star is able to sustain infinite growth. Neither can our machines attain infinite size and growth. Larry Kudlow will tell you that money, wealth and the economy CAN have infinite growth, my reply is "sure it can, until it cannot". The "cannot" part is when it all collapses. This year alone, financial assets gained $14 in value for every $1 in economic growth, setting a new record. Our economy cannot sustain that kind of growth, has not been able to for decades, which means our collapse is coming up soon. The only chance we have, is to take over the government ourselves and use it to regulate morbidly obese wealth out of existence, having the effect of making the elites the same as all of us. A small government cannot do such a task.
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  2153. D LG - Agreed.
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  2154. Nancy Pelosi's donors love Trump so she is certainly never going to act on our behalf and even allow an impeachment inquiry to take place.
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  2155. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  2156. calichef1962 - Exactly, you nailed it. I'm also a Californian and I am happy that our primary has been moved up. As one of the most heavily populated states, we should be steering the national narrative instead of following everyone else. My wife and I vote by mail, which is something I encourage every Californian to sign up for. Interesting note, at the time of the 2016 California primary, I was registered as an Independent. I had no problem getting a Democratic Party ballot. Since 2016, I have joined the Justice Democrats movement to support all progressives and move the party to the left. If your moniker is an indication of your birth year, then we are very close to the same age. I was born in 1961 and have two grown daughters who are now schooling me in modern progressive politics. We need to listen to the children . . . . hear that Diane Feinstein?
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  2157. Agreed.
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  2158. What? You expect Professor Wolff to put his own money into that ponzi scheme called the stock market? Preposterous!
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  2159. The more I study these . . . people, the more I come to understand that what they fear over everything else, is to be considered ordinary. Take away their wealth and that is exactly what they become, ordinary.
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  2160. Brandon Bowers - Indeed. What has that high national debt bought for us, besides wars, bank bailouts, auto manufacturers bailout and lining the pockets of the wealthy? I cannot think of a single thing the national debt has bought for the American people over the past three decades . . . . do you have any ideas about that?
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  2161. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  2162. Tomato Pa - You are correct on point number 1, that is why this whole idea is designed for the bottom up approach. Since we have already started electing progressives, it is a natural path to follow to elect candidates who support the wealth cap. Since there will be no "so-called communist threat" of a government owned and run system because millionaires and privately owned companies will still be the standard, the greater public (who have never approached even one million in earnings) will support this idea in government. As for Point number 2, you bring up items that I had deliberately left out in order to keep the main idea as simple as possible. The circumvention techniques rich people use will absolutely be addressed with new law to keep them from happening. The sharing of wealth between family members will be addressed through gift and inheritance restrictions and limitations. The fake companies, LLC's and offshore accounts will have to be eliminated completely, in part through the complete nationalization of banking AND the elimination of The Federal Reserve. Eventually, the new government formed under this wealth cap regime will go after wealth accumulation offshore, eliminating havens for tax dodgers and even freezing or seizing assets of oligarchs operating in the world at large . . . as they will at that point have become a national security threat.
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  2163. Tomato Pa - You are making excellent points that I agree with and am loath to tear down. Both selfish and stupid, yes. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires, yes (though I seek to use that as a tool). Blind, fools, idiots, easily-bought, easily manipulated, self-defeating selfish jerks? Yes. To your question, my answer is one word: Fear. The workers are afraid. They have bills to pay and no other source of income. Once again, you make a good point. But why are they so afraid? Can't they just get a better paying job? (I am being rhetorical.) Check out this Bloomberg Economics opinion article dated July 31, 2018:https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-01/too-many-jobs-feel-meaningless-because-they-are About failing gracefully, once again I agree. What you have not explained with sufficient clarity are your opposites to bottom up, for me, the context is missing and is therefore not relevant. Thus in the same manner I believe you are missing something in the idea of a wealth cap that is "bottom up" in the same manner as converting capitalist companies to co-ops. I see both ideas following the same track, in fact the wealth cap is easier to understand for those folk at the beginning of your comment than are the co-ops. Not losing the foundation of the work preceding is absolutely necessary. The words "failing gracefully" are elegant, however their meaning is lost on the selfish and stupid. Yet the selfish and stupid, even with that handicap, do understand exploitation. Using that and assuring them their "temporary embarrassment" opportunity will not be revoked, the power of the selfish and stupid can be harnessed to topple exploitation without destroying the work preceding. I am in agreement with both you and Professor Wolff that co-ops are the natural evolution from capitalist enterprises, however the subject is too deep for most to understand . . . people need a "Pied Piper" to lead them forward. Now I'm back full circle to the wealth cap, something easy to understand. I've written about this in many comment sections now, the number of positive comments and "thumbs up" the idea is getting speaks to the fact that I have hit a nerve. I propose we use that to advantage to advance the conversion from capitalism to the next step. You are quite elegant with your "failing gracefully" definition of bottom up, I propose we try to meld ideas and not use the word "failing".
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  2164. Tomato Pa - No, at first I did not understand and maybe I still do not. As I wrote, the context was missing (at the time). Your bottom up analogy is valid upon examination, like layers of bricks are laid from the bottom up . . . you can stop the work and all the bricks already laid are still in place and you can resume at any time without a loss (like waiting for bad weather to pass). Ok, that is fine. However, as with most of life . . . there is more than one mode operating simultaneously in a diverse environment. Are we getting sidetracked here? After extensive study of my fellow humans, our economy and how we depend on it instead of hunting and foraging, and the real problem that we rarely agree enough to form a decent plan but we can bee bamboozled and stampeded fairly easily . . . it has become really transparently clear to me that a simple plan that achieves multiple target goals is needed. Taken separately, universal health care, living wage, no-cost higher education, promote co-op companies, bring back the unions, stop the wars and reduce the military, etc, etc, etc . . . . produces so much splintering of ideas among progressive minded people that we are not united in cause and get picked off by our enemies. We need one easy to understand cause to rally around that achieves all goals, like one ship that carries the entire crew along with the parrot who may or may not be part of the crew because it flies away from time to time. I've been searching for that for some time, when staring at my papers I realized that all lines intersect here. Concentrated wealth is trouble for everyone, eventually even the wealthy. Solve that problem. It is easy, like laying bricks.
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  2165. Tomato Pa - In over simplified terms? Mechanical systems design and building miniature machines. Bringing thoughts into the material world as tangible objects. Also research and discovery, finding repeating patterns in nature and human behavior. Are you going to use this information to advance the topic at hand?
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  2166. Tomato Pa - There is one flaw in your argument. The 49% are not entirely discouraged. There is always the next election, and the momentum between elections builds. You did not take that into account in your calculations. How about you offer up some suggestions on how to make the wealth and income cap have "failing gracefully as a truly essential feature"? As you have suggested, systems need testing. I found a flaw in your system, the 49% are not discouraged and momentum builds. Flaws have never discouraged me, all of my "first build" machines have flaws. So let us address that in Version 2.0, the premise is sound and standing.
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  2167. Tomato Pa - For the record, I am not familiar with computer programming and I don't recall making that kind of specific comment. Can you link me to the video in question so I can check the comment?
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  2168.  @lolk6331  - Difficult if not impossible task, given that republican media is owned by wealthy men who deceive with purpose. There are no such things as "moderate republicans" today, or they are in such minority as to be useless. Just look at the republican representatives who voted for the "bipartisan" infrastructure bill. When Trump was president, we had monthly "infrastructure weeks" but nothing came of it. Now rebuilding bridges gets one branded as a traitor. There are no longer any political allies among republicans, and the republican voters are brainwashed.
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  2169.  @tracesprite6078  - Friends for the moment perhaps. What I am looking at is the big picture, mainly our economic picture. Did you know that one aspect of wealth growth called financial assets, in the first half of 2021, grew by an amount that is greater than 80% of our entire GDP? Those friendly republicans (The Lincoln Project) are the same people who put in place the policies which allowed for this wealth cancer to grow. These people are not our friends. I would elaborate further, but so far this comment thread consists of three to four lines of text, which barely constitutes a conversation. I'm not talking about average republican voters here, I'm talking about the policy makers, at the risk of endlessly repeating myself, these people are not our friends (and neither is Biden or Harris or most democrats for that matter).
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  2170. Bijou Smith - Parasitic is the most appropriate word to use, when applied to the FIRE sector of the economy (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate). People don't want the 1% sucking down the entire GDP gain for 2018 plus an additional $1,000 billion (one trillion, or 5% of our GDP), just to satisfy their need for a "rate of return" on wealth that is already out of control. The 1% consumed 7.7% of our economy in 2018 just to satisfy their greedy need for "free money", which they got simply because they already had so much wealth sitting around. It is legally expected that their existing wealth must grow at a faster rate than any economy can support, just because we have this legal mechanism called "compounded interest". My contention is that most of this "code of capital" can be brought under control through a hard cap on wealth accumulation. So many legal issues will be solved by applying the framework of a wealth cap, others will get a chance at the pie when individuals and corporations are reigned in by the finite size of the pie they can claim.
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  2171. Mira Prochazka - I think it is a good point, when we stop burning oil it does not mean we will stop using oil. Fun fact: Less than 10% of crude oil is fossil based. Carbon stars create and expel billions of tons of organic carbon compounds every second. Our oil wells keep refilling themselves over decades, because the earth is literally filled with organic carbon compounds swept up during planetary formation. Try burning all the oil the earth has and we will run out of oxygen. Times up, we need to generate power from renewable sources if we are to have a survivable future. Personally, I want to see Elon Musk use his self landing rockets to put up a space based geosynchronous solar network . . . clean energy for the entire planet for a thousand years from the largest free power generator in our solar system, the sun.
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  2172. Talks of Stuff - Right . . . . so we do nothing. The problem with people who link to one newspaper article on a subject, is that you are pushing aside over 20,000 climate scientist reports linking human activity to climate change. Then there are the tens of thousands of geologists who have taken core samples all over the world and proved that catastrophic climate change in the past has lead to massive extinction events. Because it is not volcanoes this time, the pattern shows past a 99% indication that humans are the cause. With all of the evidence against the naysayers, it does not matter if it is 90 trillion or 900 trillion. We must change our entire way of life or we will simply go extinct like major life has every other time the climate goes out of whack. I don't care about the the U.S. economy. I'm a baby boomer and the economy has not done shit for me. So all those wealthy people and rich corporations can shrivel up and die for all I care, but you are not killing my grandchildren because of your farcical belief shortcomings.
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  2173. Hexotic Ace - I looked up your challenge and found that what you have written is a farce. List after list of websites and media outlets which refute the John Cook data are all right wing organizations. I never heard of John Cook before today, I was referring to the U.N. report of which over 23,000 scientists have found consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change. You are another one of the cult of climate deniers. Go stick your head under a pillow,
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  2174. Yeah . . Meanwhile the republicans are now allies with the Russians, whose goal is to tear apart our democracy. So how do all of you square with that?.
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  2175. red pill christopher - You obviously know nothing at all about Marx. Go ahead, keep showing your vast ignorance. That is why the USA is really in trouble . . . vast and incomprensible ignorance. God is a fairy tail, its about time we grew out of the need for fairy tails. Do you people ever go outside and look up at the stars? So, so stupid. You are unbelievable, it is so sad that you are a representative of our citizenry in the USA.
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  2176. Louis Vanden Broucke - Easy to hate, the same way we find people who cannot spell to be stupid. You have no idea what you are saying, total and complete ignorance. No wonder the USA is turning into such a "shithole".
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  2177. Why is there such an anathema about discussing the solution? Putting a cap on individual wealth is the answer to so many of these problems. This much, no more. A wealth cap would solve the problem of democracy against corporate power forever.
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  2178.  @maxfastest  - A system has boundaries, or it is not a system. Our economic system is like a car engine leaking oil. We allow unlimited wealth growth, that is the leak in our system. Run a car engine after all the oil leaks out, well there will be problems to say the least. Our problem is we have and "economic system" that is malfunctioning, therefor the cycles of breakdowns. The one thing in common for all the era's Professor Wolff talks about is, there is no upper limit on wealth growth. Therein lies our problem and our answer.
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  2179.  @legendofshaunesquire3014  - You have missed the gist of what I am alarmed about . . . what everyone needs to be alarmed about. The upper echelons of the 1% cannot be allowed to amass a critical mass of wealth, if they do they take over society completely. Even now they have enough wealth to eliminate every reform that Bernie can get into place. Add to the menu the undiluted fact that Moscow Mitch has been packing the Federal courts with anti democracy judges who are in the pocket of the 1%. You say the Democratic party let Bernie down? Well, who in the hell do you think bought out the democratic party in 2016? We all know that happened. You are not telling me anything I don't already know, I'm telling you what you don't know. The problem is that the news media is also bought, so we have to put together the pieces ourselves and I have. The people running our government are bought out. Judges are bought out. The 1% will soon have enough legally obtained wealth to drain the economies of the world completely, all for the power play of bringing back Kings and serfs. This was all planned out five decades ago, read the 1971 Powell Memo if you don't believe me. Compare the checklist of items in that document to the history of the last five decades and you will be scared shitless because it has all come to pass. Unlimited wealth potential is toxic to our survival. If we don't open our eyes and see that the 1% are a direct threat to democracy, we are finished. By that I mean human life is finished, because the sociopath element of the 1% whose greed rules all will never allow climate change to interfere with their power . . . so their power must be removed and that means removing their wealth. We the People are the only ones who can do that, but first we have to grapple with the fact that we are under attack NOW.
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  2180.  @nickmiles644  - Yes Nick, you are correct and I completely agree with you. . . . but what are you missing with that analysis? You made no provision for dealing with our enemies power. You've left the tools to dismantle those reforms in the hands of the very same people who deep-sixed the entire New Deal with the exception of Social Security. It is the billionaires now, who fund the think tanks, which churn out politicians and propaganda whose goal is to privatize Social Security. So why make the same mistake again? We must dismantle the power of the elites by taking their wealth, putting into law a wealth cap that cannot be exceeded by any person or corporation. The upper end of the 1% fear what has to be done, cut their wealth so much they lose their power . . . and that is what we must do, or all is in vain. We must make the elite ordinary, no more than $10 million in accumulated wealth. Make as much as you want, but you gotta spend it as fast as you make it once you approach the wealth cap. That will keep money flowing in the economy, instead of bottled up to be used for wielding power and dismantling reforms we put in place. Ten million dollars is plenty to live an opulent life, NO ONE NEEDS MORE THAN THAT. No one should have more than that. Then nobody can buy politicians or afford lobbyists, everyone gets health care, everyone gets educated, nobody goes bankrupt for either health care or education, housing speculation stops so rents stabilize and anyone can still get rich. If you leave the tools of power (accumulated wealth) in the hands of those elites and corporations, they will undo every reform . . . . and this time around we cannot afford to let that happen. This is not FDR's time, and unlike in FDR's time our very lives depend on dealing the elite social structure a fatal blow. We must take away the power which is used to dismantle reforms and that means taking the elites wealth away and making them ordinary.
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  2181.  @legendofshaunesquire3014  - Perhaps, however the choir is dissonant, chaotic, fractured, without the single unifying theme which would bring on the necessary harmony. That is our peril in this time period of history (the history that may not ever get written). The OP wrote: Bernie: Will totally reform the Dem party. FDR style. What was the one thing FDR never did? Answer: Remove the wealth which is THE TOOL used to dismantle reforms. He could have done that, but he didn't. The elites version of our future is humanity's apocalypse. Nothing we do in the "here and now" will be worth a damn if we do not unify behind dismantling the power that undermines our reforms. NOTHING. Ergo, our priority must change from all of these many and varied reforms to the single goal of removing the power of the elites. How?: Take the wealth of the elites and but everyone under a wealth cap. Lots of details to work out about what happens after, but until we have the needed unifying call to arms, we are all working at cross purposes and our enemy knows how to manipulate us because of our cross purposes. We need to end them, for good this time. Not kill them, just make them ordinary. Then we will be able to roll up our sleeves and really get to work creating OUR future. The entire legal structure that supports the legal right to unlimited wealth came from times before capitalism. When the land enclosures happened in England, when the Lords sealed off the lands, the pheasants tore down the fences and hedges . . . . and they also fought for decades in courts to get their land privileges restored. The pheasants lost and that heralded the birth of capitalism when the desperate peasants started selling their labor. Who were the judges, magistrates and lawyers of those days? They were the cousins and lessor relations to the Lords who were still elites, and the peasants had no educated folk who could argue their case. When the lands of the America's and Australia we opened up, who settled the legal cases which arose when lands were seized from the original inhabitants? It was the legal system of the invaders, which made decisions in favor of the colonists. Well now . . . in this day and age we have thousands of lawyers who come from poor families. We are well educated. We have the resources in numbers and brains to take on 500 years of preferential legal "precedent" . . . . because that is the way power works, through money, lawyers and judges. Accumulated wealth is the one common valve through which all of our problems arise, so it is the easiest possible central theme to unify around . . . . Turn off the valve for everyone and anyone when the accumulated wealth cap is reached. Until we unify around one theme, we are toast. If we don't unify behind one message, Bernie, even if he wins, will be fighting an uphill battle from day one and all of us will lose because of our discordant "choir". We have no more time to squabble.
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  2182. Fascism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce, that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . . it is a duck. Government and business is becoming one and the same . . . under an authoritarian type leader. Look at the person holding the office of president, then look at his cabinet. Quack, quack.
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  2183. There is a name for what is happening here: Fascism. Does anyone remember that we fought a world war to stop imperialism and fascism? Now we have become both at the same time.
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  2184.  @GillAgainsIsland12  - Evidence? This was manufactured evidence. What piqued my interest is two videos: 1) All the missile parts laid out for a news conference, apparent "malfunctioning" cruise missiles that crashed in the desert. These caught my eye because I have built, flown and crashed fiberglass composite r/c aircraft and these missiles looked more like they were torn apart and smashed by hand tools rather than crashed. In addition, one of the missiles had "cobwebs" inside the open spaces between the fin and the sheet metal braces (shown in the longer video not this short clip). . . not something that would have survived flight at several hundred MPH. 2) The towers in the oil refineries were not hit by missiles. All missiles pack warheads that explode, blowing all non-armored metal structures they hit into shards. These towers were hit by short range artillery rounds, not missiles. This means the Saudis did this to themselves and all this is a set up. Even the parts shown in this video where whole panels with holes, square holes, panels that should have been greatly disfigured due to catastrophic explosive force . . . even the smallest missiles with a 50 pound warhead would do greater damage than that which was shown. This whole thing stinks of collusion between the Saudis and Trump to cause a war with Iran . . . .my fellow citizens of the USA, beware.
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  2185. To have that future with Russia, Trump will gladly and willingly sacrifice every citizen of the USA plus who knows how many citizens of other countries.
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  2186. A payroll tax cut is just the back door avenue to later on cut Social Security. Don't fall for it, it's a trap.
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  2187. Are you kidding? These billionaires ARE the malevolent force and the politicians ARE the puppets. No doubt about it. Our local representative ran his first campaign on Medicare for ALL, now he is "working in a bi-partisan" way to fix our roads and bridges, because that is what his big donors want to hear.
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  2188. Perfection indeed! The humor is soooo dry . . . I need a drink! :-)
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  2189. Zoe Phin - Hey Peter, love the new face and name.
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  2190. Zoe Phin - That would be impossible to do baby . . . we never started talking in the first place. Nice to know that I can get under your skin sweetheart!
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  2191. Brad Christy - You wrote: "Do the wealthy garner a larger share of the gains? Absolutely. They also provide nearly ALL the means of wealth generation." First half correct, second half totally incorrect. Wealth generation is nearly all generated by the labor put in by workers, which is born out when one tries to create wealth using nothing but wealth . . . because without the worker nothing happens. The "means of production" will do very little wealth generation without the workers to operate the means, and good luck selling product to workers with no jobs and who have no money left over after paying their bills. The wealthy do very little to generate the wealth they take ownership of. You wrote: "The fact is that capitalism has never done anything but improve the human condition. Ever. While socialism, and its evil twin brother, communism, has never wrought anything but human suffering, poverty and death. And there’s literally ZERO historical evidence to counter either of these statements. Not. One. Speck." All absolutely incorrect. You write as one who is controlled by propaganda, not actual facts. You make quite a few incorrect assumptions throughout your writings, proving that your education comes in the main from propaganda. Sorry Old Chap, looks like you need to crack a book or two yourself.
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  2192. Brad Christy - So sayeth the capitalist village idiot. Do you know why you are? Of course not, but you all have tell markings in what you spout. How does it feel to be half a human, missing the more essential half? Thank you for making clear that you have no problem leaving our children and grandchildren with a world devoid of life, because that is what your precious economics are in the process of making. Must be nice to be at peace with being a committed planet destroyer, unless you have found a way endless economic growth on a finite planet can actually work out?
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  2193. Brad Christy - Your mind is cooked now that you brought up Soros, no brain cells remaining. Done, you credibility is eliminated. Bye bye.
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  2194. Not everyone, the wealthy watch each others backs.
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  2195.  @johnathancagg4241  - And go where? Corrupt Kentucky? Or corrupt Florida? Where is it exactly that escapes the corruption of California?
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  2196. MidScream1 - Your quoting now straight out of the oligarchs propaganda handbook. "you do know you only get rich by voluntary transactions between two people right? The buyer has to give up something of value and the seller has to provide something of value..." Right . . . so many of the transactions I go through every month are voluntary. Right . . . Answer me this smart guy, why has housing and energy tripled in cost over the past 30 years while wages have been stagnant compared to worker productivity? What is it about housing and energy that became so much more valuable than workers pay rates? Can you answer that?
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  2197. Mnd0vrMnky - This MidScream1 character is probably a troll farm employee who is very well schooled in pivoting and projection. Notice the refusal to provide anything but talking points?
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  2198. MidScream1 - No. What you are really saying is . . . you have no clue what you are talking about. You don't know about business, either statistically or the operations. You don't know anything about economics, you certainly have no historical economic perspective, you don't know how wealth is created or extracted from the economy. You barf out taking points and put your "$" signs where all the "s'es" belong like a juvenile, but you really have no understanding about the things you write. If you cannot make sense in further comments, then I bid you good bye and Good Day.
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  2199. Alpha Crusader - Is that the limit of your thinking? Really now, where do you think money comes from in the first place? In addition, who is really "earning" all that money once a person or family has accumulated 50 million dollars in wealth? First answer, all money belongs to the people of the nation that issued the currency. That is the peoples money, not yours or mine. Second answer, A person might reasonable earn up to a couple hundred thousand dollars per year . . . but after that, any further money is being "earned", is really being earned by people other than the person pocketing it. So really, it is about time some people who have enough money already, to stop stealing money other people have earned . . . don't you think???. Finally, not lol because nothing about this is funny.
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  2200. Jan Olinyk - You are so stupid, do you read, research or study history at all? If you do, it does not show. We were not giving China anything. A trade deficit is not a debt. We sent them dollars, they sent us goods. Really nice goods. And you know what? It was American industrial capitalists who went to China in the first place. Part of the deal was the American industrial capitalists got cheap labor and materials . . . in EXCHANGE for American technology. The Chinese made an excellent deal, but the American industrial capitalists are TRAITORS. Just like Trump is a traitor.
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  2201. Tom was just talking about the annihilation of the insect population and the extinction of species which has been the result. I used to be an optimist, but nowadays I think we are living in the last decades of humanity and most life on earth.
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  2202. This is what the Plunge Protection Teams are doing, bailing out the stock markets with government money (really it is our money).
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  2203. Empty Head - Oh, I see. You are jealous you didn't write it first!
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  2204. Empty Head - I'll tell you why I am here on the Fox News comment section. Dept grows faster than the economy, that is always the case regardless of economic ideology. The Babylonians knew that. The Ancient Athenians Knew that. The Roman Empire knew that and then decided to forget it. Modern capitalism just ignores that and pretends it can grow forever. This channel is bought and paid for by the billionaire Rupert Murdoch, whose express purpose is to make you stupid so he and his buddies can do as they please . . . but also to keep you ignorant of Debt Jubilee. I am keenly interested in mankind's continuing survival and prosperity. Fox News stands opposed to my agenda and spews propaganda designed to keep you ignorant. I say that because I was ignorant for 55 years. When I started gigging on my own, that is when I learned enough over time to understand what is happening. So go ahead and disparage me . . . .but I suggest you start your own independent research project. You will learn some interesting things.
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  2205. Philip Favata - My poor dear fellow, you might think you have a clue . . . actually you do not know anything about economics at all if you are buying into these things you wrote: "Supply and demand is back. We have reawakened Capitalism. Look at the stock Market. Look at unemployment our President is setting records know that Obama's Socialistic Policies are being replaced." Each and every one of those items you mentioned - propaganda. Pure unfiltered propaganda. Joseph Goebbels would be so proud that propaganda like this works on you. So proud. Obama was not a socialist. Unemployment numbers are inaccurate and rigged for dupes like you. The Stock Market is riding a bubble, stock buybacks by banks and corps do not equal productivity. Capitalism is predatory and does not create wealth, winner take all. In twenty years no one here will have any money. Demand drives supply, people with no money cannot create demand.
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  2206. whitehope - Where did you pickup that little lump of coal? The rich were taxed and the money handed out to what . . . . people in line somewhere? And that little fantasy created the middle class? Where did you get your economics education? Not even Fox News sells that . . . kinda smells you know. You did not even suspect what you were learning might not make sense?
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  2207. Quang Ha - Agreed. Add to that the entire republican Congress and the majority of democrats who have sold out the working class. The only move the workers have remaining is to NEVER, EVER vote for a candidate for public office who accepts campaign funds from banks, corporations or wealthy interests.
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  2208. Quang Ha - You are correct. Yet from all the comments I've read here, I come away with the feeling my fellow Americans are suffering from extreme political and economic near-sightedness. The stage for today was set over forty years ago, if we are going to have a better future we have to start thinking in terms of decades . . . rather than just the next election. TurtleRump is pretty bad, but we will be in for a lot worse in the future if we cannot start thinking in a strategic long term manner. Yet, hardly anyone thinks this way . . . and I lament that weakness in our people. For now, I hope the dems in Congress hold their position. The republicans are lying scum who have been tearing apart our government at will for months under this corrupt president. This is the first time dems have had leverage, under the circumstances the republicans have created the dems are finally positioned to stand up for something. We are watching . . to see how well they perform and what they can achieve with this small leverage.
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  2209. whitehope - The harm of illegal immigrants was first caused by Americans, on purpose . . . to undermine our labor unions. We are not going to build a wall and use military grade weapons on innocent people, when the real criminals are right here in the boardrooms of U.S. corporations. You say "stupid democrats" but you are not showing too many smarts there yourself sonny-boy. How about you put some real thought into what we should do about our economy . . . and get back to us after that.
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  2210. whitehope - They are innocent, because they are being manipulated. Kinda like yourself, you have drunk huge gulps of propaganda. Joseph Goebbels would be proud of the propagandists who have programmed you. We are not being invaded, you have been sold a bill of goods without the goods.
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  2211.  @mustbtrouble  - What, no supporting argument? Just no?
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  2212. Iran has done nothing but to respond in a proportionate manner to the aggression of the USA and Trump. This is all Trumps fault. Trump pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump put crippling sanctions on Iran for no good reason. Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's top general. Iran has done nothing to hurt the USA. There is no evidence that Iran has taken any hostile action toward the USA. Iran has a one million man army, while the USA has a few thousand troops in the area. This is their part of the world, which the USA is mucking around in. Graham is an idiot. Trump is a moron. Pompeo is a buffoon. These half wits are going to get us into a war that we cannot win, and all this is a diversion by Trump to get us to look away from his crimes in and out of office. Anything that Iran does is directly the fault of Trump and those who support him.
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  2213.  @johndena2882  - Yeah, puppets of the oligarchy. Trump is definitely a puppet with Twittery thumbs.
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  2214. Yeah, but the guest was a moron.
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  2215. @Kat McClaw - Maybe you can explain this to me since you work in the financial industry. The top 20% has over $55 trillion in financial assets. Lets just say that the average rate of return is 5%, since the spread is from 2% to over 9% on most financial assets. In 2018, the economy was up by 2.6% or roughly $560 billion, yet the rate of return on the financial assets of the top 20% was over $2.75 trillion (over 13% of the GDP for 2018). So if we subtract the GDP gains from the $2.75 trillion, that still leaves over $2 trillion which must be coming out of the the GDP somewhere, meaning that the productive economy must be in decline. I don't think interest earned by extracting wealth from people by raising their costs on essentials like health care should be counted as GDP. Furthermore, when the numbers for compounding interest on $55 trillion in financial assets are run out 20 to 25 years, the top 10% end up owning all wealth. Please explain to me how this situation is sustainable. Is the entire GDP going to be dedicated to wealth creation for the top 10% in 22 years?
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  2216.  @katmcclaw817  - Thank you.
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  2217. The Missing Link - Very, very . . . well said.
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  2218. Chad m - You are correct in saying that the NRA is the lobby we should be least worried about. However . . . the bloody corpses of young and no longer vibrant teenagers is a rallying point that Americans can get their teeth into . . . . unlike the banks and big pharma lobby's who cloak their kills very well. These teenagers are very well aware of of the other nemesis's they face . . . and they have already made statements saying they are coming for those giants as well. But the proliferation of guns is right in our faces, right now. Lets handle that and then go after the big banks and big pharma. By the time these kids get done with the NRA and gun manufacturers, the banks and big pharma will be quaking in their boots with fear. That is what we want them to feel. I am 56 years old with two grown daughters and together with these kids we are going to deal a serious blow to the NO LONGER NEEDED 2nd Amendment. Then we are gunning for the rest of the big business that has been raping our society. Lets be very clear here, the 2nd Amendment when it was written was entirely concerned with keeping slaves under control. There is no other reason for that amendment to exist, and since slavery has been abolished it is now time to do away with the 2nd Amendment.
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  2219. Kazuki Honinozuka - Sure thing, because the nature of the social problems we face has way more to do with economics than it does with gun control. When the median wage of today buys less than half of what the median wage purchased 30 years ago . . . this is the real cause of mass shootings and there is no end in sight to that downward spiral. Parents are not there to raise their kids. Adults are having their lives taken from them by wealth inequality. With wealth concentrating at the top 1%, there will be more mass shootings as people grow more desperate. With regards to the 2nd Amendment, this article is very illuminating: The Second Amendment Was Ratified to Preserve Slavery by Thom Hartman http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery
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  2220. Tell me how this is supposed to work. You got $100 trillion in "investments" trying to make 5% off an economy of $22 trillion that grows by 3% per year. Can we say . . . . schoolyard bully just took my lunch money?
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  2221.  @michaelepstein2570  - What have you concluded from all of this research? In doing as much as you indicate for over ten years, you must have drawn some conclusions. What are they?
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  2222.  @michaelepstein2570  - After reading all four of your responses, what I can say is, you are not wrong. There is a reason people do not vote, you wrote about it in the final line of your first response. The wealthy will scorch the earth rather than give up any of their power and they hold that power by manipulating us, so that we do not vote or we vote in ignorance. Voting has been important to me all my life, however for a majority of my voting life I have been relying on the news media for information. Working all day, taking care of family, doing chores in the house and yard work outside the house, that left precious little time to be well informed. That all changed for me over a span of three years. As I left the workforce and devoted my energies to create my own business, information not available to me as an employee, started at first to annoy me, then alarm me. Finally I decided to research the economy in depth, with the end result looking like we as a country are screwed. Accumulated wealth is many times larger than the economy and growing at a faster rate than the economy. That information leads to one conclusion, our democracy is an illusion. One can forgive workers for not being informed, they are on a hamster wheel they cannot get off from, and that is by design. The wealthy want it that way, so until we figure out a way to deal with them, we are seriously screwed.
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  2223. Dan G - Ok, I take back the troll comment about AslapOF Reality, you nailed it when you called him a Trump boot licker . . . though I think he just likes the smell of living in Trumps underwear.
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  2224.  @gwine9087  - You guys are making this so complex, when actually it is quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. So in the end, nothing you with your writing of corporate financial statements or what "Scott W" has to say really matters, because capitalism is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
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  2225. Urraca de Chiflo - Yes, I fear that you are correct. Additionally, our citizens have been indoctrinated and brainwashed to protect the very system that holds us prisoner.
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  2226.  @franziv4593  - What piqued my interest is two videos: 1) All the missile parts laid out for a news conference, apparent "malfunctioning" cruise missiles that crashed in the desert. These caught my eye because I have built, flown and crashed fiberglass composite r/c aircraft and these missiles looked more like they were torn apart and smashed by hand tools rather than crashed. In addition, one of the missiles had "cobwebs" inside the open spaces between the fin and the sheet metal braces (shown in the longer video not this short clip). . . not something that would have survived flight at several hundred MPH. 2) The towers in the oil refineries were not hit by missiles. All missiles pack warheads that explode, blowing all non-armored metal structures they hit into shards. These towers were hit by short range artillery rounds, not missiles. This means the Saudis did this to themselves and all this is a set up. Even the parts shown in this video where whole panels with holes, square holes, panels that should have been greatly disfigured due to catastrophic explosive force . . . even the smallest missiles with a 50 pound warhead would do greater damage than that which was shown. This whole thing stinks of collusion between the Saudis and Trump to cause a war with Iran . . . .my fellow citizens of the USA, beware.
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  2227. We are far outnumbered by Fox News viewers. Just look at the viewer numbers on any Fox News video . . . .
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  2228.  @glennv6804  - There are limits to everything, including well paid jobs utilizing a useful skill. You are displaying quite the cavalier attitude, assuming that people are simply lazy. There is an over abundance of very skilled people who are now homeless or on the brink of, simply because this economy has been hollowed out to the point where skills are not a deciding factor for getting a low pay service job, which are often the only jobs available.
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  2229.  @jamsstaylor2348  - Nope. You forgot about right wing hate radio and all the Clearwater TV channels . . . giving scripts to their newscasters. However, the so-called liberal outlets are just as bad, they are owned by corporations and they are only slightly less bleached than Fox. What you call liberals, I call mouthpieces for the establishment. What! Did you think I get my credible information from MSNBC?
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  2230. Amethyst7 - I'm afraid my dear lady, that you are reading things quite incorrectly. We call trump the "Divider in Chief" for a reason. He is instigating the hatred, causing it to rise to the surface and be displayed for all to see. He alone is spouting the hatred bile, and those who believe as he does are becoming his rabid followers. Those of us who despise what the Divider in Chief is doing are still loyal to our worldwide friends and we WILL take back our country. We have at long last glimpsed who the real enemy is (corporations and oligarchs) and though we have long struggles ahead against out own countrymen to defeat this enemy, it will be done.
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  2231. It is past time for a cap on both income and accumulated wealth. The idea that low taxes will add jobs has been long ago proven to be a false premise. The real problem we have is that wealth is being used to magnify one persons libertarian vote into millions of similar votes through the use of unrestrained propaganda on a uneducated population. Just how much income or wealth does one person need anyway? Beyond excessive luxury, wealth these days for the sake of wealth accumulation is simply leading to the degeneration of human society rather than the advancement of human society.
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  2232. Aaron Seng - If ever there was a case for projection my friend, you are it. If an ideology is being pushed here, it is the one that you have adopted which has one simple premise . . . "what is good for the billionaires and oligarchs is good for you as an individual". You are mired in a belief system that was created for you by people who do not have your best interest at heart. In the past I would tear your argument apart, but beating my head against a stupid brick wall only results in a headache. Suffice to say, it is you who are pushing an ideology . . . if your ideology were an object, it would look like the Titanic going down. Head for the life boats my friend, you have no other recourse.
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  2233. pproust - Naw. Mueller has a titanium heart, he ain't going anywhere. What is it with you people, do you not understand the historical danger here? You want an authoritarian dictator Trump? Do you want the USA to end up like 1945 Germany? Your choices are leading us directly down that path.
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  2234. Tax cuts for the middle class only means employers will not give raises, after all the government just gave the workers a raise!
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  2235. Except that one other thing, easy credit with the Fed keeps the unfettered corporate borrowing to buy back stock going, otherwise the fake financial economy will die. Can't let that happen! Seems how gains in financial assets equal 49% of our economic output now, the corps are spending that borrowed money like crazy, yee-haw!
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  2236.  @joebeetz1832  - Well then here is the solution, which by the way also elicits only crickets from the American people . . . it is past time to put a hard cap or limit on accumulated wealth. Every system, mechanical, chemical or natural has limits. I've been studying the economies of countries going back hundreds of years. With the exception of the debt jubilee of ancient Babylon and early city states (which are not limits, just debt relief), there is NEVER a wealth cap. This omission is unnatural.
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  2237. To Mr. Robert Reich, I've watched dozens if not hundreds of your videos and I started my economic learning curve with your videos. However, there is a constant in your videos which constitutes a void in your method and messaging. This void is so large that none of your policy ideas will work until the void is filled. Anyone who has worked with manifold distribution systems knows that if there is a leak or opening in the system, the system will not work for long and whatever the manifold is distributing will leak out. You can add more of, or replace the material the manifold is distributing, but until that opening is sealed or capped, the system will not work properly. In the USA, Japan and Europe, the central banks are once again printing money like mad. The central banks are doing this because of liquidity shortages in the banking system. Well now, it is obvious there is a hole in the money distribution manifold, allowing all the money to flow to a point source, the top 20%, the top 1% and mostly the top 0.1% of the economic distribution manifold. Unless and until there is a hard cap on wealth accumulation, meaning, until the open pipe in the money distribution manifold is sealed, not a single idea you put forth in this video will work. Every reform, no matter how large or small, is rendered inert by the leakage in the money distribution manifold. This idea that we can have some people with UNLIMITED wealth, has got to go. Otherwise no matter what we try, the problems you outlined here will never be solved.
    1
  2238. john p - You make it incredibly easy to insult your intelligence, your education, your knowledge of economic history and your point of view. However, let us begin with something easy . . . who exactly benefited from the so-called economic expansion of the 80's? Was it you? Somehow I doubt it. The 80's was the starting pistol for the race to the bottom. Are you going to claim that since the 80's your housing costs have not tripled? Are you going to claim that your energy and transportation costs have not tripled? Are you going to claim that your medical insurance costs have not gone up by a factor of six? I've got news for you buddy, the billionaires stopped investing in the population decades ago. What business expansion can you cite that has led to sustained greater hiring and growing wages? Can you come up with more than a handful of such examples? What hiring and what investments have billionaires made in this country over the past 30 years? What "better quality of life" are you talking about? When I look around within my family, at my neighbors and in my town, people are working longer hours for less pay and benefits, they are commuting longer hours and have only one-third the buying power to be had 30 years ago. So who is the real moron here? Better have a good look in your bathroom mirror to find the answer to that question.
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  2239.  @jeremyrangel8138  - "Do you think other people should be forced to pay for your food and healthcare just by virtue of you having air in your lungs?" Man, you are thick. This is exactly what is going on, right now, present day earth. Everyone who has more wealth than they can earn doing real work, is a freeloader. You think Elon Musk or Jamie Dimon earned those billions? Not at all, in one form or another they acquired that wealth without working for it, which means they took it from someone else. How does it feel to watch Bezos ride a large metal dildo to the edge of space using money he never earned? The entire point of building wealth is to extract that wealth from someone else by force. Just because theft through wealth extraction is legal, does not mean they earned it. And here you thought their parents gave them the money? What a maroon.
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  2240. People need to know what "communism" was from your perspective, so we can figure out what is real and what is not. Can you tell us about the communism you experienced?
    1
  2241. Redistribution of wealth. The national GDP takes28 years to double. In the same time period, any amount put into an S&P 500 index fund will multiply by a factor of twelve. Lets just say someone put one million dollars in that index fund for 28 years, now it is 12 million dollars. Where exactly did that extra 11 million dollars come from? It was extracted from the real economy or the existing wealth of the middle class, this is the real nature of redistribution of wealth under capitalism (socialism for the wealthy). Since the stock market is a great casino that produces nothing, it is the means of wealth extraction from our people and our national treasury to enrich the already wealthy.
    1
  2242.  @handlemonium  - Agreed. Remember this also: that stockpile of million and billions is drawing interest . . . . compounded interest. Compound interest is unsustainable as illustrated in the following excerpt from Micheal Hudson's paper on compounded interest and debt. Excerpt: "“Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." That dept or even a small fraction therein, is beyond collection and therefor impossible. However, in propaganda videos like this one, the goal is to convince you that the millionaires and billionaires have a god given right to have morbidly excessive wealth and to grow it with compound interest. Quote from: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  2243. Iran has done nothing but to respond in a proportionate manner to the aggression of the USA and Trump. This is all Trumps fault. Trump pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump put crippling sanctions on Iran for no good reason. Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's top general. zIran has done nothing to hurt the USA. There is no evidence that Iran has taken any hostile action toward the USA. Iran has a one million man army, while the USA has a few thousand troops in the area. This is their part of the world, which the USA is mucking around in. Graham is an idiot. Trump is a moron. Pompeo is a buffoon. These half wits are going to get us into a war that we cannot win, and all this is a diversion by Trump to get us to look away from his crimes in and out of office. Anything that Iran does is directly the fault of Trump and those who support him.
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  2244.  @franklin9400  - Not just an ordinary troll, but first class military grade propaganda troll. How is the pay?
    1
  2245.  @franklin9400  - What I am going on about is your masterful piece of propaganda. Seems how I probably have decades on you sonny, I can recognize what is behind the words easily enough. You really should get paid, you're not bad, as far as shills go.
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  2246.  @franklin9400  - Oh no, I did not say I liked your message, it was garbage. It seems, that you don't actually believe what you wrote, that is becoming clear. You are playing your part masterfully though, like a good little puppet. Looks like your master's investment is paying off.
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  2247.  @franklin9400  - Oh, you are not wrong. That is, you are not wrong about the current economic situation. How it got that way? On that subject, you are way off the mark. Can't hit the broad side of a barn if standing next to it, not with that narrative. You made a declarative statement over and over again, about "lefties". That term is used for propaganda, to divert attention from something else. Between your first and last comments, there is a smorgasbord of facts and non facts that have been woven into a story, but now that is all it is, a story. Someone paid a lot of money to get you and others to believe that story, because it divides us and keeps our attention off them. You should examine things more closely, not be so ready to believe what you are told.
    1
  2248.  @franklin9400  - Ok, now you are just being stupid, or obtuse. You have latched onto a surface features and that is all you are seeing. You did indeed describe how we got to this point, it is all the lefties fault. Ask yourself something simple. Who is in power right now? Are any lefties making critical national decisions? However, beyond the absurd use of the word "lefties", you genuinely seem unaware that no progressives, democrats, libertarians or republicans are pulling the levers of power. To the people who are pulling the levers, those names are just tools they use to distract us. Now that makes the second time I've written "distract" in a sentence, which by now should be getting your attention. Puzzle it out, or just keep on being a dumb tool. If you need another hint, reread the OP's first sentence and think about it.
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  2249.  @franklin9400  - So why was it that "originally", lock downs and stimulus checks did not happen? That was all Congress and the President. They chose, in that moment, to support a half-assed lock down and a huge payday for the wealthy and corporations. When the stock market went south for a few days, the president panicked, then started shouting for "re-opening" the economy, far too early. Republican governors joined in the panic, that is why Covid-19 took hold. We had a fake recovery, then we turned into the worst shit-hole country in the world. Neither Congress or Trump would do anything to stop the spread of the virus, because they used this situation as an opportunity to drive the economy into the ground so that the wealthy could buy up both private and state owned assets as disaster prices. The Original Poster is entirely correct and you are dead wrong. This is not the fault of "lefties", this was a deliberate process by politicians who are bought off, mostly republicans but also corporate democrats. Your "theory" of how things work is all "fake news", spoon fed to you by the oligarch and corporate owned media, which makes you one of the foolish masses who buy into this deliberately destructive narrative. Grow up and use your god given brain for once in you petty life.
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  2250. I was going to make a comment on Benjamin Powell's right wing propagandist version of socialism, but I see that viewers of "The Hill" already have that covered in spades in the comment section.
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  2251.  @BIackCadillac  - Perhaps heat alone from kinetic energy would blow a hole . . . but who sends out a missile without an explosive warhead? I don't know who Michael Bay is, haven't you ever seen war documentaries or clips of Hellfire or cruise missiles when they hit a target? Obliteration is what happens, not standing structures with holes in them. We are talking artillery rounds here, not cruise missiles or ballistic missiles.
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  2252.  @BIackCadillac  - I am extremely skeptical of the whole situation. Weak missiles notwithstanding, it seems even more suspicious that there are direct hits producing holes in structures . . . so they have weak missiles with the ability to hit tall, skinny silos . . . amist a whole bunch of other tall, skinny silos? I'm just not buying this. At the range we are talking, if Iran fired these "missiles", it would be from several hundred miles away with awesome guidance. From a tactical point of view, it makes more sense to send in missiles with 1000 pound warheads that "blow" in the vicinity and use the blast wave to literally cave in many tall, skinny silo towers at once. This looks like artillery damage with very convenient hits, which allow the facility to be repaired in short order. Does not pass my smell test, even the news person from our local station stating that the damage is facing toward the north-east, toward Iran . . . that is awfully convenient to be able to show this off to the media. I believe this is a Saudi setup rather than a bona-fide attack from distance.
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  2253. Stoney Curtis is spot on. Vote out the corrupted GOP, 100 years of continuous lying to the American people is enough.
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  2254. Moa Koko - Panties in a bunch much? You sure are projecting, it appears you are the pathological one here.
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  2255. Forget all of this. Every system has upper and lower limits. Allowing morbidly wealthy to exist, breaks every system we have. Outlaw that kind of wealth accumulation entirely. In addition, our economy is literally rigged to funnel wealth to the morbidiots and deny wealth to everyone else. I thought we were supposed to be a "free" people. The wealthy cannot be trusted to make good decisions for society, just look at what they have done. The only workable systems solution limits wealth growth and wealth deprivation, simple, logical, and enduring.
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  2256. Iran.
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  2257.  @larryhall7998  - This Baby Boomer will vote for Bernie and so will many others. Bernie can communicate and is not a buffoon like Trump. Put those two head to head in a debate and watch Bernie win the election.
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  2258.  @Bada_Boom78  - "Yes, let’s vote to be like Venezuela and Cuba!" Oh yes, lets vote to put crippling sanctions on ourselves. Oh wait! That has already happened! Wages stagnant over 30 years while housing up 400%, health care up 600%, energy and food up 250%, daycare for children up 400%! Now where is all that extra cost going? Its not inflation . . . oh yeah, it all went straight into the financial assets of the top 20% because they all need the free money. Yes, let’s vote to be like Venezuela and Cuba! At least in Cuba no one has bad teeth or dies from lack of health care.
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  2259.  @samuelebincoletto637  What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb.
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  2260.  @ziplokk1453  - What are YOU smoking? The sources are from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, Real GDP and Financial Asset charts. They clearly show that wealth grows much faster than GDP. If you combine those two charts with the money supply chart, it is very clear that the first several decades were extracting wealth from the population, then when that extraction was not enough, massive amounts of money were being borrowed to keep wealth growing past the sustainability range. We are for outside anything Keynesian or classical economics has to teach. I did a Excel spreadsheet on the annual numbers 4th quarter numbers from 1947 to the present, which clearly shows that wealth has growth has far exceeded anything that can be accomplished with wealth whose origins come from "work". We have been misled and lied to about the economy and wealth growth, it is very clear to see when you look at the numbers. GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 Financial Assets: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO M1 MOney Stock: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL
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  2261.  @debbieframpton3857  - How can a person be responsible when debt is being pushed upon us without our consent? When pay rates do not grow, yet rents, groceries and gas are climbing at double digit rates, the resulting debt was not caused by the individual. What most people fail to understand is that all costs are now governed by the need to create a rate of return for financial assets. There is not a single thing we buy these days that is not connected to corporations whose sole aim is to provide profits for shareholders. This idea of "individual responsibility" is being pushed upon us, it is part of a propaganda campaign to hide the fact that the economy is rigged to grow wealth faster than can be supported by the economy.
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  2262. True. Yet American don't even understand that the top 20% skims $2.5 trillion in free money directly out of the economy every year, without lifting a finger to earn that money. With over $50 trillion in financial assets, we are paying these people interest money on their investments that the economy simply cannot support. To hide this from the American people, the interest payments are folded into the GDP in the form of price increases. Over the past decade, health care costs have increased by 51%, all of which was passed on to "investors". The citizen consumer of health care is not getting 51% greater value, the health care industry is acting like the mob with their "protection" rackets. Right now, the top 20% is consuming over 10% of our entire GDP in the form of dividends and "rate of return" (interest) on their "financial assets" (investment portfolio's) . . . .which is *free money*. The economy long ago ran out of productive means to generate a rate of return on investments. Nowadays, its all about extraction from the worker and the consumer, which is just another way of saying the economy is being cannibalized to give rich people free money.
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  2263.  @javieremoya  - Ok, lets examine what you wrote. You are saying that conservatism means change at a slower pace. Well then, over the past forty years change has occurred at a slow pace, and what change has been wrought has not been for the better. You say that AOC is radical, yet it is both the democratic and republican parties that have become radical, abandoning the people and putting the interests of the corporations and the wealthiest among us, in front of the people. AOC is advocating for returning us back to a more sensible system of government, like what FDR did for us, which is repairing the damage done by the three republican presidents of the 1920's. Finally, you used the "literally force people to change" . . . . what is it that you think has been happening over the past 40 year? We have been forced to change into a war mongering, corporation run country where we threaten half the countries on the planet! If anything AOC represents true conservatism, not this corporate/oligarchy run monopolistic power hungry system we have now.
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  2264.  Danny G  - That right for the people to keep and bear arms, is directly connected to "A well regulated Militia". There is a history behind what it meant to be a well regulated militia, specifically that the states needed internal slave patrols and all white men were expected to be in the militias, thus to keep and bear arms. There is nothing about the situation then that remotely resembles the situation today. The republican party of today is exactly the same as the republican party of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. The democratic part of the south prior to the civil war morphed into the republican party of today. Danny, I suggest you read your history if you are going to comment accurately about it, it would also be very helpful in overcoming some of the rifts the wealthy have deliberately wedged between citizens so we would fight each other instead of them.
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  2265. @Dr. Andrew M. Goodman - I had to look up who you were referring to. From what I can discern, Omar is Canadian and his life bears no similarity to AOC whatsoever. AOC was born in the Bronx, NY and is an American Cirizen, I don't know what you are trying to do by comparing the two, but from what I have read, Omar's life was tragic and he was an innocent, drawn into a battle by his father at the age of fourteen. His prosecution by the USA was completely out of line, just another victim of the Bush war machine.
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  2266.  chrisflach69  - Reading your other comments while double checking my own, in order to properly reply to you, I can see that you have no grounding in reality. This means that you lie easily. I cannot even give you the benefit of the doubt.
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  2267.  @bradleejones9959  - So you believe that when someone has money, they deserve more free money. They don't have to work for that free money, it just comes to them because they already have money. Sorry Buddy, but that just does not wash anymore. Furthermore, you need to brush up on your history because there was loads of "government intervention" after the 1917 crash (which only lasted eight months). What do you think all of the tariff's and tax cuts were all about? The actions of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover doomed the United States to suffer the worst economic depression in history until now. I don't have a problem when Bill Gates creates Microsoft and makes several million dollars. However, I do have a problem when he puts millions into a so-called "investment" account which pays out an interest rate that is higher than annual economic growth. Nor is it good for the economy for Bill Gates to charge "rent" on every single financial transaction that uses Microsoft software, especially since users have to buy that software in the first place. You don't know very much about the "rentier class" evidently. Here is the description: Rentier capitalism is a term currently used to describe the belief in economic practices of monopolization of access to any kind of property and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society. Your head if filled with the propaganda these oligarchs put out to confuse poor souls like you into defending their thievery. Every year wealth is drained from you, me and every family in the world, just to pay free money to those who already have too much. Times are changing, so if you want to continue this futile defense of the indefensible, just make sure you have some padding so you don't damage yourself while hitting you head against that stone wall.
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  2268.  B. Greene  - I watch a lot of "Ring of Fire" videos, they are based in Florida and have reported a similar situation to your comment. We need to do something about the wealth drain, too many of our citizens are suffering because of lack of income.
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  2269.  @paulcawley1589  - We just have to get focused, there are so many right wing diversionary tactics being used against us to prevent us seeing our true enemies. Diversions like immigration and yes, even mass shootings. The bought off politicians and the NRA are perfectly happy to have a few Americans die and thus monopolize the headlines, that is a cheap price to pay for them to divert us away from the anti-democracy threat of the elites (both individual and corporate). We must look through the fog and attack our real enemies. I want a solid wealth cap installed on everyone, people and corporations. Excess wealth is only used to play with power, I mean c'mon . . . who needs over $10 million in a lifetime to have a really plush existence? The answer is no one. So many of our problems socially and economically can be solved with one set of interlocking laws which prevent excess wealth accumulation. Right now, this is my sole focus . . . to break through the fog of distractions and focus people on the single true threat we face.
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  2270.  @conorthompson1335  - Yup, cannot disagree with your assessment . . . spot on!
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  2271.  alexdapostman  - The one descriptor in your comment I would take exception to is "Marxist" . . . . but I agree with Darwinian Globalists. There is nothing whatsoever that is "Marxist" about these global elites . . . . they revel in predatory capitalism, whereas Marx's work is an analysis and critique of capitalism. There is much that is attributed to Marx which is purely propaganda, designed to divert from and besmirch Marx's real work.
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  2272.  @davidlafleche1142  - Your situation is statistically insignificant and does not represent the median or average taxpayer. You are a minority and reveling in that status . . . bad form Mate.
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  2273.  @davidlafleche1142  Do you always twist facts to suit your purpose? The 91% and the 92% tax rate "Big Duke" mentioned was after the war, during the Eisenhower Administration (republican). Don't be pulling that 10th commandment bullshit here, most of the country has put religious ideology behind themselves in favor of a more rational approach to life. In addition, it is the very people who were subject to the 91% taxes who were guilty of breaking the 10th commandment, because they bought politicians and made changes to the tax laws to allow themselves to "get it all". You are so hypocritical as to be obnoxious in the extreme. We have EVERY right to establish a wealth cap, that is the only way to deal with you lying dogs. The 8th commandment is exactly what the 1% are doing to the rest of us, so don't give me that lying "liberals" bullshit again . . . you stupid crackhead.
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  2274. The Fed is once again bailing out the banks . . . . which for some reason are "short" on money even though they are making huge profits. Between September 23 and October 10, the Fed will be pumping $75 billion of liquidity per business day into the banking system. The market repurchase agreements, or repo program was initiated when the overnight borrowing interest rate between banks skyrocketed from 2% to almost 10% in a day. Pumping almost $1 trillion in liquidity into the banking system dilutes the value of the dollar . . . once again making things we need to live cost more. We need to put a stop to this. There is one very easy solution that everyone seems to ignore . . . put a cap on wealth accumulation. No system, natural or man made, exists without limits . . . except how wealthy certain people can get. Enough already, we need to apply common sense to the situation and place hard cap limits on wealth . . . that one action will solve so many of our problems in the economy.
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  2275. True. The US has a rigged system where wealth grows significantly faster than economic growth can achieve or support. Everyone except for the top fraction of 1% have been getting ripped for decades. This system will collapse under the fraudulent mathematical construct that is our economy.
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  2276.  @jennifergalberth1240  - All of us EXCEPT for 20% at the top of the pile, pilferers and looters.
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  2277. This whole dog and pony theater with the kids separated from their parents and Melania's jacket was entirely staged (with dire and real consequences instead of actors) to distract us and the news media from what the republicans in the House of Representatives were doing this week. With hardly a whisper, the House of Reps passed their proposed budget which cuts 1.5 trillion from Medicaid and 800 billion from Social Security. Just imagine how that is going to slam the economy when the income losses from those cuts prevents goods and services from being purchased, this is the republican wet dream designed to undermine and eliminate once and for all . . . the Constitution of the United States.
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  2278.  @Repdem  - All the problems in the USA are linked to accumulated wealth. We need to stop whining about what billionaires and corporations get away with, the only real solution is to place a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. No system, natural or artificial is capable of infinite growth, therefor we must recognize that wealth accumulation itself must have limits. This is the only way the corruption can be dealt with once and for all.
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  2279. David Dreyer - A house is not a tangible asset when no one will buy it. We are heading toward recession or depression which will destroy housing values. In addition, what Maurice Evans wrote is entirely true and refutes your comment.
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  2280. Not to mention that many people are still very afraid of getting Covid-19 if forced to go back to work. Far too many people are not taking the virus seriously and smart people know that the chances of getting sick are still very high when exposure to careless people is part of the job.
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  2281. Listen up republicans. The only reason you are being spoon fed hatred of the immigrant is because those people who have $10 million in financial assets are getting half a million in free money every year and they don't want you to know that. So to divert your attention from the fact that your health care goes up every year to finance their free money grab, they feed you hate stories about how everything is the immigrants fault. Wise up, or you are personally going to sink the United States.
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  2282.  @shelbyholcombe8731  - But meanwhile, you don't seem to mind that wealthy citizens are looting and pillaging our people to the tune of $2.75 trillion every year. You don't seem to mind that free money is literally given to people who already have wealth, money taken directly our of your pockets and mine. You really need to get your priorities straightened out, immigrants are not the problem in our country. The problem are the rich bastards who take a small portion of the free money they are getting and using it to fill your head with blatant propaganda.
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  2283.  @weez489  - Cannot really disagree with that assessment.
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  2284. I am concerned about something far more destructive than executive pay inequality. The 1% in the USA have amassed so much wealth (over $30 trillion) that just to satisfy a nominal rate of return (lets use 5% interest) it eats all of our annual GDP growth PLUS an additional sum equal to almost double our annual GDP growth. Here is the math. The 1% currently have over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth. Our U.S. economy is just below $20 trillion annual GDP output. In 2018 the growth in output for the USA was $360 billion. The interest on $30 trillion at 5% is $1.5 trillion. So here is source of my alarm. Output growth for 2018 was $360 billion yet the interest payments (free money) to the 1% was over $1,500 billion . . . . where does that extra $950 billion in 1% interest come from if not directly out of our pockets in increased costs for housing, medical care and education? Why should the 1% get all that free additional wealth for doing nothing . . . when ordinary good people have to choose between rent or food or medical care? The 1% have surpassed the critical mass of wealth that will enable them to cannibalize us just to satisfy their craving for more interest generated wealth (free money). These people are not "investing" . . . they are using their wealth to be predators, which will turn us unto a society of Kings and Serfs. This has me freaked out and angry, what exactly can we do about it?
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  2285.  @juniorgod321  - Got news for you genius, wealth extraction is greater than the entire economic output. Does not matter how many goods get made or sold, the wealthy always take more than all of production combined. This is not a problem that will be solved by the "market". Government is the only player that can play when private business fails. Case in point. Baby formula. The market failed, the government stepped in and saved the day.
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  2286. Michael Taylor - As I wrote in an earlier comment: The problem is, that the majority of U.S. citizens do not accept corporations as people. The SCOTUS and most of the Congress are owned . . . lock, stock and barrel by corporations, meaning we no longer have a government for "We the People". The federal government is on the edge of illegitimacy.
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  2287. In basic and simple form, don't vote for anyone who runs for political office if they are well funded. When a candidate is well funded, the origin of the money is greed. Look for the candidate who is barely funded and vote for them.
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  2288.  @michaelcarter7079  - The rich are being punished? You need to read this then, because you have fallen prey to their propaganda. Ok, I just watched this video. First of all, Prager U is a propaganda channel set up by Dennis Prager. While his videos are very appealing to conservatives, they are highly skewed. When I refer to "progressives", I'm not talking about the way households or local governments are run. I'm talking about how the federal government is run and the way the wealthy gain more wealth. We run our household with conservative methodology. Local and state governments must operate using a conservative methodology or they will go broke. That is not the way the federal government or those with excessive wealth operate. There is a distinction and a difference. The federal government creates money and can never go broke. None of our federal tax money is used to run the federal government, all of the federal government operating expenses are covered through congressional appropriations and spending bills signed by the president. Spending bills signed into law are the check, and the U.S. Treasury can always cash the check. The federal government chooses to sell bonds, though there is no requirement for this, it is a safe haven for savings because the federal government can never go broke. Our federal tax money is used to retire older bonds, but the reason the federal debt keeps going up is because taxes have been lowered over the past four decades for the higher income and wealthy citizens, so there is not enough taxes coming in to retire bonds. Of course there are other reasons for the federal debt going up, useless wars, bailing out banks and Wall Street, subsidies to industry, etc. However the main reason we have a federal debt is that the U.S. government is the source of all currency and if that currency is withdrawn by balancing the budget, we would be in perpetual economic depression. Those with excessive wealth (I consider the wealth of Dennis Prager to be on the low end of the excessive wealth scale), use this type of propaganda to advocate for low taxes for the wealthy, by trying to equate themselves with a middle income conservative household. They are nothing like a conservative household. The exponential growth of compounded interest creates wealth by extracting it from the very conservative households this propaganda is appealing to. Look here, there is an example of the accumulation of wealth put forward by a 1700's philosopher that I like to use. The economist Michael Hudson translated his writings into U.S. currency so we could understand it. If you took one U.S. penny at 5% compounded interest, and started it in a savings account at the birth of Jesus Christ, by the year 1750 the value of that initial penny would be over 180 earth size globes of SOLID GOLD. This of course, is completely unsustainable. By issuing this kind of conservative propaganda, the wealthy elites are trying to obscure from us the way they grow their wealth, not from hard work and effort like you, or Elon Musk, but from extracting wealth from all of us, so they can get compounded interest based on their already immense accumulated wealth. The same thing happens when you get 20% of the population who have accumulated wealth 2.5 times our annual GDP, the compounded interest being paid on that accumulated wealth can only be gained by extracting wealth from the bottom 80%, but even then, there is a limit. This is why since late September of 2019, the Federal Reserve has been pumping liquidity into the banking system like mad. The world is running out of money to pay interest to the wealthy. Central banks all over the world are pumping currency into the banking system, and that currency is being borrowed by corporations and the wealthy seeking a greater rate of return in the stock markets. That is the entire reason the stock markets are booming. Being progressive in the modern era means putting a stop to the over-accumulation of wealth, because it is simply unsustainable. It is not about jealousy or envy, those words are propaganda talking points. It is about our very survival as a species, that is what being a "progressive" is all about these days.
    1
  2289. Oh, you can take this to the bank . . . Trumps Department of Labor has skewed the numbers and what we are being told is very far away from being truthful.
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  2290.  @outlaw6429  - And yet the wealthy can make well thought out plans to steal everything and make it legal, which leads to the looting and the crime everywhere going up, when people have nothing and get desperate. The irony is super thick.
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  2291.  @outlaw6429  - If you are looting Neiman Marcus, it is indeed because you need life sustaining supplies. What do you think they are going to buy when they sell the goods, gold or real estate? You are skirting the real issue here, wealth growth is extracting everything from us and desperation ensues. Theft is not a crime if you have the money to buy the government and the justice system, yet legal looting is the root cause of all of the things Dan talks about. There is no wisecrack answer that can skirt that reality.
    1
  2292.  @outlaw6429  - All I am doing is pointing out the root causes for crime on the ground at city level and calling out the cause. You wrote "the system is illegitimate", I agree if you are referring to our economic system. There is no system, natural or artificial, that is capable of operating without limits. Yet we pretend that exponential wealth growth is a system that is stable and natural. This "belief" is generated at the top of the food chain and bought into by almost an entire population. Then we wonder why prices and crime keeps going up.
    1
  2293.  @outlaw6429  - We are mostly in agreement. Yet I cannot fully subscribe to your explanation that nearly all crimes are crimes of opportunity. Yes, there are a substantial portion of crimes that are exactly that, crimes of opportunity. Yet how many of that portion would actually occur if bellies were full and lives were secure? How many crimes would be organized and planned if the plenty this society generates were not hoarded and made artificially scarce? Crime of all types are a direct result of the way in which our society is organized, primarily that it is organized around greed. That kind of organization creates excessive need, which results in crimes that would not otherwise happen. People get pushed into crime because they have, or feel that they have, no other choice. You should reexamine your hypothesis that theft is a crime of opportunity and greed. You are on the correct path with so much else, yet with this, you are off into the weeds.
    1
  2294.  @outlaw6429  - The homeless population. I postulate that a majority of the homeless population knows how to get food without stealing. The homeless population has also learned, for the most part, not to steal from each other. They can get clothing and food, even rudimentary shelter. The homeless are easy to identify and they cannot get away, which is why they don't steal that much, and never the expensive or flashy things. What about the people who are not yet homeless, maybe they have a car, a domicile and other resources, yet are too poor to be employed at anything but starvation wages? These people fear becoming homeless and their choices are limited. Perhaps those Nike shoes and big screen TV's would fetch enough to keep them housed and fed, and keep their connections to society. It is that kind of needless desperation that drives most crime. There are still the narcissists and sociopaths that commit crime and thievery for the joy of it, but the vast majority do so because all other opportunity has been cut off. Just in case you have not noticed, costs just to survive are rising past the ability for a great many people to pay. Those cost increases are solely due to the greed of the wealthy. With modern tech, a loaf of bread, a car or even a house should be lower in cost, not going up double digits every year. We are in our sixties and within sight of being homeless ourselves. We will not turn to crime because we are old, too old for that. Yet my younger self would feel our current pressure and not be able to withstand it. I would indeed become desperate enough when younger and under the same circumstances, to consider theft as a viable option in order to stay afloat. Now, at our age, homelessness, living on the street, would be a better option than crime. We know it would also cost us our lives.
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  2295. The real problem we face is that the 1% has accumulated so much wealth that it cannot get a rate of return without extracting wealth from the bottom 99%. People don't understand that the wealthy elites have become parasites because they have so much in idle riches, instead of being the engines of job creation (which is the mythology we are constantly being sold). We simply cannot have $30 trillion in idle wealth seeking a 9% rate of return (ROR) from a $20 trillion annual economy which only grows 2.5% annually. We can fix this by capping accumulated wealth and forgiving debt. The two actions must be implemented together. The alternative is between 22-30 years from now, 90% of GDP will go to servicing a ROR for the 1%'s wealth. We will have a bifurcated society, the ultra wealthy 1% and the decimated 99%.
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  2296.  @froggerjohn427  - Your reply makes no sense. You are apparently saying that Trump supporters can see he is mentally ill. Then you appear to write that people want the country shut down because Trump is mentally ill. Can you clarify your statement?
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  2297. David Timmer - This why we have to refocus our energy. Our efforts are wasted when we try to do reforms of any kind, because those reforms will always be dismantled. Instead of changing a myriad of different laws trying to combat undue influence, there are only two simple rules that must be placed into law. First in an Annual Income Cap, the second is an Accumulated Wealth Cap. It is vast wealth in the hands of individuals which is the root cause of all our woes and the dysfunction of wealth inequality in our worldwide collective societies. Vast wealth is the toolkit used to dismantle all reforms put into law, and the one glaring example I will put forward is FDR's New Deal. In the decades since the New Deal, the wielders of vast wealth have been dismantling the New Deal piece by piece. Now the New Deal is gone, destroyed. This happens to every law, every reform ever put in place to protect the majority. There is a simple guide as to what the caps should be. By all means, earn your millions until you have enough for you and your family to live in the utmost of luxury for a lifetime. Beyond that point, return everything you earn back to the society that helped you create the wealth in the first place. No one makes millions in a vacuum, everyone who does so has the help of the entire society of human beings . . . every millionaire made is a joint venture with society. I'm 57 years old and my eldest daughter is 30 years old. Between us we have the life experiences of our generations. We did a "thought experiment" to ascertain what the income and wealth limits should be. Her ideas encompassed more than my own, so we generally went with her numbers. I would like to see more of us doing such "thought experiments" so we can come up with a consensus that will make an annual income and accumulated wealth cap palatable to the majority. Do these two things and all dark money political contributions evaporate down to a level where the will of the few no longer dominates the will of the many. We already know excessive wealth beyond what is needed to live a life of utmost luxury is mostly then used to exert power over the powerless.
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  2298. Kyle - How can Bernie win, when the American people let him down? Right now, you have 956 comments. Not a single one of these comments mentions anything important, because the American people have become stupid, can't focus, can't do simple math, therefore the American people force Bernie Sanders to dumb down his messages just so he can communicate with us. What is wrong with you people? Here is the whole problem we have in a nutshell: The 1% are consuming more than the economy can grow, they are our cancer and we ignore the treatment. Can't you people do basic math? We have a $20 trillion national GDP growing at 2.5% per year. The 1% have over $30 trillion in wealth, money demanding interest payments. Last time I checked, the milk toast S&P 500 index funds has averaged 9% since 1994. Even if we use a very nominal 5% interest rate, the 1% is consuming 7.5% of our ENTIRE national GDP. That is $1.5 trillion in free money going to the 1% every year, not including their huge Trump tax cut. Stupid people are forcing Bernie Sanders to talk about raising the minimum wage, free college, Medicare for All and what not . . . . because we are simply incapable of confronting our real issue. Left unchanged and unchallenged, the 1% will consume everything within 15 years. You want to do something about climate change? Well, you can't . . . not unless you deal with the 1% first. There is no system, man made or natural, which does not have limits. Without limits, everything blows up or dies another gruesome way. So why can't people get it through their thick heads that there must be a hard limit to wealth? This is the very definition of stupidity, when we cannot deal with the obvious and this is why Bernie Sanders cannot win.
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  2299. Don't misunderstand my statement. I fully support Bernie, he is the only viable candidate. My grievance is with everyone who talks about the trivial and ignores the real threat. Do the math. We don't have much time and we have to face the imminent truth. Strip everything else away, the reason for the 2008 crash was because the 1% ran out of useful ways to grow their money and resorted to stripping down other sources of wealth. That behavior has been allowed to continue to the point of major instability. Are we really going to leave the decisions about our future in the hands of those who are stripping down everything, just so they can make a "rate of return"? Do the math. Extrapolate what $50 trillion of accumulated global wealth seeking returns does to a $80 trillion global economy. Then look at the same set of figures for the USA. Extrapolate what $30 trillion of accumulated wealth seeking returns does to a $20 trillion U.S. economy. You cannot have that much wealth seeking a greater return than the economy of the world can generate. This is a cancer and if we don't understand that . . . . then there is no hope for anything Bernie might be able to accomplish.
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  2300.  @Mrbfgray  - What a load of BS, through and through. Oligarch propaganda, all of it.
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  2301.  @Mrbfgray  - Tell me something. Is it possible in this day and age for an American to wander freely, go where one will and live off the land as our ancestors did? Or, do we rely on a human built economy to survive?
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  2302.  @yellowpanda3972  - Innovators are maybe one out of one hundred. Those that can survive after butting heads with barriers to entry, maybe one out of one thousand (more likely one out of ten thousand). Innovation is not the answer you think it is, most of the barriers to entry these days are economic rents, which just keep growing at about the same pace as financial assets. Innovation does not help the average worker overcome economic rents either.
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  2303.  @Juan-dc6yf  - "Basic needs has turned into a cali home, yearly new iPhone, newest cars with the best tech and leather seats." How does one respond to blatant lies like this? Propaganda, paid for by the filthy, morbidly wealthy. Reality is not anything like that portrayal.
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  2304. Arya Stark - If you are referring to "Duverger’s Law" . . . that is a conceptual argument and not an actual law. It is legal for third parties to run, but in a winner take all system they rarely win. In the case of Bernie starting a "People's Party". there is a good case to be made that many democrats will jump ship (including myself) and that the largest non-voting party (independents) will join up. In that case the husk of the Democratic Party will dry up and blow away . . . . like dust in the wind, leaving two parties standing. Such a maneuver is really the only way Proportional Representation can be brought forward to the American people, because the current republican and democrat parties would never allow it to happen. Thus we really need that third party to have a chance at what you propose, kinda rendering your argument against a third party moot and counterproductive. Good comment though! :-)
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  2305. MC - No, I have not read that book or so many others . . . my budget for reading material is zero at the moment. Yet it sounds quite interesting,   How about a teaser? What struck a chord with you?
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  2306. MC - Pretty amazing stuff there. What I found particularly interesting is the parallel processes my own thought had traveled. (Since this has now happened several times in recent times. . .) I am always amazed to find someone has already come to the same conclusions and organized materials to support those conclusions. You are correct, there really is no need for society to keep on traveling in this free market capitalism "crash cart". We have the technological means and the production capability to provide a really good life for everyone on the planet. The waste being generated now by the "most efficient system, the self correcting free market" is just unconscionable. What especially struck me is the conversation about money as a form of debt, and that new money is created by debt. There were rumblings about this subject from other sources, but the theory had not emerged well enough for me to understand. Now I can clearly perceive that our economy is a giant Ponzi Scheme . . . .with the poor and middle class as punching bags for the rich. What I really really hate is when having that nagging feeling things don't make sense in our economy. . . . only to discover it is all a con job to keep some people rich and powerful. We have to end this capitalist system. I have more studying to do.
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  2307.  @chickenflavor9880  - What, what?
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  2308. One sided point of view. The death toll of capitalism is comparable to that of socialism, just not so widely reported in capitalist countries.
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  2309. Retalak - Your premise will most likely result in anarchy. Better that the system be retooled, using our Constitution to accomplish the retooling.
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  2310. Tomato Pa - While I agree with your statement, that is not the way the future needs to unfold. We have the ability to retool the Presidency and the Congress. We just need a resonant goal that will inspire the mass of people to do their part in the retooling.
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  2311. Retalak - Roosevelt left the means to dismantle the reforms he made in the very hands of those who had every incentive to dismantle his reforms. That is why we have to permanently remove the tools and weapons used by the oligarchs to disable reforms, namely their vast wealth. Just ask yourself how much wealth is enough to live in the lap of luxury for a lifetime, and there you will find the the place a wealth cap needs to reside in our economic system. Revolution will be counter-productive and lead to anarchy. Retooling our political and economic system will be much more effective than revolution. History can be our guide, but repeating history will be very counter productive.
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  2312. Retalak - What I am interested in is an easy to understand message that is simple and will penetrate the armor capitalism has built around society today. I don't think in any of my comments that I have described what I am advocating as socialism, even though I am firmly of the belief that the ownership of the means of production should reside with the workers involved in such production. Making such sweeping changes over the whole of society will not be easy, but it will be impossible unless we have access to a large enough lever. What we need to start that process towards overall worker owned means of production, is the economic equivalent of an armor piercing round in the political policy arsenal. Whether it be democratic socialism or true socialism itself, the forces arrayed against us preventing change to such an economic system are formidable. The constituency of the USA has been essentially brainwashed over the past 50 years against socialism and communism. Hell, I myself was brainwashed for most of my adult life and I am pushing sixty years old. I've spent the past two years immersed in study on the subject, the average "Joe" will not invest that kind of time and effort. We need an easy to understand policy weapon that most people will have no problem adopting and wielding, we need the thin edge of the wedge which pries open the door to adopting a socially responsible economic system. When a wealth cap in initiated, it will essentially shatter the hold of the capitalist over the means of production. We need something that powerful in our arsenal, because a $15/hour minimum wage, Medi-Care for all, and all of the other tools democratic socialists are currently using are too weak to stand against the "bourgeoisie" over a long enough period of time. A wealth cap will force all large companies and corporations to divest their holdings, no longer will a very small group of individuals be able own and control the means of production. A political weapon powerful enough to crack capitalism's armor, and a weapon simple enough for the masses to grasp and wield politically is what I am seeking. Only then can the beneficial economic policies of true socialism and communism sweep away the remaining remnants of the predatory animal that capitalism has become. An annual income and total wealth cap is that powerful political weapon. BTW - Once again, I was not notified by YouTube of your response even though you made the change I suggested. Glad I was checking in and was able to read your comment response.
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  2313. Aubrey - Agreed . . . and . . . not all of us males are crude, brain dead idiots like your first two responders. We recognize that we need strong women in journalism and as science and computer programming geeks. Before you morons start sounding off, yes . . . Ana Kasparian is a journalist. Look it up.
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  2314. Conservatives are only out to screw us. Worker productivity since Reagan has gone up 321%, while worker wages have risen only 1/10 of 1%. Meanwhile, the simple costs of living such as housing and energy have tripled and our Federal Treasury has been raided by private interests for trillions of dollars. We, as in you, I and the ordinary people of the USA must fight back. It is time for a Maximum Annual Income . . . . and an Accumulated Wealth Cap. That is the only way to fight what is happening, open ended profits are killing us. Personally, I think the wealthy oligarchy is taking revenge on us for the FDR New Deal . . . even though the wealthy never really suffered under the New Deal. Any reforms we get will be dismantled until we the people take away the tools used to dismantle reforms. Than means capping wealth and income, no two ways about it.
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  2315. Ann Linley - Ann Linley replied: "coolmodelguy If you cap wealth, you cap production. Why would anyone grow their company if there was no incentive?" Hmmm, no that is not the case. Hoarding wealth is what caps production. When that money is taken out of circulation through wealth accumulation, it is not invested in production, or the purchase of goods and services. Contrary to what most people think, when hoarded wealth is "reinvested" it is not done so in the physical sense of the word . . . it is done so with finiancialized instruments which actually bleed off or extract wealth from the "real economy" and funnels that money into wealth funds where it sits . . . being inert. When wealth and income are capped, profits which now go into hedge fund portfolios are diverted into other areas to the greater benefit of the economy. Examples are: actual reinvestment in physical production, or giving workers a raise (thus increasing the demand for goods and services). What you are claiming is actually the product of oligarch propaganda. You should really rethink your belief systems, because your cognitive processes have been hijacked by those whose goal is to take advantage of you.
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  2316. Kyle, your main claim is in error. We don't know what the Muller investigation has provided, all we know is what Barr wrote in his summary. Who is Barr? A stooge that was installed to cut off the investigation. While it is legit for you to be disturbed with mainstream corporate media, what are you expecting from them? They love Trump. Meanwhile, you are mischaracterizing what has happened, going off half-cocked. That is just as bad as what mainstream media is doing. I'm losing respect for you, get a grip man!
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  2317. Gaulin Didier - Your statement shows gross ignorance. True communism hold individuality is the highest esteem. The economics of the future is not based on wealth. We strive to better ourselves - Captain Picard.
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  2318. Gaulin Didier - That is your grounds for dismissal? Grounds for immediate mistrial! I have not read any of Marx's works nor have I watched any movies or listened to conjecture about his personal life. However, real communism has society using all resources for the betterment of both individuals and society as a whole, instead of diverting massive resources into the pockets and purses of SOME FEW individuals. Seems to be worth investigating further, don't you think?
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  2319. Gaulin Didier - Property rights . . . that is fine, right up until your accumulated property starts to influence votes. Have to differ with you on the ownership of the means of production . . . you cannot eat bytes. With regards to communism, I prefer to create my own definitions(plural) based on modern outlooks with occasional references to Marx(his frame of reference was 200 years behind us). You . . . my friend, are stuck in the mud. Clean off you boots and get modern!
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  2320. We reign in capitalism by putting a hard cap on accumulated wealth. This much, no more. The result will be horizontal wealth distribution instead of vertical wealth distribution.
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  2321. Xyz Same - Excellent and logical points.
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  2322. B Sinita - Thank you for the clarification. My purpose was to challenge the idea that citizens from Africa are somehow less than . . . I know that is not the case. Throwing blame on a people for having a boot on their necks is reckless and spiteful behavior, something that racists always do to justify and normalize their obscene behavior.
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  2323. John Stockwell Major Smedley Butler - Good points. The cannon fodder is force fed propaganda, very similar to the propaganda Peter spews forth every time he posts a comment on Professor Wolff's videos. Good to read something from others who are disgusted and finished with his type of predatory behavior.
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  2324. Peter - Your business is all about upgrading and making better automated systems of production. So it makes no sense at all that you are entrenched in favor of NOT upgrading our socioeconomic systems to work at least as well as the technology you are using to improve . . . excuse me, eliminate jobs. Please explain these diametrically opposed positions.
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  2325. Peter . . . you are soooo thick. It is not theft, because it was never yours to begin with. Plus now I know you don't know how to read . . . so you failed.
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  2326. You know Peter - You just proved yourself the hypocrite and in support of a corrupted system that steals from workers. Capitalism is theft, I have proved that. You refuse to do an analysis of my findings when I proved that wages have lost over half their value in thirty years due to capitalism. Until you prove that I am incorrect, blah, blah, blah.
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  2327. Peter - When you write this: "You are too stupid to read the charts. It is no wonder you are such a loser." You have already lost the battle and the war. Simple truth is you are a coward. You read the charts and you know I am correct . . . . so you lash out like a child. So sad.
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  2328. Oh Peter - grow up and stop being lazy. All the links are provided, do your homework.
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  2329. Peter - You claimed some time ago that you wanted debate with Professor Wolff. Now I think that is a wonderful idea, I would love to watch that video. Personally I want to see how someone who cannot check references does against an economist who checks references for a living. Set it up! I wanna see the debate!
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  2330. Ok Peter, according you the chart you furnished, median income between 1986 and 2016 has risen 22.4%. Now according to cross reference data, basic costs of rents, energy and transportation have gone up 157.66% over the same time period. So costs have risen 135.26% more than pay over three decades. How is that not an "income cut"?
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  2331. Peter - Profit and plunder? This is a diversion. Your own chart proved you wrong about the current value of wages, and you just cannot accept that. What a child you are, when are you going to grow up Peter?
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  2332. Peter - You are engaging in deliberate obfuscation and trying to change the subject. I proved that the value of wages has dropped and you cannot disprove my analysis. My analysis was simple, based on data, easy to prove, and was accompanied by sources. You cannot handle that, so instead you attempt to change the narrative. You lost. Get over it. Unless of course you would like to present your own analysis of my work. Capitalists are a cancer upon society and humanity. We recognize cancer, and we know what to do with it.
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  2333. Peter - You wrote: "Not only will people pay less in taxes but Starbucks and Walmart have raised wages and benefits." Pure propaganda, it is completely meaningless and false to boot. People will now pay more for health insurance because of the "tax scam", thus negating whatever less is paid in taxes. Walmart and Starbucks are not raising wages for all of their employees, only giving bonuses to a select few. It is all a scam and you Peter . . . come up with the most puerile arguments to support your position.
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  2334. You just cannot help but to lie Peter. You wrote: "What you pay for health insurance is now a free decision between you and the insurance company." That is what in the pray trade is called a lie. That is just a diversion for you Peter. . . again. Besides, you don't like evidence . . . you prove that over and over.
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  2335. Way to GasLight Peter . . . on purpose you have muddied the waters. All because you became intellectually cornered and cannot wriggle out any other way.
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  2336. You must be so lonely Peter, I actually feel sorry for you.
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  2337. Peter - You have yourself twisted up in knots. The data is obvious, so are your attempts to muddy the waters. This is why you and your kind cannot be trusted ever again.Yet like a young child crying out for attention, you just keep on spouting your obvious propaganda. Let me restate in a manner you cannot twist. "The VALUE of what median income wages can purchase has dropped by over 50% in the last 30 years." Now . . . if you cannot come up with an analysis or actual data to refute this FACT, then all of your blather is just that . . . blather.
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  2338. Peter, are you still having trouble with your reading comprehension? Might be something you need to get checked out with your doctor.
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  2339. Peter - You are steadfastly ignoring facts, so it is simply mockery and obfuscation when you write: "You have refuted nothing but libtards don't care about facts, just feelings." I restated the facts at hand so even a first grader would understand them. Have you lost your mind so badly to Alzheimer's or dementia that you have forgotten that the onus for refuting those fact is on you now? The chart you brought up after my statement was general in nature. My charts were specific, median income for men, median income for women. You are trying again to muddy the waters instead of addressing the facts. So what is your excuse? You mock and bring up meaningless diversions like Walmart and Starbucks instead of answering my challenge. Your problem is that you know you cannot meet my challenge. So, go ahead. Lets see how you dance around now . . . it is after all so slightly entertaining to watch you dig your hole deeper . . . and deeper . . . and deeper.
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  2340. All of these tariffs that Trump has put in place are simply part of Putin's plan to weaken the USA on multiple fronts. Weaken our foreign policy, weaken our economy and divide the people of our country. Putin is getting full returns on his investment in Trump.
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  2341.  Meg  - People keep trying for reforms (fight for $15/hr, Medicare for All, Green New Deal, end the wars, Wall Street tax). Yet every reform is undone by the wealthy. If we really want to make change, first we have to cut off the infinite wealth gathering. Make a law that limits wealth accumulation for the sake of mandatory social, economic and ecological change. All other ways have been attempted and failed. Consider this, when an individual cannot exceed $3 million in accumulated wealth, it will be nearly impossible for politicians to be bribed. The elites will become ordinary.
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  2342. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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  2343. Denys Lightbow - Tinfoil hat working ok?
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  2344.  @davidhicks745  - Whats the matter? Do you not know how to read? I already know that you cannot do any fact checking for yourself, preferring to be spoon fed propaganda by rich bastards who are laughing at you while they fill their pockets with your hard earned money.
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  2345.  @billypardew2337  - What are the immigrants, legal or illegal, doing that is quite as bad as what the wealthy are doing? Did you know that over 13% of our yearly economic output is being paid in "free money" to those who are already wealthy? How does that even compare with what these poor immigrants are "supposedly" doing?
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  2346. Debunked by whom? What scientist? You? We don't need idiots like you in a serious discussion. U.N. Climate Report, look it up.
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  2347.  @jonathonhinkle89  - Debunked by whom? You are making several errors in your statement but I'll settle for who debunked the U.N. Climate Report which stated we have 12 years to cut our carbon emissions in half. So . . . debunked by whom?
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  2348.  @jonathonhinkle89  - You are going to lend more credence to Katherine Hayhoa, an evangelical christian, than you do to the U.N. climate science team? That is who your debunked reference is to! An evangelical christian? There is no credibility at all there.
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  2349. Autocratic governments last for a generation at best. Look at what has been left behind after they fall . . . that is our future.
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  2350. Yeah, but will the robots buy what the owner/donor class manufactures, once there are no more humans earning wages?
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  2351. But wait! The Trump administration has declared that there is No Poverty, extreme poverty or rampant poverty in the USA!
    1
  2352.  @mediocrefloridaman  - Another self promoting flat-earther. You have posted on every comment with this video link, I gave it a look just to see what you were promoting. Science is self correcting, conspiracy theory is not, therefor what you are peddling is simply a waste of everyone's time.
    1
  2353.  @mediocrefloridaman  - Sheep Dog, always ready to bite BS peddlers.
    1
  2354. Ohhh no. . . we are a totally socialist country. Free money just spews out of the treasury, that is how the federal debt arrived at $22 trillion. Tax cuts, tax loopholes, regulatory cutbacks and regulation loopholes, forever wars gushing out dividends (free money) from Ratheon, Haliburton, Boeing and Lockheed, all paid for by Congress. . . . we are crawling with damn wealthy sonafabitchin socialists!
    1
  2355.  @MST3Killa  - Really now, you think my r/c flight experience included blowing things up? Oh no, no, no . . . you do not get to smear my integrity like that and get away with it. When a model maker such as myself builds a scale replica (like the USN-SSN Los Angeles Class Attack submarine on my YouTube channel), it takes a tremendous amount of research and documentation to accomplish that. Think logically man, when one such as myself has such interests, there comes with the territory dozens, if not hundreds of documentaries on land and naval warfare . . . and the effects therein. I am extremely skeptical of the whole situation. It seems very suspicious that there are direct hits producing holes in structures . . . so they have weak missiles with the ability to hit tall, skinny silos . . . amidst a whole bunch of other tall, skinny silos? I'm just not buying this. At the range we are talking, if Iran fired these "missiles", it would be from several hundred miles away with awesome guidance. From a tactical point of view, it makes more sense to send in missiles with 1000 pound warheads that "blow" in the vicinity and use the blast wave to literally cave in many tall, skinny silo towers at once. This looks like artillery damage with very convenient hits, which allow the facility to be repaired in short order. Does not pass my smell test, even the news person from our local station stating that the damage is facing toward the north-east, toward Iran . . . that is awfully convenient to be able to show this off to the media. Use your brain man! This looks like a Saudi setup rather than a bona-fide attack from distance.
    1
  2356.  @krexoriginal  - Triggered much? Don't need to be a combat vet or EDO to know what different kinds of ordinance is capable of. I've seen all types, from cruise missiles to anti-tank rounds, also seen armored and non armored, land force, air force and naval force capabilities from the modern age all the way back to Viking long boats. I was never commenting on Shia or Sunni or any other group . . . I was commenting on the media circus and false attack scam being pulled off . . . . trying to get Trump his war. Apparently you think getting the USA into a hot war again for political gain is a good idea? I don't. Let the Saudi fight whomever . . . without our help and certainly without OUR weapons.
    1
  2357.  @DavidAdkins78  - If you are going to list anyone who teaches or writes about the economy a fraud, then Paul Roderick Gregory also belongs on that list. I read the article you linked to, Paul Roderick Gregory is not wrong about his facts, but he does not have the time and space to be more precise, or perhaps omissions are made on purpose. The point is, the author of the article does the same thing Robert Reich does, summarizes and make anecdotes. The teaching is still good, it can set people on their own path to discovering the truth.
    1
  2358.  @gloworm6387  - Agreed. There is only one Dem Senator that will not vote for HR1, not for the reasons he says, but because he is neck deep in dark money.
    1
  2359.  @chokkan7  - You seem to be ignoring the last ten years of republican behavior, there is a historical and legitimate reason democrats no longer try to cross the isle.
    1
  2360.  @etep878  - I'll see your price controls along with UBI, and raise you with wealth controls. For whatever reason, economists and politicians believe that our economy can safely operate without limits, and thus our economy is structured that way. No other natural or artificial system in existence operates without upper and lower limits. We need a hard cap on individual wealth and an absolute floor on individual poverty. No UBI without a wealth cap, which is why we don't actually have a UBI right now (no roof, no floor).
    1
  2361.  @deadwingdomain  - Yes, please elaborate about why a UBI is not appealing.
    1
  2362. Lack of support from the federal government to the states is deliberate. When states approach default on the bonds, the federal government will ride to the rescue and offer just enough to cover state deficits so the bondholders are paid. The hook will be that the states will be required to turn over state owned assets, which in turn will be privatized. The ones doing the privatization are also the bond holders. Neat trick huh? Brought to you by corporate democrats and republicans working together to benefit their campaign donors.
    1
  2363.  @jimthompson7402  - Sorry if I took your statement out of context, I was taking it in, at face value. If you are keeping up with what is happening with the Federal Reserve pumping money into the banking system since late September, then you are probably aware that the Fed is desperately trying to prevent another financial collapse like the one in 2008-2009. When I looked at the stats for wealth distribution lately, I could not help but to notice something additional, that a lot of extra money has been "created out of thin air" over the past decade. So much in fact, that the value of the dollar has been diluted significantly and all of it is going to the people who already have great wealth.
    1
  2364. Exactly.
    1
  2365. Here are the latest figures released by Oxfam. Globally 54% of all wealth is owned by the 1% and also globally, the top 20% own 94.5% of all wealth. With the bottom 80% holding only 5.5% of all global wealth, stagnation is either already here or will set in for all global economies. The wealthy elites are well aware of the situation, yet will do nothing to change their behavior. My belief is that we need a global hard cap on the wealth an individual or business can accumulate.
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  2366. Everybody posting here is a fool. You are doing exactly as expected of you, thank you very much for sinking our country with your foolish idiocy.
    1
  2367. No Taxation Without Representation . . . . whatever happened to that?
    1
  2368. Capitalism kills. Criminalize capitalism!
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  2369. juniorgod321 - The ignorance you betray is astonishing. You really think it is jealousy? Wow! For a junior god you show a remarkable lack of knowledge. First of all, there is nothing wrong with Bill Gates becoming rich off of Microsoft earnings. None of us "socialists" have a problem with that . . . so get that into your very thick head. What you idiots never take into account is that the majority of Bill Gates's wealth was not generated by Microsoft at all. The wealth generated by his company was taxed at the highest rate, which is good. Since he earned more wealth than he needed to live the most luxurious life imaginable . . . the excess wealth went into investment accounts . . . and that is where the PROBLEM lives. When excess wealth is put into investment accounts, that is no longer "earned income" . . . .it is for all intents and purposed "free money" that is "unearned". That "unearned income" is taxed at a substantially lower rate than earned income. Bill Gates never lifted his pinky finger to earn that "unearned wealth" . . . so why should he get a tax break for that? This is the opposite of what should be happening, if you have so much money that you get "unearned income", then that unearned income needs to be taxed at a much higher rate than earned income that you actually worked for. Then there is this big problem you idiots never acknowledge, the three richest people hold more wealth in the USA than the bottom 50% of wage earners combined. When all that concentrated wealth is held in "investments", it draws more in interest payments that the entire annual GDP growth of the USA. In moron speak, we are paying the wealthy all of our GDP gains . . . . which means there is nothing left over for us workers to offset increasing prices. Do you get it now moron?
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  2370. Zoe Phin - The ignorance you betray is astonishing. When excess wealth is put into investment accounts, that is no longer "earned income" . . . .it is for all intents and purposed "free money" that is "unearned". That "unearned income" is taxed at a substantially lower rate than earned income. Bill Gates never lifted his pinky finger to earn that "unearned wealth" . . . so why should he get a tax break for that? This is the opposite of what should be happening, if you have so much money that you get "unearned income", then that unearned income needs to be taxed at a much higher rate than earned income that you actually worked for. Then there is this big problem you idiots never acknowledge, the three richest people hold more wealth in the USA than the bottom 50% of wage earners combined. When all that concentrated wealth is held in "investments", it draws more in interest payments that the entire annual GDP growth of the USA. In moron speak, we are paying the wealthy all of our GDP gains . . . . which means there is nothing left over for us workers to offset increasing prices. Do you get it now moron?
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  2371. Zoe Phin - Shame? That coming from a woman who has no actual talents except to sell herself. Turnip IQ.
    1
  2372. Brad Christy - My God Man . . . learn how to write! I cannot comment on what you wrote because it is gobblygook, when you start making sense I may have something to say.
    1
  2373. Do both by placing a hard cap on individual wealth. A wealth cap is easier to enforce than wealth taxes and capped wealth cannot buy political systems.
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  2374. Geraint Hughes - Regardless of the origin of oil, humans cannot continue to use oil for energy. I viewed your profile, those experiments claiming that CO2 does not cause global warming do not account for global scale CO2 saturation. Want to see a real experiment in global warming? Get a telescope and take a good look at Venus, CO2 saturated atmosphere and 800 degree surface temperature for a planet at the edge of the temperate zone.
    1
  2375.  @bigcheese9096  - Please explain what rare and precious metals go into solar panels and batteries . . . then explain how that is even worse than what we are doing now.
    1
  2376.  @bigcheese9096  - Ok Mike, you've had a day to back up your claim and nothing from you . . . . crickets. I guess you were not really serious, just making noise.
    1
  2377.  @bigcheese9096  - You are useless, just projecting your own weakness. Just useless.
    1
  2378. Indeed.
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  2379. Yeah, right. What I want to know is who has the money to buy the "Something New" that I spend time and money creating?
    1
  2380.  @widewinger1454  - You might be a "free thinker", but so far you posts here and on comments I've replied to indicate that you are not a critical thinker. Personally, I'm leaning toward the idea that you are just another "right winger" who enjoys trolling and "owning the libs", you just don't have the range to be much else, child.
    1
  2381.  @widewinger1454  - And that is why you keep on extolling right wing talking points? Right. Got it. So, since you actually demonstrated that you do have some indication of what is going on with that last reply, why the insults and the right wing talking points?? Oh, and by the way, you didn't show me anything I haven't learned already. I'm just surprised that you know something real about our system, given your track record so far.
    1
  2382.  @widewinger1454  - Oh, I see. Your game is goading. Good job! Your masters will be pleased with your performance. Carry on!
    1
  2383.  @denisevarner3402  - I know, right? Faceplant! At least Shatner is now passionately speaking out and he has a decent megaphone.
    1
  2384.  @bluenami7520  I see no reason there cannot be a blend of capitalism and socialism. Basic needs of humanity provided for, with wealth pursuit encouraged. No taxes on individuals and businesses, so earning is unhindered. Place a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation to prevent power from being consolidated and to provide for the government funding, which in turn, provides resources to the population and organizes larger projects intended to better humanity.
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  2385.  @kylewatson5133  - What you are advocating is the effectiveness of the "Lucky Sperm Club", that the person with a defective body or mind should be left to die, while the person born with a silver spoon inheriting a billion dollars is entitled to drain wealth from workers like you, to guarantee their wealth grows without lifting a finger to earn that "free money". What you are leaving out of your assessments is that the vast majority of wealth is not created through "work", instead it is drained from workers to pay ever expanding capital gains to those who are already wealthy. Our GDP is just under $22 trillion for 2019, and over the past 30 years has grown at an average of 2.56% annually. The wealth accumulated by rich people is five times greater than our economy and grows at a minimum of 5% annually, which is why your housing, health care, education, energy, transportation, food, clothing and all other essentials have risen exponentially over the past 30 years but your wages have not. Production of goods and services is more efficient and less costly than they were 30 years ago, so all of the so-called "inflation" in our living costs are due to the increasing demands of "capital gains" for the wealthy on their so-called "investments". The way you see the world, is that all wealth comes from labor. If that were true, then the world would indeed work the way you perceive it. The problem is, the wealthy want you to understand the world though a limited point of view, so they can continue to get free money simply by dint of already having wealth. These people form think tanks and publish reams of propaganda with the intent of controlling how you think, meanwhile ordinary people have no such means to defend themselves from this wealth generated propaganda. Just do the math, $100 trillion at 5% interest is $5 trillion per year. Do you really think our $22 trillion economy can afford to pay out $5 trillion in interest? NO! That is why the wealthy have been bailed out with trillions of our taxpayer money, over three separate "recessions" in twenty years.
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  2386.  @bluenami7520  - Ovarian Lottery, that's a good one. Sorry for the delay replying to your earlier comment, there seems to have been a blizzard of interest in this comment thread and when catching up, I lost track of your reply. Your comment was that if you allow profit, you also must redistribute or the lower classes will run out of money. This is true. If you follow what I was writing, I solve that problem through an individual wealth cap. This is something I have been thinking out for some time, it is just like a water distribution system or even the electrical grid. In any distribution system, you cannot have an open ended pipe. Our capitalist system does have an open ended pipe which drains all wealth into the wealth pool, lake, ocean. That pipe needs to be capped off. My thoughts on the matter is that no one needs more than one million dollars for an entire lifetime, the most I can reckon with is a three million lifetime wealth accumulation. What this does, is bring everyone into the realm of the ordinary. For those whose accomplishments generate vast wealth, the wealth cap makes sure that wealth is not concentrated, but instead is redistributed throughout the economic system.
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  2387.  @bluenami7520  - To be precisely clear about this, a wealth cap standing alone will not solve everything. There must be a scaffolding of supporting laws covering all manner of potential leaks in the dam. Think about the scale however, just two billionaire brothers were able to buy off the entire republican party between 2010 and 2012 and start this myth that climate change is a hoax. With a wealth cap and attendant laws in place, it would take tens of thousands of individuals working together to have the same effect as two individuals had in my example. Here is another way the wealth cap would alter life as we know it: Since current think right wing tanks and propaganda mills are financed by only a few mega wealthy people, that kind of effort would be difficult if not impossible manage if it were reliant on tens of thousands of individuals instead of just a handful.
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  2388.  @bluenami7520  - The problem with progressive taxation of the type from 1932 to 1982, is that the wealthy still had the tools for defeating those progressive tax laws. All reforms, of every type, will be eroded and eventually eliminated by the wealthy. The only way to solve that problem is to remove the tools of reform demolition from the hands of the wealthy and make them into ordinary people. Kinda like how we don't allow citizens to own and operate weapons of warfare more powerful than an automatic rifle.
    1
  2389. ​ @bluenami7520  - You have apparently misunderstood. Yes, the wealthy paid their taxes. However, they also used their wealth to bring about changes in the tax law and other laws to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. It started with the erosion of trade unions in the the beginning of reform erosion, right after WW2 ended. The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions. It was enacted by the 80th United States Congress over the veto of President Harry S. Truman, becoming law on June 23, 1947. Both houses of Congress were held by republicans, who as we know represent only the will of the wealthy. Basically, the law said that a worker did not have to pay union dues to get the benefits from union activity. The wealthy knew exactly what they were doing, they knew they paid their workers so little that most would forgo paying union dues to save on expenses, after all, they still got the benefits from union negotiated contracts, so why bother paying? This started weakening and eroding the unions, to the point that Ronald Reagan was just able to fire all the air traffic controllers when their union called a strike over unsafe working conditions. This is long term thinking and planning, something the wealthy are able to afford and pay for, whereas the union workers and organizers were unable to convince their fellow workers to adopt the same long term thinking and planning, because the individual workers only thought about the short term benefits of not paying union dues. This process of the wealthy eroding reform law must be brought to an end. The only way to do that is to remove their wealth and make them as ordinary as the rest of us. What we are talking about here is that the wealthy use their tools, which is to say their wealth, to over ride the votes and intents of the vast majority of our people. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, with one person getting one vote. This cannot happen when the wealthy use their power to over ride our vote.
    1
  2390.  @kylewatson5133  - As I wrote before, these ideas you have are the result of propaganda and indoctrination. This is exactly what the wealthy people want you to think. Look, I am not much different than you. The only difference that I can tell, is that I am a worker who also ran my own business. After researching the economy in depth, to get a better grip on my business, I found out that what I believed was not true, it was doctrine, it was what someone else wanted me to believe. I am 59 years old now and it was only four years ago that I started my research. Maybe you will get to where I am one day, meanwhile I am telling you that what you wrote to me today was directly out of the Oligarch's Propaganda Handbook.
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  2391. Well of course the democrats would reject Fox Fake News as a host to a democratic debate. Fox News is a propaganda arm for the fascism wing of the republican party.
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  2392. Robert Jenkins - Finally. I've read about a hundred of these comments and no one has cut right to the core until I read your comment. An island of sanity you are.
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  2393. Mat Broomfield - Well, I don't know about that. Jeff Bezos would not find it easy to convert 150 billion into tangible assets . . . . easily (in short order). I believe that would take so doing, and others would really be curious about what he was up to. Speculation would run rampant and might even start a panic among other billionaires. Furthermore, the nature of the tangible assets would be of some concern, there are a limited number of assets that have a universal exchange value . . . conversion becomes an issue. Wealth is easily quantifiable and transportable, when they are electronic figures in an account. Look what happened with Scrooge McDuck when he converted his wealth to gold . . . massive storage issues, transportation became problematic, worrying about his nephews leaving the vault door open . . . . Converting morbid amounts of wealth to tangible assets is not that easy.
    1
  2394.  @jamespage1341  - We are all bent over already. When the 1% of the USA gets paid only 2% interest on their $30 trillion in accumulated wealth, that alone consumed all of 2018's GDP growth plus a little more. Last time I checked, S&P 500 index funds have averaged over 9% sine 1994. The entire republican party is a scam and a front for billionaire thievery. Every republican is either a pawn or a thief.
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  2395. Jake Brake - You had better leave your cave, the lack of oxygen is getting to you.
    1
  2396. Jake Brake - As if you are a real American dude. That was your second ignorant comment, do some research.
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  2397.  @bobl2887  - The reason you have to work seven days a week is because of the wealthy. The reason you feel the homeless are lazy and undeserving is because the wealthy told you that. You are listening to a media outlet owned by a billionaire, that should give you a clue. Did you even read what I wrote, or has the propaganda you listen to rotted your brain? You and your family will have nothing in 30 years unless we stop the wealthy from taking it all. You are so much against "free money" for the poor, but you are so compromised that you don't see that the wealthy are getting trillio9ns in "free money" every year which is coming out of your pocket and mine. Stop being a tool for the billionaires and help protect your fellow citizens.
    1
  2398.  @gumbothundereagle8006  - It will not suffice for you to simply write "not true", those two words standing on their own without any reference to where they are aimed or what they apply to will earn you a very unpleasant moniker.
    1
  2399.  @gumbothundereagle8006  - I see that you have limited linguistics capability, except in the matter of firearms. I hope you understand that by the terms of "the 10% will own all wealth" . . . it includes your firearms, of which I am not at all interested in because I have my own. I don't particularly enjoy the idea of having them confiscated.
    1
  2400.  @gumbothundereagle8006  - I see that you also have an English language comprehension problem, which is unfortunate because it appears you also have a math comprehension problem. Those two problems combined puts you in an unfortunate situation, because it means that you are not fit to survive. Lets tackle the reading problem first. Wealth does not come to those who earn it, it comes freely to those who have more of it, drawn away from those who have less wealth. Comprende? Do you understand finance capitalism, which has usurped productive (work to earn) capitalism? Or should I now address you as "Dumbo Meekly Slave?
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  2401.  Chris McDonald  - Republicans have conned the Boomers and those who came before them into sacrificing our children and grandchildren, just so that the wealthy can sit on their piles of assets. AOC is a REAL American, unlike the traitor GOP.
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  2402. Student load debt has increased 14,800% over 30 years.
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  2403. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  2404. Cid Sapient - So, what part of her talk did you miss? Was it the part about requiring a huge investment? Or was it the part where she said the House Committee will be asking for ideas? Did you miss the part where she said the goal will require research? What about the taxpayer return on investment in past technological development and how the formula used needs to be revised so that private companies do not reap 100% of the return on investment on past or future development . . . did you miss that? You see, she did not skimp at all on the details. You seem to have skimped when it comes to paying attention. When it comes to taking on projects, you don't know all you are in for . . . at the beginning. Having some experience in such matters, that simple observation resonated with me. When we went to the moon, how many of the endless details were anticipated in advance of the project? The answer is only a few, when compared to the final tally. Yet it was done, mission accomplished. Don't be a moron.
    1
  2405. Cid Sapient - Complete horseshit? You just proved yourself to have an intellect smaller than a gnat. You don't know how to spell, you don't know how to think, you don't know how to reason. Economics? Reason this out idiot: Productivity since Reagan, up 321%. Wages up 1/10 of 1% for the workers . . . meanwhile living costs have tripled or more. Make some economic sense of that dumbass.
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  2406. I cannot believe all the morons who call themselves republicans think that the criminals they elect as politicians, are actually helping the USA. So you think we should cheer and clap as you tear apart our country? When are you people going to actually show some signs of intelligence? After we are all dead?
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  2407. joe lukasik - So says the man who has made the stupidest remark of all time . . . do you even know anything about the economy or politics? I think not. Clearly you don't have the intelligence you think you have.
    1
  2408. If you think republicans are so great, then you must also think the workers are doing wonderfully under republican policies, yes? Question then: WHY has the value of workers median wages been cut by over half in the past three decades under republican policies? Read the question and suss out its meaning before you answer. Charts will tell you that median wages are stagnant or have risen somewhat over three decades. So here is another question for you: Do you know HOW the value of workers median wages has been cut by over half in the past three decades? Everybody please feel free to chip in on these two questions. Lets see if you republican snowflakes can actually put your money where your mouth is.
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  2409. Here is a better take. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  2410. Trump wasting everyone's time tweeting and playing golf, never getting any actual work done.
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  2411.  @roddaman7545  - Well, at least you are approaching this from a rational point of view. There is one major problem with your approach of adjusting the structure, every reform is eventually undermined by special interests (big money). While an approach of rational adjustments to the structure may work in the short term, the long term results will be determined by those who have the tools to dismantle reforms. Look at this from a cosmological point of view. What happens to a star that exceeds a certain threshold of mass? The result is always the same, so much so that it is scientifically predictable. That star becomes a black hole, collapsing in on itself and from that point forward is a singularity that sucks in all surrounding matter. It is the same when fortunes become to large, concentrated wealth sucks in all surrounding wealth to the point where an economy can no longer support their mass and need for growth. Here is a real example. In the USA the 1% have over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth, which is "invested" into the economy to generate a "rate of return". In 2018, the total economic output of the USA was slightly less than $20 trillion and the GDP growth for the year was $560 billion. Apply a nominal 2% "rate of return" to $30 trillion in a $20 trillion annual economy, that interest rate exceeds the GDP growth by $40 billion, so that extra $40 billion must be subtracted from the "principle", extracting more from the economy than the economic growth for the year. Now let us face the real situation. The accumulated wealth of the 1% is placed into many types of investments from long term government bonds paying 2%, to S&P 500 index funds which have paid over 9% since 1994. The aggregate "rate of return" is well over 5% annually, which means that the 1% are cannibalizing our economy in order to generate growth on their principle wealth holdings. This is an inescapable conclusion, hence the need to place a hard cap on accumulated wealth. We have not even touched on asset inflation caused by the 1% purchasing assets when productive means within the economy can no longer provide a ROR, or that financialized capitalism creates GDP growth by extracting wealth from the bottom 90% of the economic spectrum. I look forward to reading your considered opinion if yours differs from my assessment.
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  2412.  luvcheney1  - You are irrational and flailing. Don't talk to me until you can learn how to control yourself.
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  2413.  @theAppleWizz  - Such banal answers, and none of them correct.
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  2414.  @NotOurRemedy  - Duh. The question is why. The answer is predatory capitalism, where hedge funds and corporate raiders demolish companies and loot their pensions to supply an ever expanding rate of return to financial assets. This is morally wrong, stealing people's retirement. Furthermore, the unsustainability of the financial asset system is clearly laid out in the Federal Reserve's own charts. Wealth growth is on a acute exponential growth curve, while real GDP is on a flatter exponential growth curve. Neither is sustainable, however the financial asset growth curve is simply a crime against humanity because compounded interest is the most destructive thing ever invented (second only to atomic weapons). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO
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  2415.  @theAppleWizz  - Have you ever done research on compounded interest? Using your reply to me, I think not. Compounded interest on "investments" can never be paid. One of the best examples of the ridiculousness of the compounded interest concept was written a few hundred years ago. It was referenced in the economist Michael Hudson's paper on the topic and reads as follows: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 MILLIONS of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” Bottom line, compounded interest develops so much wealth that it cannot ever be realized. However, the concept of compound interest can be used as propaganda to force indebtedness onto a society while at the same time creating a wistful fantasy that ordinary people can become wealthy. The paper is very long and very illuminating. Yes, I am one of those, I will read long research papers on economic topics. My take on you, Mr. AppleWizz, is that you do not read any economic papers, therefor you know very little and will buy into the rubbish propaganda put out by oligarchs and the think tanks they pay for, meant to confuse you into not looking at the real world. Here, I'll put up the link and make a quite wager with myself that you will never read the paper of even reply to this comment with some semblance of intelligence. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  2416.  John Doe  - No spam Dude. It is called spreading the message that people need to understand.
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  2417. First thing I noticed was that all those troops behind Trump had real suntans on their faces.
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  2418.  @natejennings5884  - What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb, socialism for the wealthy.
    1
  2419. I only clicked on this video to read some of the comments. What I see here is massive projection. Virtually everything the left is accused of here, is exactly what the right does every day, out in the open. Nice to see that the right is so flexible, you have twisted yourselves into pretzels in order to agree with this blatant propaganda. This is all about wealth folks, and the means used by those who have it, to continue growing it exponentially. They use you folks as their protectors, their guardians. Yet nothing grows forever. Either wealth will have legal limits one day or humanity will go extinct. Those with the wealth use it to take power over our politics, and therein is the rub. Going extinct is intolerable, so those with wealth will smear anyone who finds unlimited wealth growth intolerable, and you folks buy directly into the smears. This video is not about tolerance or intolerance, it is a recruitment tool to get good little soldiers to protect the "right" of the wealthy to keep growing their wealth by extracting it from everyone else. Period.
    1
  2420. The people who backed Reagan knew exactly what they were doing and what would happen. They wanted to wealthy and the "royalists" to take over . . . just like the wonder days of old. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
    1
  2421. Shocker!! Now charge Trump for wasting government resources golfing and tweeting . . . .
    1
  2422. There is a name for what is happening here in the USA: Fascism. Does anyone remember that we fought a world war to stop imperialism and fascism? Now we have become both at the same time.
    1
  2423. ​ @jstpsgthru  - In reading through the comments to your original post, I can see that some comments are missing so I am missing information that preceded certain replies. However it was your conclusion in the reply to "Prof E" that really got my attention (the comment you were replying to is not visible to me). Here is what you wrote; "America can use a LOT of improvement, but it is doing "pretty well, considering" any other system. I would bet that you can't prove there is a better system. Go ahead! Try!" It is incredibly difficult to theorize on a better system when most people do not understand the system we really have, even Professor Harvey's diagram left out critical information. We are not in fact "striding along toward a more perfect union", but rather limping badly in the opposite direction toward fragmentation. In the bigger picture, our entire economy sits snugly inside of another structure (like the seed inside of a peach). When describing this picture. I like to use "Real GDP" rather than "GDP" because Real GDP is adjusted for inflation. Currently Real GDP is just over $20 trillion. The growth rate of Real GDP since 1947 is an incline more than a curve (but there is a slight growth curve). Financial assets on the other hand are over five times larger than our Real GDP and those assets are growing at a faster rate (on an exponential growth curve). Financial assets sustain their growth through extraction from the economy. This became clearly unsustainable prior to the 1970's. Now financial assets are sustained through extraction from the economy and extraction from the future (borrowing). Our economy is surrounded by a structure five times the size of the economy and growing faster than the economy (financial assets). That structure survives off of extraction, it produces nothing. This in turn is fracturing our social structures and society itself (rise of homelessness, crime, the inability of government or the Constitution to regulate anything). We cannot gain "a more perfect union" or a better economic system with this huge parasite attached to us. References: Real Gross Domestic Product - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 Households and Nonprofit Organizations; Total Financial Assets - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO
    1
  2424.  @jstpsgthru  - I wholeheartedly agree that solutions are possible with our current system, and that starting over is a non starter. The problem we face is not one of appealing to average folks, the explanation you outlined is well known among our population. What is less well known but vitally important is that the system of "financial assets" we have is legal theft from the majority, and has made a small handful of people very powerful. Taxes get undermined by this small group. Laws get undermined by this small group. Reforms are eroded and eliminated by the actions of this small group. Here is the simple truth: all systems have upper and lower limits. Does not matter if the system is natural or artificial. Yet with the economy, we pretend that there are no limits. We make laws and levy taxes, yet we allow a small group of extremely wealthy people use their wealth to undermine what we as society decide. That is what having no upper limits on individual wealth does to a society. Meanwhile we have ever increasing homelessness and crime, as people fall out of the bottom end of the economic spectrum. Housing is considered a "capital asset", thus must increase in price faster than the economy can grow. People need to understand that increases such as housing, health care, child care and education are not due to inflation, but instead tied to the ever increasing pressure to exponentially grow financial assets. Record profits means higher stock prices, and stock prices must be pushed higher and higher every year, which for us means an endless upward spiral of price increases which outpaced our wages decades ago. Appeal is not what we need, we actually need righteous and unfettered anger allowing us to fight back against those who buy our politicians. The $8 billion spent on the 2022 election did not come from the grass roots, we don't have that kind of money, so we must focus our attention on those who are funding the campaigns of our elected officials. I want to see the economic system we have now work properly, once we put a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation and start to phase out all fictitious wealth that is not gained through actual means of production. Also, it would not hurt to but a economic floor under all people. With those three changes, we would soon live in a much more peaceful and prosperous planet, without having to start over.
    1
  2425.  @ProleDaddy  - Think about this very carefully. A hard cap on individual wealth accumulation automatically creates the beginning of a horizontal power structure. No need to dismantle, just modify by eliminating the elite power class.
    1
  2426.  @ProleDaddy  - No, they are not going to entertain this plan. Even after the writing is on the wall, they are going to resist because the plan is to remove the wealth from individuals that gives them undue, unearned and unelected power. This is the only viable path to actual democracy.
    1
  2427.  @dawnr6577  - Taxpayers foot the bill for Trumps golf outings, plus the taxpayers pay for the golf carts and rooms the Secret service uses, all of that taxpayer money going directly into trumps pocket. What a racket.
    1
  2428.  @dimensionjester9052  - Wrong. You republicans are so gullible.
    1
  2429.  @bekimbal9658  - Nothing hypocritical about comparing the two presidents when Trump directly profits from golfing. Trump has played golf at least double the number of times Obama played golf, plus Obama NEVER played golf at resorts he owns, thus was never pocketing taxpayer money directly as a result of playing golf. Trump has cost taxpayers well over $120 million just for playing golf, pocketing at least half of that amount himself.
    1
  2430. Tom Pines - Our bought off corporate democrats are paid to roll over.
    1
  2431. Time for a memo burning party! Federal employees speak out, tell Orange Mussolini to Fuck Off.
    1
  2432.  @stuartd9741  - Everything you wrote is good common sense tactics. What is missing is the strategy behind the tactics, which cannot be decided upon until a mostly unified people have a mission. For three years now I have been sussing out the problems and there are a lot of those. One of the things I have learned is that the divide and conquer tactics deployed by the oligarchy is supporting a very simple strategy, keep people confused while a critical mass of wealth is built which will overturn all democracies. Now that I understand what their goal is, the counter-measures are extremely simple. Get people to understand that unlimited wealth eats all wealth and then democracy itself. Once people understand this simple idea, then the people have a distinct mission. It took me three years to fully understand this, but it won't take that long for others to understand a simple yet concise message. We must take on this mission: Put a solid cap on wealth accumulation or lose our democracy and potentially our planetary home because capitalism as we know it will destroy our life support system.
    1
  2433. More very dry tongue-in-cheek humor from the good Professor, not meant to misinform. If he did not have his sense of humor, how could he get through these reports?
    1
  2434. Talk about being a crime lord in office, when the Covid-19 outbreak spread and Grand Juries across the nation were shut down, Trump took note of that and deliberately let the pandemic get out of control so that he would stand a better chance of escaping justice. People died so that Trump could commit more crime without anyone to hold him accountable. The backlog of grand jury cases prolonged Trump's crime spree.
    1
  2435.  @williamwhiteside5748  - Oh my! Clutch your pearls a little tighter and hug that double standard.
    1
  2436. Apparently Hannity and Fox News are carrying water for the Trump war against Venezuela, using a conspiracy with Saudi Arabia to increase oil output to drive down the price, combined with the unwarranted sanctions placed on the country by Trump. This is why Trump made his first state visit to the Kingdom of Murderers. The UN Investigator and Human Rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas, has issued his report and clearly the USA is committing Crimes Against Humanity by choking off Venezuela so that it can then be looted by the 1%.. This is all an effort by the 1% and multi-national corporations to topple the legitimately elected leadership in Venezuela so that a failing capitalism can seize and exploit that countries resources . . . because they have almost finished looting every other resource on the planet. People, if you believe this fraud Hannity, then you are simply pawns in their game who come here to get your daily dose of propaganda pacification.
    1
  2437. Most people don't realize that in the USA there is over $90 trillion in financial assets which are "earning " interest. Just take an average interest of 5%, that is $4.5 trillion, which is over 20% of the entire GDP just for interest payments. The math shows that this trend is unsustainable, we must place a cap on accumulated wealth or face the inevitable collapse of the entire global economy.
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  2438. I hope you are correct Ed. I'll be 59 this year and I have been dismayed to watch as everything I have been taught about the USA has fallen and turned to ash. This is not the country I grew up believing in and I fear that the "United" States of America will be fractured and broken apart after the 2020 election. The West Coast is not going to stand for a Trump dictatorship and I think the north-east coastal states will side with the west coast. With Texas and Florida in play, the fate of our nation may rise or fall over who controls our coastal ports.
    1
  2439. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
    1
  2440. Todd, I did an Excell spreadsheet to see if our economy could actually pay for all the rentier capitalists. Imagine my surprise when after entering 70 years worth of GDP and financial asset data, when it showed me that wealth has been growing faster than the economy for all that time. We have no freedom, the economy cannot keep up with wealth extraction. Since 1947, the economy has averaged 5% growth annually. Financial assets have averaged 6% annually, and started 1947 at over twice the size of the economy. Last year the growth of financial assets was greater than 66% of our GDP. A few more years of this and we will all be debt slaves with no means of getting out of it.
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  2441. A majority of the comments here indicate one megaphone fact, most people are just uncaring morons.
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  2442. intelmike181 - You Wrote: "Also, what makes you qualified to judge me?" Sonny Boy, what do you think you have been doing? You sit in judgement with your initial comment. What you have described is a predatory system, and you are a guardian of that system. No one cares? Well now, I think you just put your finger on the problem. Coolmodelguy is a fantastic name for someone with my particular skill set and my age (just turned 56). You really need to stop judging people based on a name. I'm one of those who has dropped out of the workforce due to the excessive debt incurred seeking employment over a term of decades. What do you think happens when a worker is let go because the shop cannot survive the payroll? Do you think we just hop into the next job higgily-piggiliy? You are being deliberately obtuse, choosing to guard a system which preys upon workers. Lucky for me, I have a skill set and background that allows me to just barely survive on my own using my own creativity and wit. My profession, if you want to call it that . . . is machinist, draftsman, tool and die maker. That is what blue collar workers trained for back in the late 1970's and early 1980's. However I spent more time during my life as a delivery driver or other part timer work than I spent doing the profession I was trained for . . . due to the inexplicable fact that the jobs I trained for were becoming scarce for reasons I knew not . . . at least back then. Now I know better, thanks to the internet. The corporate media is completely corrupted, you cannot get real facts about the economy or jobs through listening to the news anymore. There is no road map to success. The education system is hopelessly out of date. Additionally, those like yourself who spout the old republican talking points like . . . "Also, you don't Have to work anywhere you don't want to. You also don't have to work for any wage you think is unfair. You only have control over your own path and success. you can bitch or do something about it. Here in the US, you have a better shot to get out of poverty and upward mobility than anywhere else in the world," . . . . are so full of shit I can smell it from here. You simply wish to guard a corrupted capitalist system that happens to work for you.
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  2443. Logical Artist - I guess you are not the "big picture" type are you? When the "tax burden" is reduced for the people as you say, any benefit is quickly swallowed up by empowered corporations. The median wage of today buys less than half of the essential consumer goods than the median wage bought 30 years ago. Yes, the median wage has gone up over the past 30 years. But that wage has not kept up with worker productivity nor has it kept up with essential costs of living like rent, energy, transportation and food. What you earn today as a median income buys less than one third of the health care median wages bought 30 years ago. Since you cannot get a 1/3 cost heath insurance plan . . . this is actually killing us.
    1
  2444. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
    1
  2445. The only way a UBI can be sustained over the long term is when the accumulation of wealth by individuals and business is limited by a hard cap. This much, no more. Otherwise, the UBI will go the way of all reforms, it will be killed off by the wealthy.
    1
  2446.  @jeremyrangel8138  - Very shallow and short sighted of you, also inaccurate. Very typical of the capitalists to view everything in absolutes, meaning you miss seeing almost everything else that exists in the same world that you inhabit. The "best way" and "moral way" is truncated by capitalists, who define everything in terms of what is good for them in the moment, which in turn is appropriation by force. Funny how you folks are so good at projection.
    1
  2447. Most people don't realize that in the USA there is over $90 trillion in financial assets which are "earning " interest. Just take an average interest of 5%, that is $4.5 trillion, which is over 20% of the entire GDP just for interest payments. The math shows that this trend is unsustainable, we must place a cap on accumulated wealth or face the inevitable collapse of the entire global economy.
    1
  2448. Robert Deskins - Finally. You are the first person to intelligently challenge this idea rather than blind support or level viciously stupid criticism. On the surface the idea seems simple enough, however there would be drastic shifts in currency flow and velocity, as well as structural shifts in the largest of companies. At this moment I have to depart to run errands and take care of obligations, so I will come back and specifically address the questions you raised later today. I hope you will interact with the answers I give, this is how economic shifts begin is through intelligent discussion.
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  2449. Grant Johnston Johnston - You hit the nail on the head . . . Money. I don't believe conservatives in politics are concerned about conserving anything, not the lands, not the natural resources, certainly not people. The only real interest I've noted is their willingness to exploit everything that will make them money. Since money is at the core of everything a conservative in politics does, I invite you to chime in on the topic of placing limits on money, specifically what can be earned and kept. This topic has a direct bearing on politics and I will be addressing the points that Robert Deskins has brought up in his answer to my comment on the topic.
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  2450. Robert Deskins - In your first sentence you said the "reforms you are proposing wouldn't(sic) really work in any form of capitalism". Well then, I guess I am disagreeing with you on that because I'm proposing a mutant form of capitalism that can work. You are certainly correct that they would not work in the current under-regulated rampant form of predatory capitalism that is currently running amok in our society, yet I believe that capitalism when carefully and fully regulated will work just fine as a component or part of a greater operating system to benefit society. I'm going with this simplified name "The income/wealth cap" for the purposes of our discussion. So what happens when the CEO and Boards of Directors of major corporations (Apple, Microsoft, McDonalds, Disney, G.E., ect.,) are no longer able to pay themselves extravagant sums? In the simplest terms, they start to reinvest the money they would have paid themselves back into their respective companies. Perhaps they could give long suffering employees a raise. In addition, they would also be able to lower the price of goods and services to the consumer. After all, we know that price increases are used in the main to boost profit so they can pocket said profit. With that avenue closed to traffic, they will be forced to use corporate board time to address other concerns besides raising profits. Let us next examine what happens to stocks and dividends. With a wealth cap in place, paying dividends is no longer such a high priority. On the matter of stock buy-backs, which are used to inflate stock prices, this strategy will no longer have the same appeal when CEO's are faced with in income cap. The arena of stocks and dividends will be greatly altered by a income/wealth cap, so much so that the stock market will be forced to reorganize priorities. In addition, the income/wealth cap can start doing what the no longer enforced anti-trust laws were supposed to do . . . break up larger companies into many smaller companies, thus creating greater opportunities for a larger number of well qualified people to succeed. With regards to corporate boards voting to move their companies to different countries to escape the income/wealth cap. As an off-the-cuff reaction I say good! Let them move. Said companies gain so much of their profit by gaining our tax system and we would do better without them. Personally I am sick and tired of Amazon bilking New York for 5 billion dollars to build their HQ2, what happened to paying your own way or going bust? If a company cannot live off what they make doing business, they have no business being in business. Bezos can pay for HQ2 out of pocket and still be the richest man in the world, and 5 billion would pay for a brand new subway system for New York plus house all the homeless in that state. Priorities people, priorities. In all of my 57 years, I have never heard an accounting of what resources we in this country have available and what has been used up. If conservatives were really conservative, this should be a top priority bit of information so that we know what needs to be conserved, what needs to be husbanded as a precious resource, and what we have in abundance. This has a direct bearing on the matter of private property, which I will address as my final point. Every single company uses something that we as a people and a country create, and no one can do business without it. Currency. The USA has sole proprietorship over the manufacture and distribution of the U.S. Dollar, which is in point of fact . . . a social contract. This is where the lines blur between private and public property. No one can claim the US Dollar as their own private property. Nor can anyone claim that the products created by a "private" company are solely the property of that company. Sooner or later, a company has to give up product in exchange for currency, which in turn is exchanged for other products. No private company can become successful without the intervention and cooperation of the society at large, therefore society itself "owns" a substantial piece of every company in existence. It is because of this substantial fact that every court will eventually have to recognize that profits are NOT in fact "private property". Up to a point it is reasonable for a company to keep a portion of profit, after that point the keeping of profit becomes toxic to the society that allowed those profits to form in the first place. Society has a claim on all profits generated that are not required to grow the company and pay its employees. Since the profit is in the form of currency, that currency is not the property of the company but rather the property of the people whose country created the currency. Just look at the profits in US Dollars that Apple is hoarding in overseas bank accounts (Apple has grown so much it cannot grow further and thus hoards capital). Those profits are in excess of what the company requires to operate and by keeping that currency out of circulation, they are hurting their own business and doing harm to the greater society that helped create those profits.
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  2451. Robert Deskins - You are probably correct, we as a species do seem to have our collective heads up our asses. That was also me until a few years ago as well, which gives me just a small ray of hope that others might come around. So I'll keep beating my drum and help others to see the bigger picture, after all we don't need everyone on board . . . . just enough to make some changes. After all, you did ask the correct questions, which means there is a chance others will also. Keep your head up!
    1
  2452. Here is one thing we all need to take a closer look at, and it includes what is happening with our health care costs. The top 20% have over $50 trillion in financial assets in interest bearing accounts. The economy is only $20 trillion strong and it cannot stand the weight of $50 trillion sitting on its head, demanding 5% rate of returns. The national GDP only grew by 2.56% in 2018 ($560 billion), while 5% interest on $50 trillion equals $2.5 trillion. After eating all the 2018 GDP gains, the balance due on 5% interest is $1.94 trillion, or 10% of our national economy. What this means is that 80% of our people will never get out of debt or get ahead, because we are stuck paying trillions in "free money" to those who already have more than enough. This is why we cannot have Biden, or Booker, or Bootyjug, or another republican as president, all of these so-called "centrists" are simply protecting the assets of the top 20% while screwing the rest of us. Our economy is being cannibalized in order to feed the fat cats who occupy the top 20% of the economic ladder.
    1
  2453. Nor do you hear about how much passive wealth the entire system is generating. Want to blow your mind? Financial assets gained $13.277 trillion in 2021. That sum is equal to 66.98% of our entire GDP.
    1
  2454. vegasflyboy - This why we have to refocus our energy. Our efforts are wasted when we try to do reforms of any kind, because those reforms will always be dismantled. Instead of changing a myriad of different laws trying to combat undue influence, there are only two simple rules that must be placed into law. First in an Annual Income Cap, the second is an Accumulated Wealth Cap. It is vast wealth in the hands of individuals which is the root cause of all our woes and the dysfunction of wealth inequality in our worldwide collective societies. Vast wealth is the toolkit used to dismantle all reforms put into law, and the one glaring example I will put forward is FDR's New Deal. In the decades since the New Deal, the wielders of vast wealth have been dismantling the New Deal piece by piece. Now the New Deal is gone, destroyed. This happens to every law, every reform ever put in place to protect the majority. There is a simple guide as to what the caps should be. By all means, earn your millions until you have enough for you and your family to live in the utmost of luxury for a lifetime. Beyond that point, return everything you earn back to the society that helped you create the wealth in the first place. No one makes millions in a vacuum, everyone who does so has the help of the entire society of human beings . . . every millionaire made is a joint venture with society. I'm 57 years old and my eldest daughter is 30 years old. Between us we have the life experiences of our generations. We did a "thought experiment" to ascertain what the income and wealth limits should be. Her ideas encompassed more than my own, so we generally went with her numbers. I would like to see more of us doing such "thought experiments" so we can come up with a consensus that will make an annual income and accumulated wealth cap palatable to the majority. Do these two things and all dark money political contributions evaporate down to a level where the will of the few no longer dominates the will of the many. We already know excessive wealth beyond what is needed to live a life of utmost luxury is mostly then used to exert power over the powerless.
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  2455. ​@Thundertrain - Thanks for the confirmation, republican voters are simply empty skull loaded up with propaganda.
    1
  2456.  @kennike6769  - Thanks for confirming that republicans are indeed empty skulls, that is worse than being a moron.
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  2457. @Thundertrain - Did you actually watch the hearings and witness testimony in the House of Representatives? I don't think so. No one could just arbitrarily disagree with the investigation if they actually watched it happen, Adam Schiff made inquiries, asked for documents, interviewed witnesses and there was no sign of Mr. Schiff inserting his own narrative or opinion into the proceedings. Trump blocked all document requests and tried to block witnesses as well, and if Trump had nothing to hide, why not be open? Trump is the epitome of corruptness and dishonesty, not to mention William Barr who lied outright about the contents of the Mueller Report. As for you , you display quite an imagination and it is very apparent that you watched or listened to ZERO content of the hearings held in the House of Representatives before the impeachment vote. Everything you wrote was hilariously false. I've seen the kabooki theater where you get your information, grade-A cartoon material for the tin-foil hat crowd.
    1
  2458. @Thundertrain - Do you always project this badly?
    1
  2459. @Thundertrain - Dude, you are a pawn. Your head is filled with propaganda, no facts. This media outlet is own by a billionaire, who is filling your head with rot and pitting you against your fellow citizens so that we fight each other instead of the real cause of problems in our society. Just as likely, you are a provocateur and an agitator, probably not even an American citizen or resident. Good luck anyway, keep following your delusions.
    1
  2460. @Thundertrain - Awww shucks. You caught me. You know, I only come over to Fox News videos to pick on the empty headed morons who actually believe the garbage the billionaires put out. Since you are virtually incapable of thinking for yourselves and are so easy to trigger, it does make for good sport!
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  2461. Yeah, lets not take it personally when certain political views are in favor of economically gutting the people and glutting the oligarchs. Yeah, we get along fabulously when some people are sticking a knife in my back. Moron.
    1
  2462. This is what wealth and the pursuit of wealth does. All the ills that befall mankind aside from natural disasters, are caused by the wealthy. In modern times the behavior of the wealthy may end organized human life on this planet, because of their recklessness, greed and irresponsibility. It is high time we humans learn that lesson and deal with it.
    1
  2463. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
    1
  2464. Michael Corbin - All of that pales in comparison to what tRump and his cronies have done and are doing. Hillary is horrible, but what you are doing is not helpful in the least. Both Republicans and Democrats are pulling the wool over Americans faces, both are traitors. This is what the American people really want to know: Are median wages today able to buy what median wages paid for three decades ago? All of your detailed bullshit about Hillary does not address that question, nor has a single republican addressed this seriously.
    1
  2465. Funny how his graph showing people hospitalized shows declines on July 27th, right after the hospitals stopped reporting directly to the CDC, exactly as Trump directed on July 16th. The data is being cooked people!
    1
  2466. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "What about Russian "socialism"?" To what question are you replying?
    1
  2467. Peter Nachtwey - In response to the pitchforks coming for you, you wrote: "That is a stupid thing to say for many reasons." No Peter, it is exceedingly stupid for you to ignore or belittle the growing desperation of people. I am plugged into this where apparently you want to exist in ignorant bliss. I'm just a messenger, scoff at your own risk. Saying or writing "That is a stupid thing to say for many reasons." does not make it so or negate the truth in what I have written. Name your reasons.
    1
  2468. Joseph Inhiding - I want to go to the beginning of your series and comment from there, so that is what I will do. Right now work is keeping me busy, so when I get a moment that is good for reading and writing I will start to comment. Don't forget the education system.
    1
  2469. my bizzz17 - My take on your comment is that the founders could hardly glimpse what the economy or political landscape of the future would be. In the "here and now", I do not believe we can foresee what the situation will be 100 years from now. My research started with here and now, took me back to Reagan's time, took me back further toward WW2, then further back still. Had to put an arbitrary stop at approximately 100 years back, to keep going back in history was not helping because most people are not steeped in such knowledge and thus discussion becomes less productive. What I found is that we are repeating a sequence now that is similar to 100 years ago. A monumental economic crash is on the horizon for us, if not closer.
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  2470. Joseph Inhiding - I have been very interested in your writing, aside from myself it is extremely rare to have someone take the time to write out what they have learned about our economy and other national systems. Personally, I don't think any of what you have written is off topic. Peters original post was about taxes, and Professor Wolff blaming everything on capitalism. Just to let you know, I have copied every post from this comment string. The first reason for archiving the conversation is not about anything Peter has done, but I have had several comment threads deleted by the original authors when intellectual defeat is upon them. Peter has not done this, and I believe he will not do so. The second reason I do this is to document how things are going very wrong, not just in the USA but also globally. Peter represents a typical cross section of the capitalism defenders and he is a particularly egregious example, He does what what abusers do best . . . . gaslighting. *Gaslight: gas·light ˈɡaslīt/ verb gerund or present participle: gaslighting to manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.* During this entire thread of comments he has done the following: unsubstantiated pronouncements, demeaning, undermining, class dividing, victim blaming, obfuscation, minimizing and marginalization. This is classic abuser psychology. Whether it is child abuse, spousal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse or economic abuse, the pattern of behavior is the same. This is something I have intimate knowledge of, as the primary force that broke the back of generational emotional and physical abuse in my family. My children did not suffer as myself and my siblings did, I made the effort to change and it worked. The same thing can be done with our economic system, but we have to deal head on with people like Peter. Peter, that Forbes article you posted at the beginning featuring John Stossel was so full of misinformation and propaganda . . . just the kind that a person like you would eat up. If you want to get back onto your starting topic, that bogus example of Reagan's revelation about taxes is a good start. Meanwhile though, capitalism as it stands enables abusers like Peter, tRump, the Koch brothers, and the entire tRumPutin cabinet. All of them are systematic abusers of the highest order. This calls for a system change, just like the psychological evolution our family had to go through to heal from generations of physical and emotional abusiveness.
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  2471. Peter Nachtwey - and Joseph Inhiding: This video hits the nail on the head: "Bullshit jobs". Simply explains the manipulation and gaslighting of the elites toward the common worker. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tc-EEF4COw
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  2472. Joseph Inhiding - I have to take exception to your one major exception. You wrote: "But there is one major theme that I take exception with. I don't think it's a conspiracy at all. " The latest in Professor Wolff's videos he talks about the exclusionary language the elites have developed to manipulate the rest of us. Global Capitalism: Trump’s/GOP’s Tax : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRQ0yiIzlVo Furthermore there is Michael Hudson who talks extensively about the language developed by political leaders and the oligarchy specifically to exploit the economic systems. d@w Exclusive: Michael Hudson on Junk Economics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6y35aO_fpU Additionally, I have watched Jordan Peterson. What he has to say dovetails with another of your comments where you wrote: "On top of that there is no moral guide out there that would allow us to live in decency with each other in such an environment. The presenter paints a utopian dream. " If you believe that then you are doing your fellow human beings a grave disservice. I believe you are incorrect, in fact flat out wrong about your assertion. Human being do not want to be treated badly by other human beings. We do not need belief in a god or some other "moral guide" to understand that, it is built into us. The real problem is that as wealth and power is gained, human empathy erodes. That is why people like Peter here buy into what speakers like Jordan Peterson deliver, it allows for the internal moral justification of a corrosive social and economic system. Bottom line is that excessive wealth brings on a mental illness in human beings. That mental illness corrupts the moral compass of human beings, which is demonstrated daily in the headlines. The president is gaslighting Puerto Rico while at the same time willing to spent billions on military occupation of Irac. This is clearly abuse and mental illness caused by excessive exposure to wealth, no empathy for fellow human beings whatsoever.
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  2473. Joseph Inhiding - Please my dear Sir, do not misunderstand. You are unintentionally putting words into my mouth. I never wrote or implied conspiracy. I am directly stating that wealth and power cause a breakdown or deterioration in mental and emotional capacity. Specifically that the current economic system enables abusers, who have their own special methods of communicating designed for the express purpose of secrecy. I'll tell you a first hand true story about proof. My eldest daughter was sexually abused-molested by her step-father from ages 10 through age 12. My bright and intelligent little girl could not even tell me what was going on, because she had no proof. When he started molesting her friend as well, my daughter came out to her mother. Together they went to the other girls parents and he was arrested. Only the two girls together could "prove" that a crime was going on. Sometimes waiting for proof is not in the best interests of the victims. If there were any other alternative, my daughter would have taken it. So she suffered, victimized over and over again in silence for over two years. She knew if she spoke out without proof, things would get worse. What kind of a system is that, one that protects the abuser? He died in prison. The same systemic abuse situation is going on right now in our government and our economy. I'm going to write a separate comment with the framework attached to basic facts and indicators.
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  2474. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "I don't like writing long posts like this but the lies require a response." I'm just a worker who got tired of the rot and started doing research. You call my results lies. Typical abuser behavior. I have asked you before . . . . multiple times, why you are here? You have never answered. Why do you haunt Professor Wolff's videos and make comments disparaging his presentations? Since you will not answer, I will do it for you. You Sir, have an abusive personality disorder. You come here seeking victims for abuse to satisfy your own perverse pleasure, the pattern of behavior is quite clear. This has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with your excessive need to bully. You enjoy the cruelty of gaslighting far too much. You could not perform well in a debate because you have no economic plan to debate with, Professor Wolff does. Your platform is "tough shit, deal with it". His platform is "democracy in the workplace". He will wipe the floor with you, because you have no vision of creating a better future for all workers. For the record, if I can grow beyond the capacity of my own abilities, a co-op is exactly what I am going to construct.
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  2475. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "My plan would be to make people more productive. In other words force them to work if they want money." Brilliant plan. Force them to work . . . doing what and why? Machines can do all the work cheaper, so why force people to work? You also wrote: "Another libtard tactic. Play the victim. You only think you are being abused because you can't refute my points. I am experienced at these kinds of debates and you are on the wrong side and out matched. That is why you feel abused." Classic example of gaslighting. Peter, you have contributed nothing at all. You have produced no strategy beyond cruelty. Do better.
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  2476. Joseph Inhiding - I've just now noticed your comment ending the the word "Excelsior!" My notifications skipped that one, good thing I read back. If I understand you correctly, you were asking what I thought of Peters remark (I do not see it as a challenge). I think Peter deliberately misunderstands and mis-states many things. We have not gotten anywhere close in this dialog . . . to what I might consider as planning for a future society. The subject of "expansion of the Welfare State" is too easily taken out of context regarding such planning, so I have not made any intentional direct referring to it in this "arena" of discussion. With regard to the "bought into the Wolff marxist propaganda" comment. this is classic gaslighting. I have a firm grip on my mental faculties and I am very familiar with propaganda in the classic sense. To try and undermine my credibility with such statements is a tactic I am unfortunately familiar with. I refer back to my question to Peter: "Why are you here?" With regards to Wolff's presentations being annoying because of the angry demeanor? I'd expect that coming from Peter, he is annoyed at my anger also. Wolff's demeanor accurately reflects how I have felt in the past, more so since I started researching the economy. I am not a professor, but I know how to cross check information. Since I am not doing a dissertation or college paper on the subject, it is easy for some to be dismissive of the source material I remember because I am not archiving it all. What I provided earlier was basic and relatively easily verified. I don't buy Peters argument that because the machines increase worker productivity, the worker has no right to share in the gains. I wrote "share", not "take all" productivity gains. Machines replace workers, what are people supposed to do for money? Peter contradicts himself here, his plan is to force people to work. Doing what exactly? Clearly Peter has no interest in this topic whatsoever, but I want to hear about what the future economy holds for the average person in "Peters World" and in "Joseph's World". It may be in this case that looking forward is far more productive than looking behind.
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  2477. Joseph Inhiding - Now we are getting somewhere. You cannot have a nationalist economy in a global market. There is the essence of the problems with the U.S. economy. You wrote a lot of quotes and your answers. So you are an apologist for the market because it has no conscience? It sounds like you are excusing and enabling really bad behavior. As a parent I do not approve of your co-dependent attitude toward the business community . . . those who should have been loyal to their fellow American citizens instead of solely to their own interests. You are stating opinion that is contrary to everything we are taught about our country K-12. You wrote: "Business is largely indifferent to people, as long as it can get away with it " That is the core of the problem. Business is made up of people. Business is for people and by people. People are at the core of what a business is all about. Therefore it makes no sense whatsoever when "Business is largely indifferent to people,". Business is not an alien entity. Business provides the only means by which modern people live. For the life of me I cannot figure out how people can think that the only thing that matters is business, everything else including human society is an "externality". Business is nullified without human society, human society is nullified without business. That means business by definition, business is entirely about people. It is impossible to operate any longer with the mindset that "Business is largely indifferent to people," Milton Friedman has been proven wrong and it is time to end this destructive experiment. Time to create a better future, for people . . . not just for business. Following this path leads to extinction for humanity, because business does not care what destruction it creates. Damn right I use a lot of words with high emotional content. They are all true and they have a rightful place in discussion. To disallow the justified anger people such as myself feel is just anther gaslighting tactic, designed to marginalize. The anger belongs here, yes . . . even in debate. The place at the table has been earned.
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  2478. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "I can face reality. I am for survival of the fittest or most adaptable. Let nature sort us out." Ok then, what about the rest of the people on the planet? We are not talking about Mother Nature, we are talking about the behavior of human beings toward human beings. What happens to the "unfit"?
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  2479. Peter Nachtwey - My comment: "That means business by definition, business is entirely about people.": Your reply: "This is true but not just any people. The best people. The most productive people." This is very one sided, very "Friedman". You are acting as if business operates in a vacuum and need only concern itself with itself. You are avoiding the central issue. Once again Peter, you did not answer my question so I will ask it again . . . Ok then, what about the rest of the people on the planet?
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  2480. Peter Nachtwey - You wrote: "Start a co-op if you don't like capitalist businesses. I dare you, Wolff would approve." You must be getting sleepy. I already wrote that starting a co-op is the path I will follow.
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  2481. Joseph Inhiding - I appreciate your participation, look forward to reading your next contribution.
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  2482. Peter Nachtwey - Way to pivot Peter, this is about life not votes. I think you have summed up your future pans for humanity very well though . . . . Me: "Ok then, what about the rest of the people on the planet?" You: "I think I have made it clear. F off and die." There you go folks, that is how Peter will win a debate with Professor Wolff.
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  2483. Joseph Inhiding - Go outside on a clear night, look up in the sky and behold our gods. We are made of starstuff, the stars of our origin are long gone but we have become aware and are able to understand where we came from. Religion is outmoded and no longer relevant. Those who fight bloody battles holding up god and country are not serving humanity. Nor are those leaders who use "god" in their speeches serving humanity. Religion is something mankind needs to cast off in order to survive. Simple moral code, use and adaptation of Issac Asimov's first and third laws of robotics: 1). A human being may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 3). A human being must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First Law.
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  2484. Joseph Inhiding - C'mon Joseph. Antifa? to be punished for straying? So you are in favor of fascism? You are a victim of propaganda. I believe in the separation of church and state. As long as leaders like Congress and the president evoke the name of god while perpetrating evil upon us . . . this is not ok. Believe what you want at home or in church. However the "godly" have been forcing their viewpoint down my throat since I can remember, and they have turned out to be far more "immoral" than atheists. I raised my girls atheist. They are both fine and principled human beings. The key to it was no brainwashing, no indoctrination, just good common sense.
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  2485. Joseph Inhiding - Object all that you like, but what you and Peter have both written here does not address in the least part, that human activity is creating an uninhabitable planet. We cannot move, this one planet is all we have. Yet the business community is perfectly happy to gut her and rape her. Nothing you have written addresses this, so all you are doing is extinction talk. I want to move forward with planning a human future. All you two want to do is talk business and markets, which is antithetical to future of the human race.
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  2486. Joseph Inhinding - At the beginning, Peter wrote this: @coolmodelguy You are delusional. You listen to other libtards and repeat what they say without verifying facts. We, the US, is $20T+ in debt. That is a fact. I just published the charts that show why we are $20T in debt. Those are verified facts. That debt correlates directly to the tax cuts started by Reagan. So we have now established that tax cuts do not grow the economy, help the American worker or help American families. All tax cuts have done is put the country in debt, which in turn creates the illusion that America cannot pays its way. This is a setup, allowing politicians to claim the deficit is too much, so we must allow the financialized predators (banks and business) to privatize the commons. Put the taxes back at the pre-Reagan levels and in twenty years there will be no federal deficit.
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  2487. Joseph Inhiding - You wrote: "Debating, presenting facts, arguments, opinions, refuting data, disagreeing with conclusions and such like is not gaslighting. " I agree with you on the contents of that statement. If you think those contents are what I was referring to, then you have done a "Peanut" (Jeff Dunham, comedian). Vvvrrroooom . . .! Right over your head. Point of fact, your commentary has been very informative. I knew nothing about Petro-Dollars, that was quite interesting. However nothing being written here is applicable if the goal is to move humanity forward in a sustainable direction economically, which is my agenda. Peters initial comment about taxes being paid in host countries completely misses the target that Professor Wolff's videos are all about, completely irrelevant in fact. I believe my agenda and that of Professor Wolff is on parallel tracks, which is why I watch these videos. I take issue with Peter because he advocates that most of humanity just be murdered by capitalism. If you dispute that, market based capitalism is responsible for more deaths world wide every six years, than the holocaust and Stalin's regime put together. How can this be justified? Yet every business person I know brushes that off as nonsense, seeking to marginalize rather than confront. With regards to planning, neither of you seems to be interested in offering suitable information to debate, considering everything on the merit of whether it would work today. That is so limiting and short sighted. Did you watch "60 Minutes" today on the DEA and the opiod epidemic? The entire topic is about how Congress has sold out to the giant pharmaceutical companies. DEA Agents who had solid cases with excessive evidence were told the evidence was not enough. That is what is happening here in the comments, no amount of evidence is enough and aside from the verbal abuse, that alone is gaslighting. We have established that Peters original post about foreign taxes is irrelevant to this video topic or the spirit of Dr. Wolff's agenda. I don't think you mad Joseph, just unwilling to engage in the project of building a better economy which works for all people of the Earth . . . or even all people of the USA. You seem to be hidebound and for that I can only feel sorrow for what that means to the rest of us. If you want to break out of it, then join me in discussing and planning for the real thing. No more history lessons unless it is applicable to planning the future economy. This corrupted economic system has to be replaced, reforms alone are too little and too late.
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  2488. I can't figure out my fellow Americans, are you too scared, or do you just not care? In 30 years, 10% of Americans will OWN ALL WEALTH. Today Donald Hump proposed rounding up homeless in California and putting them into internment camps costing over $700/day/per individual . . . paid for by the Federal Government. Fox News has been drumming up support for this policy idea all week. For the cost of this "internment" plan, all homeless could easily be housed without losing their freedom. More people are on their way to homelessness and it will include people that used to think it would never happen to them. The 1% in this country have $30 trillion in accumulated wealth they are not spending, at a mere 2% interest it would take all the GDP gains for 2018 plus an additional $40 billion to pay. Yet when I look at S&P500 index funds, they have been paying over 9% since 1994. Look at a more moderate 5% rate of return, that comes out to $1.5 trillion which eats all 2018's GDP gain plus 1/20th of the entire economy. Thom reported on the U.S. Treasury report in August 2019 which spelled out in detail that in 33 years, the top 10% will own ALL wealth in the USA. The bottom 90% are all going to end up in internment camps. So what is wrong with all of YOU, that whenever I bring this topic up of the wealthy eating our economy whole . . . I hear nothing but silence? Are you all too scared to react, to horrified to take serious action, or even to think about what must be done? Is fighting a racist agenda more important to you? These wealthy people don't care at all if you are white, black, brown, yellow or purple. They are distracting us on purpose with everything under the sun, do you simply not care that soon you and your children, your entire families will be homeless or worse . . . in internment camps?
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  2489. What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb.
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  2490.  @susanmercurio1060  - I'll go further. Ultimately the wealthy stocked the Supreme Court. Taking a constitutional right away from more than half of the population is where they want to go, by banning abortion. This is how far the wealthy are willing to take things in order to provide a diversion from the economy, an economy they rigged to grow wealth faster than production ever makes possible. They know that very soon, enough people will become aware that the economy cannot afford all this wealth and asset growth. People will figure out that when stocks go up in value so does the cost of everything we need to live. The wealthy live in fear that we the people, must take all that wealth away some day soon, which is why they are fighting so dirty. They are never going to stop and sooner or later, the people will realize that we cannot afford to have wealthy persons if we are to have any freedoms at all. Rich persons ok, but not wealthy persons.
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  2491.  @saintpatrick6681  - Excellent points. Completely agreed.
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  2492. No reforms or justifiable tax increases will be lasting until wealth itself is capped. The fulcrum around which all this evil rotates is Excessive Accumulated Wealth. The only purpose such excessive wealth is used for is the exertion of power, most notably to dismantle all reforms which restrain accumulated wealth. Once you have accumulated enough to maintain a luxury lifestyle for a lifetime, that is enough. It is not enough to raise taxes on the wealthy, we have been through this cycle many times already. We the People must cap wealth for everyone, it is necessary for our safety as a society.
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  2493.  @Arginne  - Vouchers are a privatization method and should never be allowed period. All vouchers represent is the downward spiral of education by syphoning off tax money from education and putting it into the pockets of financialized capitalist privateers (pirates!).
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  2494.  @Mark0003260  - There it is folks! Another well used go-to line brought to you by the wonderful people of the 1%! When you have no where else to turn, projection is the name of the game. I'll bet you practiced those lines in front of a mirror Sonny, 'cause you got it down!!!
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  2495.  @Mark0003260  - 🙄
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  2496. CHANCE CYCLE - Thumbs down does not work on comments. What we need is to stop the global race to the bottom for all tax rates. It is time to start forming a global tax initiative before the current system devastates the economy and our living planetary ecology.
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  2497. Animal Farm - Well said. Reminds me of the Peanuts cartoon - the oligarchs are Lucy with the football. I'm heartened to read your trending support for Professor Wolff, because starting about one year ago when I started seriously researching our economy . . . what Dr. Wolff is proposing sounds like the most sensible path to follow. I would even make more radical tax policy, no more billionaires as Thom has suggested is a good start. From my point of view, all money is created by the actions of society at large so once an individual is earning more than 1-5 million annually the federal tax needs to be 95 to 100%. The only reason people want more money than that is to wield power, and we see the results of that scenario in our culture and society today. Unfortunately, the caller can only identify with the democrats as a force to counter what the republicans are doing. I agree with your statement, but I changed from Independent to Democrat to push for change from within the party. That does not mean I will vote democrat, just that I want to add my mass to the push toward what Dr. Wolff advocates within one established political party.
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  2498.  @michaelepstein2570  - Here is something that may get the attention of your youth electorate: All we have to do to limit the power of plutocratic families, the corporate oligarchs, and the international banksters, is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives? Oh, BTW I'm just about 60 years old. All my life I witness the crap that wealthy people do, just because they can. We need a top and a bottom added to our economy. The top is what no one rises above (because to do so creates individual political power beyond the one vote they are entitled to) and the bottom is what no one falls under (UBI, education, medical care, housing, transportation and food).
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  2499. The federal government currently pays 60% of all heath care in the USA and pays a staggering 685 Billion annually in subsidies to private insurance corporations. Let that number sink in . . . that is almost the equal to our military budget. Yet we have the worst medical care outcomes in the developed world. Source: Ralph Nader Radio Hour, published June 1, 2019 called "Trumpcare Fiasco/Logic For The Left". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msZzYYoi8JM
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  2500. Jesus says: Fox "News" message to their audience: It's okay to be a racist. It's okay to be fearful and afraid. It's okay to be hateful and violent. It's okay to be stupid.
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  2501. Kane Schultz - Apparently brighter that you . . . .
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  2502. "There's a sucker born every minute." Attributed to P.T. Barnum and the mantra of the Mango in Chief.
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  2503. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
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  2504. Learn Social Justice - We can have democratic socialism, but it will only endure if we remove the tools and weapons the oligarchs use to dismantle it. That by definition mandates that their wealth be reduced to a level where they cannot ever threaten to overthrow what we are creating. Just ask yourself how much wealth is enough to live in the lap of luxury for a lifetime, and there you will find the the place a wealth cap needs to reside in the new system.
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  2505. Learn Social Justice - I welcome your recommendations on the subject.
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  2506. Learn Social Justice - Excellent - Thank You!
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  2507. Trump knew this interview was in the pipeline, that is why he turned to assassination of an Iranian government official for diversion.
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  2508. No, no, no. More money in the economy does not increase inflation. It is when there are not enough goods to buy or workers to work that inflation goes up. The Fed has pumped trillions of new dollars into the economy since 2008, very little inflation because the 1% captures the majority and keeps it out of circulation. Inflation goes up when there is a shortage of goods and/or workers.
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  2509. BernieBro - Only the Congress has the power to print money at will, Article 1-Section8 of the Constitution. Meanwhile, the law as is states all federal dept incurred must be balanced out by Treasury Bonds purchased. This means our nations debt is someone savings account, since all Treasury Bond Notes are backed by the full faith and credit of the USA. Unless the law is changed, that is how money here works. Neat huh!
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  2510. Iran has done nothing but to respond in a proportionate manner to the aggression of the USA and Trump. This is all Trumps fault. Trump pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump put crippling sanctions on Iran for no good reason. Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's top general. Iran has done nothing to hurt the USA. There is no evidence that Iran has taken any hostile action toward the USA. Iran has a one million man army, while the USA has a few thousand troops in the area. This is their part of the world, which the USA is mucking around in. Graham is an idiot. Trump is a moron. Pompeo is a buffoon. These half wits are going to get us into a war that we cannot win, and all this is a diversion by Trump to get us to look away from his crimes in and out of office. Anything that Iran does is directly the fault of Trump and those who support him.
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  2511.  @MrHigherplane  - You have bought into the oligarchs propaganda lock, stock and barrel. You have a very weak mind to be so brainwashed, it is pathetic. Business cannot offer any opportunity, or any "good products" if people do not have the means to buy those products. You are putting the cart before the horse, which is exactly the manner in which the oligarchs want you to think, you are a very good guardian of "their" system, a useful tool, completely brainwashed and doing their bidding for free.
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  2512. tonglpn - Shame. The real shame here is this: You have not taken a week to do the research so you would really understand what you have written. Gibberish is what you wrote, just a string of words with no meaning or worth. Ignorance.
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  2513. The freest of speech - Well now, I am glad that you can live with that . . . seems how the issue of employers like Trump who hire these people are never prosecuted, is much more important and damaging to our economy than anything else the "illegal aliens" are doing. For someone with the moniker "The freest of speech", you seem to have given up your freedom of thought in favor of being lead around by your nose ring, buying into the propaganda dialog being spoon fed to you by the oligarchs who are the worst offenders. Who do you think are causing the problems in their home countries? It is the plunderers of resources from the good old USA who cause these problems, not the migrants who are simply trying to find a better life.
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  2514. KingDeathTrooper - The flawed ideology is going after the migrants instead of going after the employers who hire them. There was a time when employers went to jail for hiring illegal workers, however moneyed interests scrapped that law precisely so they could later use migrant and illegal workers as a scapegoat to divert attention from the damage the employers caused to our economy in the first place. Nice to see you are swallowing the oligarchs propaganda, bait, line and rod.
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  2515. The freest of speech - You are just an oligarch pawn, buying into their propaganda. Just stop lying already, you are doing more damage spewing their vitriol than any illegal can do. How does it feel to be to be completely willing to undermine your own country? You are disgusting.
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  2516. This why we have to refocus our energy. Our efforts are wasted when we try to do reforms of any kind, because those reforms will always be dismantled. Instead of changing a myriad of different laws trying to combat undue influence, there are only two simple rules that must be placed into law. First in an Annual Income Cap, the second is an Accumulated Wealth Cap. It is vast wealth in the hands of individuals which is the root cause of all our woes and the dysfunction of wealth inequality in our worldwide collective societies. Vast wealth is the toolkit used to dismantle all reforms put into law, and the one glaring example I will put forward is FDR's New Deal. In the decades since the New Deal, the wielders of vast wealth have been dismantling the New Deal piece by piece. Now the New Deal is gone, destroyed. This happens to every law, every reform ever put in place to protect the majority. There is a simple guide as to what the caps should be. By all means, earn your millions until you have enough for you and your family to live in the utmost of luxury for a lifetime. Beyond that point, return everything you earn back to the society that helped you create the wealth in the first place. No one makes millions in a vacuum, everyone who does so has the help of the entire society of human beings . . . every millionaire made is a joint venture with society. I'm 57 years old and my eldest daughter is 30 years old. Between us we have the life experiences of our generations. We did a "thought experiment" to ascertain what the income and wealth limits should be. Her ideas encompassed more than my own, so we generally went with her numbers. I would like to see more of us doing such "thought experiments" so we can come up with a consensus that will make an annual income and accumulated wealth cap palatable to the majority. Do these two things and all dark money political contributions evaporate down to a level where the will of the few no longer dominates the will of the many. We already know excessive wealth beyond what is needed to live a life of utmost luxury is mostly then used to exert power over the powerless.
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  2517. Right. Useless Fox propaganda, completely bleached of any factual content . . . as usual. When are you people going to learn . . . billionaire owned media outlets only serve the interests of the owner? What a bunch of lemmings.
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  2518. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  2519. Jeff Betts - I must disagree that "global free trade" has done what you claim. The result has really been a zero-sum game, whatever gains were made in freeing some of the world from poverty has resulted in wage slavery here and in Europe . . . where capitalism gained it first solid footholds. By stagnating wages and then tripling all the costs associated with living, workers here have essentially been chained. The Laissez- Faire Free Market of Milton Friedman is dead, if it truly lived up to the rhetoric then the extraction economics imposed upon the American people for the past four decades would never have come to pass. The real problem is capitalism itself has become a rabid virus, it no longer has the capability to lift the mass of people out of poverty. Even where the so-called "free markets" have lifted people out of poverty, capitalism is very busy cannibalizing all the gains that have been made . . . following the pattern set in the USA where all the gains made from 1945 to 1975 by the workers have now been extracted by predatory capital accumulators who will not happy until they have it all.
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  2520. Jeff Betts - There are clues in your comments that like myself of two years ago, your education in economics is founded upon propaganda. You obviously have not read enough of my comments to judge where my "rhetoric" is leading. My "rhetoric" as you called it, is the sum total of a great deal of study of both the economic and political history of the USA over the past 100 years and by default, the study of the effects of unrestrained capitalism all over the world. Jimmy Dore is a comic and gets a great deal wrong along with what he gets correct . . . at least he is open about that and admits it. When you indicated that social equity could lead to socialism and then to totalitarianism . . . that was one glue of many, giving away the propaganda roots fueling your point of view. Anyone who has been propaganda trained automatically links socialism to totalitarianism, which is exactly what the capital hoarders who put out the propaganda want your to believe. Now you are their useful tool. Fight them off, don't let them use you like that. Social equity for human society is an ice-cream-cherry-on-top dream, which will never happen. The only thing proven about capitalism over the past 300 years is that is is only slightly better than the economic systems it replaced, yet the end result is the same. Concentration of wealth and capital to very few. The system is engineered to benefit those with concentrated wealth during both the turbulent ups and downs of the system. If you really want capitalism to survive, there is only one solution . . . cap income and wealth accumulation so that no one is able to gain the system through unfair advantage. Once the capping occurs the benefits will spread out to create a more uniform "social equity". You are correct about the "childish state of affairs in the US.". Those who crave and hoard so much wealth are indeed like children, brutish and cruel children. We don't need such children running our affairs or having such exaggerated control over the politics that govern the economy. A wealth cap will deal with them and redirect their energies toward more useful pursuits.
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  2521. Jeff Betts - Your comment reply to "Kevin T" was an interesting read. Your self education trajectory is running on a path similar to the one I traveled and I wish more people would undertake this kind of education on their own. I will fully admit that I was, for the majority of my 57 years, suffering from ingesting too much mainstream media . . . not realizing that so much of what stands for "news" from these sources is so heavily biased that it can only be called "propaganda". Furthermore my formal education was also heavily biased, as I have come to realize belatedly. As far as being in "emotional territory", you are quite correct. Finding out decades too late about about the Powell Memo . . . and never having learned about the aborted Butler coup d'etat until a year ago . . . . I am indeed furious. I hope you are able to share with us what you have learned about the economic history of the world and tell us about the insights you have gained from the book comparing capitalism and socialism. I certainly hope the authors are of decent repute.
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  2522. Jeff Betts - Cool. Especially your last line, unfettered capitalism is a threat. Until we come up with a better plan, I am also pro capitalism . . . well regulated capitalism.
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  2523. Da Squirrel - Yes, I agree with what you are saying, Yet consider . . . The American people have been kept very busy over the past three to four decades. The value of our work has been declining, what the median wage bought 30 years ago is more than twice what the median wage will buy today. Household income has grown, but only by adding extra earners to the household. That means people are very busy chasing extra money just to keep up . . . no time to concern ourselves with the leaders who are SUPPOSED to be looking out for us. Now we are hemmed in, just like we have been sown to a wall. I don't know about you, but we cannot even get out to protest. We had to give up our only car to make ends meet two years ago, giving us fewer alternatives than to bitch online.
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  2524. Pootube Doodle - You wrote: "Liberals cry to their legislators by the millions and get their crap policies put in place with stunning regularity." Did you ever read the story of "Joe Conservative"? I'm curious, because I agreed with your first comment, and I agree also with a great deal of what you wrote in your second comment. Yet there seems to be a fundamental schism between what republicans do in government and the values of conservatism. So first, have you read "Joe Conservative", and what say you about that schism I referred to?
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  2525. Essay:A Day In The Life of Joe Conservative https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:A_Day_In_The_Life_of_Joe_Conservative
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  2526. Pootube Doodle - You wrote: "Liberals cry to their legislators by the millions and get their crap policies put in place with stunning regularity." Did you ever read the story of "Joe Conservative"? I'm curious, because I agreed with your first comment, and I agree also with a great deal of what you wrote in your second comment. Yet there seems to be a fundamental schism between what republicans do in government and the values of conservatism. So first, have you read "Joe Conservative", and what say you about that schism I referred to? Essay:A Day In The Life of Joe Conservative https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:A_Day_In_The_Life_of_Joe_Conservative
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  2527. These republicans are the leading edge of a new fascist government for the United States, each of them vying for power. Make no mistake, the republicans have been getting ready for this moment since Nixon, Reagan and when the 1971 Powell Memo was written.
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  2528. The real problem we have is this, interest payments on the 1%'s wealth exceed three times our annual GDP growth. The 1% are eating us alive.
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  2529.  @rappinron1384  - Saw that on TV did you? Sounds like the MSM is working you to support the corporate narrative, to be pro-fascist and pro police killing of black people. Be careful with the propaganda you imbibe, and be smart enough to know when you are being sold a bill of goods.
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  2530.  @rappinron1384  - Go back to rappin Ron, because you are making no sense at all here.
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  2531. Let the ignorant beware, especially those of you who espouse a right wing political agenda. The fight for freedom is right here in the USA and not just in Hong Kong or Russia. The worst depression since the 1930s will be brought on by the millionaire and billionaire hoarders of capital. Just take a simple look at their accumulated wealth and what compound interest will do to that wealth over the next 45 years, $30 trillion today becomes $240 trillion then. Where is that extra $210 trillion in "free money" going to come from? The elite classes get people like you to blame "free healthcare for all, including illegals, open borders, and forgiving of all student loans" . . . . so they can continue to rape, pillage and loot our country. Get a grip people, especially those who have a right wing political outlook. You are being used and your spewing of right wing "faux news" propaganda does not work on us anymore
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  2532.  Dragon Warrior  - Hear that? That was the sound of the whip that keeps you in line. All you have are quips. Pathetic.
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  2533. @Golli Wog - Preach Brother! You may be one of the very few sane and informed people to grace this comment section.
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  2534. @Golli Wog - What do Rupert Murdoch, John Stossel and Donald Trump have in common? All three are in the top 5% of net worth wealth holders. John Stossel worked for Murdoch at Fox Business, a billionaire paying a millionaire to talk smack about certain Americans. There is a reason why the producers of media content who are wealthy, are spending so much time and money to divide the less wealthy against each other. If we fight each other, we will not be looking at how the wealthy are destroying our country.
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  2535. @Golli Wog - Or what she saw in Rupert for that matter . . . oh yeah, the only thing that matters to a gold digger, they are rich!
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  2536. Apparently Hannity and Fox News are carrying water for the Trump war against Venezuela, using a conspiracy with Saudi Arabia to increase oil output to drive down the price, combined with the unwarranted sanctions placed on the country by Trump. This is why Trump made his first state visit to the Kingdom of Murderers. The UN Investigator and Human Rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas, has issued his report and clearly the USA is committing Crimes Against Humanity by choking off Venezuela so that it can then be looted by the 1%.. This is all an effort by the 1% and multi-national corporations to topple the legitimately elected leadership in Venezuela so that a failing capitalism can seize and exploit that countries resources . . . because they have almost finished looting every other resource on the planet. People, if you believe this fraud Hannity, then you are simply pawns in their game who come here to get your daily dose of propaganda pacification.
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  2537. mackjeez - Susana Raffalli is a right-wing affiliated consultant. What you are doing is essentially mocking behavior, not grounded at all in factual reporting. The real problem here is the the U.S. corporate media has gotten on board with this propaganda scheme, because many of the Directors on the media boards are also Directors on the boards of oil companies. None of these people have your best interest at heart, or the best interest of the people of Venezuela. They are cheering on the asphyxiation of a sovereign country via illegal United States sanctions, salivating at the looting they can do once Muduro is toppled and their multi-national corporations can go in and start stealing all the resources. My God man, if you are going to be a schill . . . at least to the proper research first. Otherwise you are just another Fox News junkie who comes here to get your daily propaganda pacifier.
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  2538. catzndolz - Done screaming yet?
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  2539. mackjez - It does not matter what the Venezuelan Government does or does not, it is not our business to interfere. Are we interfering in Saudi Arabia? Obama was a good speech maker, but he was a bad as any republican . . . there was never any national security threat to the USA coming from Venezuela, he lied. This is all a con job so that the 1% can loot the resources of Venezuela, period. Fox News is crewed by a bunch of millionaire talking heads, who are paid by billionaires to convince you lot that it is a good idea to topple another country and steal their resources. Then they have the gall to say the refugees thus created and headed north to find a better life constitute a "national emergency". Stop being a tool. I'm angry with the lot of you vapid Fox News addicts, because you are contributing to making life worse for all of us by being useful tools . . . you included.
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  2540. Live Free or Die USA - Regardless of the mistakes that might have been made in Venezuela, this is not the business of the USA. If we are not willing to interfere in Saudi Arabia which is far worse, then hands of Venezuela.
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  2541. 867 5309 - True, and I call it out where I see it. We don't have any legitimate interest that requires perpetual interventionism and wars. As for the the opinions of Fox News on domestic policy that are more freedom oriented than the rest . . . how so? Fox News rabid defense of billionaires is directly contrary to a "freedom oriented" agenda. Please explain what you are referring to.
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  2542. 867 5309 - Well, you did not really answer my question. With your reference to domestic policy, I am supposing you are talking about the federal government. The problem with the conservative approach to federal government is that unlike state and local governments or even a household, there is no restriction on the dollars that can be spent because the Federal Government is the source of all U.S. Dollars in circulation. So far, our Treasury has been looted by the war machine, banks and Wall Street, with very little benefit to the American people. The so-called conservatives on both sides of the isle have been behind a majority of deficit spending and the war mongering, even though they raise holy-hell over anything progressive democrats propose to spend money on which would benefit the majority of the citizenry. I'm not buying that the so called conservative approach to domestic policy is good, because if you look at the condition of the USA now, forty years of conservative policy seems only to have benefited the 1%. Can you do any better by being more specific?
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  2543. 867 5309 - I just pulled a tally of the top 20 highest net worth TV anchors and here it is: ABC has two, CBS has two, Fox has six, NBC has four, CNN has three and PBS has two. One bounced among NBC, CBS, ABC and Yahoo News. PBS has almost become a fully owned subsidiary of the Koch Brothers and Fox is owned by the Murdoch's, that makes eight out of twenty being paid directly by billionaires. The others are all mega-corporations. None of these anchors would be on air at all if they were not willing to parrot the interests of the billionaire class. Bottom line is this, we the American people are being lied to continually and items of major importance to us is deliberately buried by these networks. I condemn all of them on a continuous basis, but Fox News is by far the worst offender. Every other network does factual reporting on "safe" but not Fox News which is purely a propaganda outlet to benefit the Murdoch's.
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  2544. 867 5309 - I will take issue with part of what you are saying. As a Californian, I know that we are running a budget surplus at the moment and we are not being "destroyed" by democrats. To your point on fiscal conservatives, I am mostly in agreement. I have to step out for a couple of hours. When I come back, I will address more of your points. I do appreciate this conversation, thanks for carrying on.
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  2545. 867 5309 - My Lady is not ready, so I have time now to address your comment. You said that Fox tends to "take a much more fiscally conservative approach on domestic policy". I am not aware that this is the case. Can you cite examples? Fiscal conservatism serves well in households (I adhere to fiscal conservatism to run our household budget), also for local and state governments. However, fiscal conservatism serves little legitimate purpose with regards to the federal government and is not visionary at all (we need visionary in the federal government). Since the USA is the sole proprietor and manufacturer of the U.S. Dollar, the only usefulness for fiscal conservatism is keep an eye on available resources and make sure the manufacture of dollars does not amplify inflation. Meanwhile as per the Constitution, the federal government should concern itself with "the general Welfare" (note the capitalization of Welfare, as stated in the Constitution) of the entire citizenry of the USA and should never write policy into law that is so bent toward the Oligarchy that it creates distress among the population. What I am most concerned with is the federal domestic policy of today and the past four decades. The "hardcore Trotsky/Straussian communists" roots of present day neocons does not concern me, their present day actions concern me. The modern neocon seems to exclusively want to keep the military/industrial economy going for the benefit of those who gain their wealth from it. That is just sick, and since all of their wealth comes directly from the U.S. Treasury, I want to see neocons become extinct. Our military has been used almost exclusively for empire building since the end of World War Two and has directly caused the problems most on the far-right keep griping about. Codependent with the neocons are the wealth hoarding (so-called) conservatives of every stripe, that depend on on interventionism to prop up a collapsing capitalism. When capital has been hoarded to the extent that economic circulation of capital is asphyxiated . . . it seems the only solution policy makers come up with is the looting of additional resources to prop up capitalism (example, squeezing Venezuela). Now, back to California. How exactly is this state being systematically destroyed by democrats? There are many problems here, but republican governors and administrations have only made those problems worse, not better. Can you cite examples? What am I missing here?
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  2546. You people simply don't get it. We are going to pay, there is no avoiding that reality. Do what we do now, Hurricane Harvey and Irma are costing U.S. taxpayers at least 250 billion, just for those two storms. That money brings us back to zero, makes us whole but does nothing whatsoever to counter the next hurricane. This amounts to knocking .07 percent out of the economy, just for the cleanup. This is not accounting for other effects, like loss of business. We can easily afford two trillion dollars to make long term capital investment in the Green New Deal. Not to do so is short sighted and frankly . . . stupid.
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  2547. Ian Alan - No. We humans have spent over 100 years filling the air with excess CO2. The oceans have been absorbing that excess CO2 and have reached the limit of their absorption capability. This in turn has caused ocean acidity which destabilized ocean life and a warming which is generating massive typhoons and hurricanes. If we stopped CO2 emissions today, massive hurricanes are still going to be generated for the next five hundred years, or until the oceans have a chance to cool. If we do nothing, hurricanes are going to grow beyond the scales we use to measure them within two decades. So will flooding and fires. Within ten decades, the earth will be 90% uninhabitable for humans and within two centuries, humans and all other larger life on this planet will be dead. That is one HELL of a legacy to leave to our great grandchildren . . . but wait, that generation will most likely never be born.
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  2548. What I have been looking at with some intensity is this little problem: USA- $30 trillion accumulated wealth is seeking an annual "rate of return" in a $20 trillion national GDP. Global- $50 trillion in accumulated wealth is seeking an annual "rate of return" in a $80 trillion global GDP In the USA example, a 5% rate of return consumes 7.5% of the GDP when entire U.S. GDP grows by only 2.56% annually. The interest at 5% is $1.5 trillion, whereas the total GDP growth in the USA for 2018 was only $560 billion. In the global example, a 5% rate of return consumes 3.125% of the GDP when the entire global GDP for 2018 grew by only 4% annually. The interest at 5% is $2.5 trillion, whereas the total GDP growth globally for 2018 was only $3.2 trillion. Using a 5% interest rate just to be nominally conservative is ridiculous, when an average RoR for an S&P 500 index fund has been over 9% annually since 1994. What these figures show is that the 1% is hollowing out (cannibalizing) the USA in the ultimate "socialism for the wealthy" scam. The right cries out that those on the left want "free money" or "free stuff". when in reality the 1% is pulling $trillions of "free money" out of the economy every year.
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  2549. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  2550.  @haute2death  - No. The taxes are high in California and New York because Trump and the republicans took out the deductions for state taxes in the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Scam of 2017". You listen to far too much Oligarch owned media like Fox News, the republicans are now branded liars as shown this week in the North Carolina House vote. You cannot trust anything republicans say, they are your enemies and mine.
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  2551. What happens when $30 trillion (wealth of the 1%) is seeking a 5% rate of return in a $20 trillion annual GDP economy?
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  2552. George Thomas Taylor - How are those blinders fitting? Are they chafing much, maybe itching a little?
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  2553. Has anyone else noticed that this "recovered" missile section is mostly intact? The broken edges look faked to me . . . any pilot can tell you (and show you) how flying objects get totally destroyed upon contact with the ground. Airplanes go hundreds of miles per hour . . . missiles fly at over one thousand miles per hour. Airplanes are more rugged in construction than are missiles, and airplanes get destroyed during a crash. These parts are not from a missile that has actually flown.
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  2554. Ox Alek - Good idea. It is about time that all of mankind shares in a "productivity and resource" dividend, because it is insanely wrong for so few to be getting so rich on the backs of all of mankind. The same for you and I as well.
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  2555.  @SolidAir54321  - David Harvey made the statement I referred to in an episode of the "Anti-Capitalist Chronicles". When I heard this, I was deeply disturbed, but it has helped me to reason out a potential solution. The French Revolution may have removed feudalism from government, but it did not get rid of feudalism, which simply moved itself into into the workplace and made itself comfortably at home where it has roosted for 220 years. The problem with the rules tweaking of the past and present, is that no one has ever even proposed limiting wealth or had a plan for doing so. This was the great failure of FDR, which in turn has lead to the elimination of most reforms brought about by the New Deal. The problem with revolution in the modern age, is what comes after, and how to keep the old powers from simply reasserting themselves? I have been researching this problem and have concluded there are solutions and a path that can be followed to get us out of predatory capitalism, but first the roadmap must be created that is easy for the people to understand and follow.
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  2556. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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  2557. Dick Hamilton - Unfortunately I must agree with you. It has been dawning in my comprehension that just as the right wing has been using force legislatively for over 100 years to get their way, we must do the same. It is unfortunate that communication and compromise has been rendered useless as political tools, the right is not interested in those things. That leaves us in the position of having to employ unyielding political force in order to move humanity into the next stage of its development.
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  2558. The criminal president stopped witnesses. The House democrats had the long experience of trying to get Don McGahn White House Counsel as a witness by going through the courts. This was not about winning the impeachment for the democrats. By going through the courts first, the dems proved that Trump would obstruct and tie things up in court. By going the impeachment route, they have exposed the other end of the snake, which is the GOP is just as corrupt as Trump. All of the GOP participated in a cover up of Trumps crimes in office. Now we get to see how the people react.
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  2559.  Zero Cool  - No, I don't. The wages and wealth of Americans have been driven down so low that most people no longer have the disposable income to spend on hobbies like they did in the '70's and '80's. Things have gotten so bad that I have had top abandon r/c aircraft and r/c ship building, that is what capitalism has done. When the top 20% have so much wealth that it eats more than 13% of the annual economy just to pay them "free money" in interest, money they did not lift a finger to actually earn, capitalism has turned into a parasite that is killing the host.
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  2560.  Zero Cool  - We can blame republicans for that, over 100 years of history to prove it.
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  2561.  Zero Cool  - FDR had to clean up the mess the republicans made from 1917 to 1932. The USA was doing well after that. Eisenhower was the last republican president legally elected and who did not commit crimes or treason in order to get elected. Reagan ruined this country, with a lot of help from both Bush boys, Clinton and Obama. I'm not saying the democrats are blameless, just that the republicans have been trying to burn the Constitution for over 100 years.
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  2562. TrueKoalaKnight - Federal cuts are extremely unlikely. Ever since Nixon took us out of Bretton Woods and off the gold standard, the federal government has used MMT to keep paying out even though federal taxes were also being cut 0ver and over since 1971. What you are referring to is more of a scare tactic used by politicians than actual tactile policy.
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  2563. This same scenario contributed to how Ancient Rome fell, they privatized a substantial part of their army and then lost control of their army as it fragmented. Privateer soldiers followed their commanders and stopped taking orders from Rome. This is how the USA falls.
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  2564.  @jkairi4  - If you are referring to the Fed pumping money into the banking system, then yes, it devalues all currency saved or spent. It causes prices to go up, which we see in all asset markets and even in some commodities markets. They keep telling us inflation is at 2% or less, however they exclude many items from their analysis that we need for your daily life like food and energy. They also exclude housing, which is counter intuitive because we all need housing.
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  2565. Awwww, isn't it so wonderful to read all the angry comments from the triggered republicans . . . . .feels sooooo good!
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  2566. mark nelson - Your logic is seriously flawed. First, your history of the ACA is incorrect. Competition in the medical field will increase with medicare for all, not decrease. So my question for you Mark is this: How many people are you going to kill and seriously maim to support the very flawed system we now have?
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  2567.  Bro Den  - Thanks for the question. I don't want to overwhelm you with details, so I won't be able to exactly define a bunch of issues with just a few words. Therefor I will pick the biggest problem and we can go from there. Subject: Compounded interest. I was taught from a young age to save, and that my nest egg would grow if I kept adding to it and reinvested the interest back into the nest egg. It was wonderful advice, because the interest I "earned" was added to the principle so that last year's interest was earning interest this year. Sound financial advice, I have earned over 5% on my nest egg year over year. My nest egg is held in "financial assets", stocks, bonds and index funds. With these "investments", my money is going out there to make companies more productive and therefor profitable enough to pay me interest and dividends. Ultimately, my interest payments are made from profits and economic growth. Well, that was what I thought for over 40 years. Three years ago I started to research the economy because I wanted to know why my business revenues, which went up every year for ten years, were not buying the same value of goods that I could buy ten years ago. Something was wrong, and I wanted to find out what. The economy furnishes our livelihoods, pays for my business and my investments. So logically, the economy has to grow faster than my business and investments grow in order to be healthy. Now we have to do some math and I will round out the numbers, so either double check my work or take my word for what I'm going to say. The economy in 2019 was about $22 trillion and it grew from 2018 by about $66 billion. That was about 3% growth. I have not been able to track down the grand total of "financial assets" out there, so I'm going to use one segment to demonstrate. "Households and Non-profit organizations" held $90.97 trillion in the 4th quarter of 2019. If we assume those financial assets earned 5% interest and dividends (the range is .75% to 9.75% interest, so 5% is about the average), then the interest paid is $4.55 trillion. Now remember, this is just a fraction of all the financial assets out there. That interest payment to households and non-profit organizations ate all of the 2019 economic growth plus 17.6% of the entire economy. The problem is that the total of "investments" are five to ten times larger than the economy, earn more interest than the growth of the economy, therefor production within the economy cannot keep up with investment growth, so instead companies are forced to raise prices in order to pay shareholders. This is the reason my business actually provides less than it did ten years ago even though my business is twice as large as it was ten years ago. Both my business and the economy are being cannibalized in order to pay investors. This was a shock to me, and here lies the answer to your question. The top 20% of households hold more than 77% of all financial assets. The top 1% own 54% of all financial assets. This means that the wealthiest people are hollowing out our economy and my business, in order to gain "unearned income" to add to the riches they already have but could never spend in 100 lifetimes. Finally, an example that was worked out almost 300 years ago. If you took a penny and put it in savings at 5% compounded interest when Jesus Christ was alive and did not touch the account until the American Revolutionary War, that penny would turn into a greater sum than 150 MILLION earth size balls of solid gold. That dept cannot ever be paid and that wealth would be impossible to collect. This is the madness we are living with and the vast majority of the fault lies with the wealthiest 1%, which includes Dennis Prager of PragerU.
    1
  2568.  Bro Den  - What I figured out, is that capitalism not the great equalizer. In 30 to 35 years, all wealth will be in the hands of ten percent of households. I'm too small, so all my wealth will be vacuumed away by rising costs. Even people who are wealthy now, will lose that wealth as the greater fortunes, using compounded interest, eat all existing wealth. Now if you want a society where everyone is poor except a few lucky souls, then that is what we are going to get. Essentially, democracy will be gone and we will have some kind of feudal state where the rich make the laws. The poor will just be stuck with their lot, which will be perpetual poverty.
    1
  2569.  @jesha1995  - My, my, yet another naive comment from the mass of people who have succumbed to oligarch propaganda. People do not get rich from running a successful company anymore. Currently, more than 16% of all American corporations are zombies, meaning they can pay the interest on their debt but cannot pay any principle. Most companies are in debt up to their eyeballs due to central banks with record low interest, from which companies borrow for the sole purpose of purchasing their own stock in order to artificially inflate stock prices (that is while NOT making a profit from productivity). In addition, you are not taking into account the sheer mass of "financial assets", which are paying interest or dividends to their holders, the mass of which far outweigh annual economic growth of any country. These people are not doing any work at all, yet they "earn" far more in capital gains than the economy grows every year. I thought you people took a stand against those who get "free money" without doing the work to earn it.
    1
  2570.  @jesha1995  - You really should have paid attention in English class during school. I know they don't teach economics in our school system (part of the conservative movement's deconstruction of education efforts), but you should at least know how to construct a sentence without using double negatives or even be able to construct a response that makes sense.
    1
  2571.  @jesha1995  - I'll put things very simply. Wealth always grows faster than the economy. That means sooner or later wealth will hollow out the economy and kill the host, just like a virus. The only solution is to write off debt, which also means the elimination of wealth. What you are describing with taxes and inflation is pure propaganda, it is factually incorrect. No economy on earth is going to grow at 7%. You really need to check your sources, because they are feeding you a bunch of BS.
    1
  2572.  @jesha1995  - What you are writing is a lot of confusions and contradictions with a splattering of factually correct information. That is exactly the position those with real wealth want you to be in, that way you are not a threat to them if you live in a republic or democracy. Here is a dose of fact that you can confirm for yourself if you are willing to do the research. Over the past 30 years, the economy of the USA has grown by 2.56% annually. The rate of return on investments has been over 6% annually in the aggregate. In 2019, 4th quarter, one sector of investments titled "household and non-profit organizations" was holding 97.6 trillion in financial assets. The rate of return on those financial assets was in the trillions, whereas the growth of the U.S. economy was in the billions. Keep in mind, this example is of one sector of the entire investment spectrum. An economy that grows in the billions cannot support capital gains that are in the trillions. Those who are holding real wealth want you confused. That is the entire purpose of PragerU, to confuse and confound. Unfortunately, they succeed, you are a prime example of their success. Believe what you want, because whatever you choose to believe, it does not change the facts on the ground.
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  2573. ​ @jesha1995  - Where do you think wealth growth comes from? You missed the point entirely. You are supposed to believe that wealth is derived from economic growth, but that is a lie. Financial assets are legal instruments whose sole purpose is to grow wealth. Wealth growth is where all inflation comes from. You are very confused and digging yourself into a deeper hole. Why do you think that American corporations borrowed so much money from the Federal Reserve over the past decade? Those loans were not invested to increase productivity, because there is no profit to be gained when people do not have money to spend on product (product, that is where the "P" in GDP comes from). Instead, the money from these corporate loans were spent to buy back their own stock, thus inflating the asset price of the stock. Additionally, this corporate borrowing caused the currency devaluation due to money printing you wrote of earlier, which in turn causes inflation for ordinary folk. Why do you think there was a interest rate spike in September of 2019 that caused the Fed to multiply their REPO operations on a daily basis every single business day since then? The Federal Reserve is currently the only thing propping up the stock market, which should have crashed last year, due to the extreme burden corporate borrowing has placed on asset prices. Look here, you are woefully under educated. You came in here telling me that the penny invested 2000 years ago would not have generated the sum totally over 150 million earth size globes of solid gold because of inflation. Your statement is incorrect, because for 1700 of those years, there was no inflation. The point that you missed is that compounded interest, which is what investments produce, cannot be sustained by any economy, because compounded wealth grows faster than any economy can sustain. This is what the wealthy do not want you to understand, which is why they lie to you and tell you complicated stories to support their lies. This video is one of those lies. Do more research, then come back and talk to me, otherwise you are just another chicken being raise to slaughter for the benefit of those who do no work yet gain immense fortunes.
    1
  2574.  @theg.c.142  - Wow. So you think that taking an hourly job comes with zero risk? So a family moves to a new location for better work, you think that is not a risk? When a worker buys a home based on their qualifying income, you think that is not a risk when the employer can simply let that worker go at any time for any reason? I could go on, but your entire comment is filled with myth that comes straight out of the Oligarch's Propaganda Handbook. A prime example is that you think wealthy people invest invest in the middle and lower class. No, that does not happen, has not happened for decades. If what you say was true, then we would not have a third world infrastructure and education would be properly funded. The wealthy have abandoned the poor and middle class, which is why they have no further need of an educated populous or the infrastructure to support them. You have drunk the poisoned kool-aid my friend and it has successfully blunted your thinking capability. BTW, I am not a liberal or an independent, at heart I am a conservative. Yet even the meaning of conservative has been warped by propaganda. Do some actual research, spend a few years digging into facts about the economy, then maybe we can have an intelligent conversation. It is apparent that think yourself well educated, you are however fully stuffed with propaganda. Do some independent research, then you can free yourself and look about with clear eyes and mind.
    1
  2575.  Red Rex  - A flat tax is a con job and will not equalize anything, in fact it will make our problems much worse. When the worker is taxed on his labor, that is not equal to the wealthy who is taxed on the capital gains they accrue through no labor. Furthermore, the worker is unlikely to gain 10% annually on their labor, whereas the wealthy have financial assets that do gain 10% annually. The tax problem in our society is due to a systems imbalance with accumulated wealth being five times the size of our economy and growing five times faster than the economy. An economic system needs containment boundaries as all systems must, yet wealth can grow to infinity, meaning our economic system has a gusher of a leak. If you have an engine leaking oil or fuel, that engine will not operate for long without sealing up the leaks. Same thing with wealth in an economic system, wealth must have an upper limit or the system cannot operate properly. This means a wealth cap, this much and no more. Get your head wrapped around that idea and stop buying the propaganda this video is peddling, a flat tax is oligarch propaganda and Prager is an oligarch.
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  2576. What astonishes me is the following: The top 20% because they have wealth, have gotten $2.75 trillion in free money in 2019. That is over 13% of the entire GDP. This mode of financial capitalism is unsustainable, not only is it creating record poverty here in the USA, it is literally poisoning our life giving planet. I'm currently 58 years old, born in 1961 and I have never been able to make it out of poverty regardless of my education and skill set. This economic model must end, capitalism can continue but only if a wealth cap plugs the gusher that makes so few people well off.
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  2577. Rob James - All the individual tax cuts are temporary, they expire in a few years. Only the corporate tax cuts are permanent. Everyone will get a tax increase immediately, because this so called "tax reform" will instantly increase medical insurance costs across the board. Plus increasing the deficit means we all will pay more regardless.
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  2578. DJ Simoneit - - Yup. Chuck Grassley already pulled that stunt when he made a statement that the "CHIPs" program for kids medical care could not be reauthorized because "the money is not there" . . . . then immediately after that he voted yes on a "tax scam" that would increase the national deficit by a factor of thousands over what the CHIPs program costs are.
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  2579. Kelly Rellis - U R stupid.
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  2580. Back in the day, the "arms" were flintlocks . . . muzzle loaded. The Constitution was always meant to be adapted to the age (hence "amendments") and circumstances. This is not 1776.
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  2581. PROPERTY SOLUTIONS ATL - If you are going to work, you are the employee and not the capitalist. There are relatively few capitalists in the world and more than enough workers, which is a definition of economics that is starting to cause problems for the global population. So far, there are no efforts being made to provide for a global population that will at some point no longer be needed as employees/serfs/slaves.
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  2582. I watched the beginning of this video several times. The student who was tazed was not shown to be attacking anyone. Is there some other video of this event showing what happened prior to the start of this video? In any case, the police are big and strong adults. They can handle situations like this without resorting to pepper spray and especially without using tazers. The young man who was tazed never got up. The officer who did the pepper spray and tazing also did a lot of aggressive shoving, looks like he has anger management issues.
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  2583. I don't get it. All we have to do to limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives?
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  2584.  @martinkil50  - Your explanation is very good. There is one banking component to which you mentioned in passing, the interest rate on the loans, which I would like to expand upon. When the banks engage in credit creation, the money created is destroyed through repayment of the loan. The interest rate paid by the borrower is separate from the credit creation, which is extracted from existing money in circulation. This in effect, is a tax that does not go back to the government. Part of that interest money and the credit repayment is negated by the then current inflation rate, which why the interest rate is always higher than the inflation rate. Another part of the interest rate is profit for the bank itself, which is extracted out of the then current surplus money circulating in the economy. When a bank lends for the purchase of a home in a growing housing market, it is lending a larger sum for the same property than it would have in years previous. This in turn increases the interest being extracted from the then current money circulating in the economy while at the same time increasing the wealth of the seller. This upward spiral of housing prices supported by the banks willingness to lend, is paid for by extracting wealth from the borrower and from renters not associated with the loan between the bank and the housing buyer. Every time a bank lends an increasing amount to a house buyer, housing renters across the board are forced to pay higher prices for rents without the benefit of greater value going to the renter. This "cause and effect" is part of the methodology of extracting wealth from the majority low income population, which then ends up as a plus entry in the ledgers of the minority higher income populations. The only way this distressing situation can be addressed is to tax higher income populations proportionately, or simply cap the amount of wealth an individual can accumulate.
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  2585. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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  2586.  @nickmagrick7702  - You are not supposed to "like the framing of redistributing", because that is the way the wealthy want you to think. What do you think is going to happen to this country when all wealth is controlled by two or three families? The republic and the Constitution will be destroyed. Wealth always grows faster than the economy, a good country has methods to reset the balance of wealth but we do not.
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  2587. I've looked at two things; 1) Median wages have not kept up with productivity and have remained stagnant for over thirty years. 2) The median price of a new home has risen 230% over the past 30 years. With stagnant wages, where is all the demand coming from to buy these new homes and cause their price to go up? Housing is only one item that has risen in cost, heath care, child care, rents, transportation and energy have all risen over 100% in the same time frame. Meanwhile we have this deep finance state going on, where something called "derivatives" . . . .a finance tool none of us have access to . . . . has grown to be more than all of the planets productive output. These are playthings for the rich to gamble with and they will eventually topple the entire global economy. The reason housing prices have risen along with everything else is that these finance toys are extracting wealth from you and I. "Big Risk: $1.2 Quadrillion Derivatives Market Dwarfs World GDP. One of the biggest risks to the world's financial health is the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market. It's complex, it's unregulated, and it ought to be of concern to world leaders that its notional value is 20 times the size of the world economy."
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  2588. You people want real answers? Then you must first look at the real problem. We have a $22 trillion economy, but $5 trillion of that is interest payments on over $100 trillion in financial assets (the wealth of the 1% mostly). Those interest payments are the reason our housing and healthcare costs keep going up. You want real solutions? Then get it through your thick heads that a wealth cap for individuals and businesses is the only solution to most of our problems. No reform, no law can hold up when wealthy people and corporations can simply dismantle the reforms. Get real for once in your lives and stop chasing petty idealistic ideas.
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  2589. The stock market is the number one driver of inflation for the masses. I would go so far as to call all financial markets a scheme for funneling wealth to the wealthy from the masses. The math does not hold up. Seventy years ago, just after WW2 ended, financial assets started out at over 2.5 times the size of the economy and over time have grown faster than the economy. The only way that is possible is to pull wealth from every available source, from us (society at large), from the government and from the future through borrowing. Now financial assets are over five times the size of our economy, in 2021 alone the growth of financial assets was greater than 66% of our GDP. Since all wealth generation is supposed to be tied to the real economy in order to make any sense at all, wealth growth as it exists today is a scheme, not something based on any sustainable system.
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  2590. While I respect what Josh Harder did in this setting, he is not our hero here in the 10th district of California. When Josh ran for congress, his ads were almost exclusively in support of Medicare for All, featuring his disabled brother. His very first vote was in support of the PayGo rules, which effectively but a straight-jacket onto all Medicare for All legislation. He has turned out to be a dedicated corporate democrat, whose 2020 election funding is from 78% single source donations, in other words his support is almost exclusively from 1% donors. This was a good show for Josh, but I'm afraid that a show is all this is.
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  2591. Don't forget, Joe Biden was selected, not elected. Biden's political will is governed by those who got him into office over Bernie.
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  2592.  @sunshine-on5bn  - Wow. How does it feel to be illiterate? Not cool! Looks like you need some schooling sunshine, I never called anyone "names", just wrote a few words of truth. The truth is the ultimate logical argument.
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  2593.  @sunshine-on5bn  - Oh no you don't. What I stated is the unvarnished truth without generalization. Do some research if you dare. The republicans have been reckless, irresponsible and completely bought by the wealthy elites for over 100 years. Who do you think brought us the Great Republican Depression? Santa Clause? Get some facts and bring those to the table before you slander anyone else with your nonsense.
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  2594. From the 1970's onward, all economic productivity gains have gone to those who already accumulated wealth. This economic problem has a simple origin with wide ranging effects. We keep trying to solve problems created by the effects instead of solving the problem at its source. The 2019 economic year illustrates the origin clearly. The sum of privately held financial assets for 2019 is greater than $90 trillion. The 2019 national output by the productive economy as measured by GDP is about $21.5 trillion. From these two figures we can compare the size of interest earning wealth to the size of the economy, $90 trillion compared to $21.5 trillion. Financial assets gain 5% to 7% annually on average. GDP has grown by 2.56% over the past three decades. From these two figures we can compare the growth rate of wealth to the growth rate of the economy. If we use the smaller figure of 5% growth for financial assets, 2019 generated $4.5 trillion in asset growth. According to The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the United States Department of Commerce, Current-dollar GDP increased 4.1 percent, or $848.8 billion, in 2019 to a level of $21.43 trillion. If only 18.8% of financial asset growth for 2019 was cashed out as capital gains, that would wipe out the entire $848.8 billion GDP growth for the year. This is why we don't have affordable healthcare, education and housing like they did in 1950's, because all economic gains are going to the 1%. The only solution for this mess is to heavily tax capital gains or finally recognize we need to put a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. Every system has an upper limit. We need to recognize that our economic system breaks down because there is no governor on the upper end performance. Every race car fan knows what happens to high performance engines running at top speed, they burn up. Same thing is happening to our economy.
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  2595.  @larryross1819  - So, where is the connection between your post and mine? Your post is full of errors that no law school student graduate ( I suppose you graduated from Loyola Law School, after your stint in the Army) should be making. Marxism is not cultural, it is about economics. The democrats who originated the KKK would be today's republicans by direct lineage. The Chinese forces would not exist if American industrialists had not moved their factories to China. War is a racket, to fatten the pockets of those who are already wealthy, it has been that way for the U.S. military for over a century. So other than exposing that you post is filled with rage generated by wealth written propaganda, how does what you have written relate to the cannibalization of our economy and society by the wealthy?
    1
  2596. ​ @TagusMan  - There is an all out war coming. Here is the bottom line: Our economy has been hollowed out, I have researched and that is my conclusion. Trump is a problem because he is out to make himself into Putin, so I am going to gag and vote for Biden. However, my livelihood is ruined and I'll be to old to rebuild once Covid is dealt with, so I am going to war instead. My weapons consist of the information I have distilled from my researching the economy and my strategic goal is to open the shutters and let in light on our hollowed out, dysfunctional economy, so that people understand that they cannot just keep going along to get along.
    1
  2597.  @hmldjr  - Then, please, enlighten me.
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  2598. Well said!
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  2599. Amen. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  2600. Listen up republicans. The only reason you are being spoon fed hatred of the immigrant is because those people who have $10 million in financial assets are getting half a million in free money every year and they don't want you to know that. So to divert your attention from the fact that your health care goes up every year to finance their free money grab, they feed you hate stories about how everything is the immigrants fault. Wise up, or you are personally going to sink the United States.
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  2601.  @adolfmcduck1265  - You are worried about a paltry $135 billion? What the republicans are covering up is $2.75 trillion in free money going to the already wealthy every year. You republicans are so dumb.
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  2602.  @adolfmcduck1265  - Your citations have no credibility, they are a propaganda organization. This is what I so despise about the American public these days, completely incapable of doing your own research. I had to do actual research to find out the truth, I had to distill the numbers myself. Why can't you do that?
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  2603.  @mammies-memes  - No, its is actual research dipshit.
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  2604.  @mammies-memes  - Are you completely incapable of fact checking? Why should I do your homework for you? Whenever you propaganda saturated morons demand sources, you never actually check them. The delusional ones are the republicans, who believe the BS put out by a supposed "news" outlet run by a billionaire family. Why do you believe them?
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  2605.  @mammies-memes  - You sir, are a validated idiot. People like you should not be allowed to vote.
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  2606.  @adolfmcduck1265  - In other words, you cannot do simple math. These are not bogus claim, this is your reality. I live in the real world buddy, and so do you. No wonder these billionaire propaganda snake oil salesmen have such a lucrative market. You are a grade school dropout.
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  2607.  @rogerrabbit7778  - I agree with what you are saying about infiltrators. What is needed is way to root them out, destroy their camouflage. I think the unlimited money is part of the solution. Unlimited money equals unlimited "free speech", drowning the Free speech" of those without money. That is hardly the path to "liberty and the pursuit of happiness". The problem is, all of that "unlimited money" was procured through a fraud pulled on the American people, and it shows up in government records. Starting in 1947, financial assets (or as I refer to it, "wealth") started out with a larger pool of value than the economy in size, a 2.88 to 1 ratio. Since then, wealth has grown faster than the economy by an average of 0.645% per year. Does not sound like much, but it pulls all the annual economic gains into this "pool" of wealth, and then extract even more from us citizens and the rest of the world. This system is rigged to keep the ruling class on top, has been from before WW2 started. We need to understand this simple fact, the wealthy steal everything from us. Wealth cannot be generated from outside of the economy, yet it has, by borrowing massively from the future. $13 trillion was how much wealth gained last year, that is 66% of our entire GDP. Real wealth cannot grow faster than the economy, and the total sum of wealth cannot exceed the GDP. Anything else is a fraud economy, anything else will create the suffering we now see around us. Every problem we have as a society is a result of this fraudulent wealth grab. To understand this, people must understand some basic math. You cannot have a gargantuan pool of money that does nothing but grow. That is useless and leads to despotism. We've seen it. We are living it. Get people to understand that, and infiltrators will be easy to identify.
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  2608.  @vivian8106  - Agreed.
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  2609.  @anthonybrowne3942  - Agreed. I am not giving up . . . just angrier by the day that donors count more than voters.
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  2610. I only clicked on this video to read some of the comments. What I see here is massive projection. Virtually everything the left is accused of here, is exactly what the right does every day, out in the open. Nice to see that the right is so flexible, you have twisted yourselves into pretzels in order to agree with this blatant propaganda. This is all about wealth folks, and the means used by those who have it, to continue growing it exponentially. They use you folks as their protectors, their guardians. Yet nothing grows forever. Either wealth will have legal limits one day or humanity will go extinct. Those with the wealth use it to take power over our politics, and therein is the rub. Going extinct is intolerable, so those with wealth will smear anyone who finds unlimited wealth growth intolerable, and you folks buy directly into the smears. This video is not about tolerance or intolerance, it is a recruitment tool to get good little soldiers to protect the "right" of the wealthy to keep growing their wealth by extracting it from everyone else. Period.
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  2611.  @hubertcumberdale2651  - Ok, I can understand why you would think "period" means no further discussion. I meant it as, "it really is that simple". Please, prod away.
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  2612. Another defender of the "legitimacy" of stolen wealth. Rationalize all you want, theft is theft.
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  2613. Terry Michaels - Your comment is absolute proof that you have not done any substantial research into socialism. If you had, t you would not be making such asinine and ignorant comments. How do you feel then about major corporations paying their employees well under a living wage, and then assisting their employees to sign up for food stamps and medicare . . . thus having the federal government subsidize the wages of their employees? The employer then pockets profit derived from the lower wage they pay. Meanwhile, the same corporations pay ZERO federal taxes, which is a giveaway . . . free money. How do you feel about that? Free money from the federal government to corporations is not socialism, because that money does not benefit society except for the bare handful of individuals who end up taking the money. Meanwhile the food stamps and medicare their employees are now enrolled in is socialism, except that it is punitive socialism that still places a burden on society for both the worker and the taxpayer. How do you feel about that? You see, if you had done any substantial research on socialism in the modern age, you would have found that unlike capitalism which is rigid, unchanging and always ends up extracting wealth from the people instead of generating wealth . . . socialism is adaptive. Modern socialism is not a top down government planning of everything like the right wing propaganda is always pushing. That fact alone proves that you are a poser and a liar. You never researched anything about socialism, you just listen to FOX FAKE NEWS propaganda. Get real. Do some actual research that proves you are not a mindless, thoughtless, ignorant idiot who believes propaganda . . . then we will talk.
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  2614. Oh my! Clutch your pearls a little tighter and hug that double standard.
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  2615. You are correct Raymond. This is why we need to treat wealth accumulation like a disease and put a limit, an upper cap on wealth accumulation. This much, no more, period.
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  2616. Gettysburg Buff 63 - Yes, automation is already taking fast food jobs in my area. Where are the kids going to find work?
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  2617. Who needs logic when propaganda is easier to believe? I was checking on a comment notification when I noticed a Fox News video in my feed titled "Fired Space Force commander's Marxist warning is 'completely true':". I clicked through, listened to about a minute and then went to the comment section. Everywhere there were comments that were completely idiotic and out of touch with reality. The word "cult" is the only viable descriptor. When billionaires are able to own huge swaths of media, they convert people with their propaganda. Nothing I read indicated that any of these people knew who Karl Marx was or what his books were about. They were more than willing to just jump on board with Tucker Carlson and trash everything, not realizing that their "freedom" will be lost completely when the oligarchy eventually topples our government and economy.
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  2618. If you think republicans are so great, then you must also think the workers are doing wonderfully under republican policies, yes? Question then: WHY has the value of workers median wages been cut by over half in the past three decades under republican policies? Read the question and suss out its meaning before you answer. Charts will tell you that median wages are stagnant or have risen somewhat over three decades. So here is another question for you: Do you know HOW the value of workers median wages has been cut by over half in the past three decades? Everybody please feel free to chip in on these two questions. Lets see if you republican snowflakes can actually put your money where your mouth is.
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  2619. What is happening with our economy is actually quite simple. The top 20% own $55 trillion in financial assets, paying anywhere from 2% to over 9% annually. Our economy simply cannot support these interest rates. If you were pick an interest rate in roughly the middle at 5%, the amount needed to pay interest on $55 trillion at 5% is $2.75 trillion. Our GDP for 2019 was $20.49 trillion. That 5% interest comes out to 13.42% of our GDP given over as "FREE MONEY" that these people did not lift a finger to earn any of it. Calculate out over the years, this means that roughly 35 years from now, the entire economy will be dedicated to paying interest to the top 10%, meaning we are all slaves who will never be able to climb this economic ladder. The entire system our economy is based on will collapse. Things would be different if this earths population lived on a Jupiter sized planet. We do not. Capitalism in its current form is in its ending phase. Either capitalism evolves, or we all die.
    1
  2620. That is correct.
    1
  2621. As many as needed, clearly there have not yet been enough.
    1
  2622. We have a minimum wage, now it is time to put a maximum cap on individual and family accumulation of wealth. I'm not talking about taking away all of our "embarrassed millionaires" right to earn those millions . . . but come on now, be realistic! How many of us has ever seen five million in earnings over a lifetime of working? If you earn $50,000 annually . . . the most wealth you could possibly accumulate over a working life of 30 years is 1.5 million dollars and that is only if you saved every penny and paid no taxes! If the rest of you folks are like me, I have no problem capping all family wealth accumulation for a lifetime at $50 million dollars with a 95% inheritance tax to avoid dynastic wealth accumulation. That comes out roughly at $1.75 million earned after taxes annually. Virtually every single problem facing us as a human society has its roots embedded in those very few of us who are morbidly wealthy. With the exception of asteroid strikes and possibly earthquakes and volcanoes, every single problem we have stems from accumulated wealth in the hands of very few human beings. Eliminate that morbid excess that with a simple wealth and earnings cap, then most of our problems will disappear and many others will find logical solutions that were being stifled by wealthy individuals who wielded power far in excess of the ONE VOTE they are legally entitled to.
    1
  2623. Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
    1
  2624. Jimmy Whisper - Actually, people who cannot put forth a cogent statement are embarrassing. That now includes you my friend. NLAYS (Not Laughing At Your Stupidity).
    1
  2625. Jimmy Whisper - Go back to school my friend and learn english. We don't speak gibberish and gobblygook here.
    1
  2626. jamalocaust - Slander? What slander? Everything you wrote made sense until your last sentence, where you plunged directly into Idiotsville. If you have paid any attention at all to Professor Wolff, you must realize that everyone here already knows what capitalism and socialism is, we do not need it explained to us by the residents of Idiocracy.
    1
  2627. jamalocaust - You are calling me out for not backing up my "claims"? First of all, what I wrote were not "claims". Second of all, you never asked me to do anything. You made an idiotic and petulant statement like an eight year old child, which is idiotic when an adult writes such things. Finally, it is up to the individual to do their own research and get educated on the subjects at hand. It is not my place to educate you or anyone here when smarter people than me are doing that much better than I can. When someone makes an idiot statement, I will call them an idiot. If you want to have a discussion or debate, that is another matter, however that is not the way you approached me in your comment. I would have nothing to call you an idiot over if you had framed your last line as a question to be answered. You made a declaration and accused me of slander, being quite immature in the process. As an adult who should know better, that makes you a citizen of Idiotsville.
    1
  2628. jamalocaust - You really need to learn how to read. You have taken a sentence I wrote as a recommendation to Homemadebeats and twisted it. The was no insult, only your perception of one. Socialism uses elements of capitalism. Just like a city which undergoes modernization, the older parts continue to function while the modernization process is under way. Even after the modernization is complete, the older systems often continue to operate. Even the human brain which has undergone significant evolution, still uses the older and more primitive structures. Therefor socialism and capitalism cannot, by definition, be polar opposites. Happy now?
    1
  2629. Markus Patients - Unfortunately, un-needed rants are often a coin of the realm. Victoria Seeley is rightfully angry, showing through in her comment. Capitalism does work with and alongside Socialism right here in the USA, barely. The two are virtually inseparable. Countries that use social-democracy more effectively are the Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweeden, Iceland, New Zealand . . . then to a lesser extent Australia and Canada. Even the Eurozone countries do a better job at social democracy than the USA . . . though if the USA chose that route we could do one of the best because the USA holds the patent on the manufacture of dollars. I know I did not explain how it could work, each country tries different economic recipes. I take it you want to know how it "could" work in the USA?
    1
  2630. Markus Patients - Yes? . . . Please go on . . .
    1
  2631. End unlimited wealth accumulation.
    1
  2632. peter gbrics - Ok, I can cut you some slack on the spelling based on what what you have told me. I'll have to come back to you shortly because today I am very busy. For the moment I must tell you . . . here we are redefining socialism to fit what we visualize as a decent future for us to strive for. Please stop trying to fit us all into your experiences, because I do not believe any of the countries you named has anything close to actual socialism . . . more like authoritarianism.
    1
  2633. peter gbrics - Sorry Buddy, but capitalism has killed more people that all of your so-called "socialist" regimes combined. If you were to read the Constitution carefully, especially the preamble, you would understand that even if the founders did not intend it to be that way . . . it is a "socialist" document.
    1
  2634.  @SuperSweetflowers  - The only purpose of our military at present is to protect the 8000 mile long supply lines belonging to the billionaire and corporate class. Yaron also forgot to mention that most of the recent federal debt run up went directly into financial asset growth, a supposed bastion of "free market" capitalism.
    1
  2635. Finally someone with some sense. Too many people actually fall for these "divide and conquer" tactics, not even realizing that they are not the ones winning from these tactics. Strikes me that most people have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . do people enjoy being used like toilet paper? Blue or red, makes no difference, they all have the same masters, which put a lot of money and effort into confusing people. I don't agree that the rich are complacent, they are the ones funding these media narratives, which means they are focused and driven to accomplish their goals. We need to stop fighting and hating each other and look at who is paying the bills for these kind of narratives, because they are the true architects of our discomfort and there must be a reason why (a reason that is not good for all of us, which is why they want to redirect our attention).
    1
  2636. Strikes me that people watching this have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . you enjoy being used like toilet paper?
    1
  2637. @Tor Finn - Low IQ yourself. The IRS does audit the president's taxes . . . and can be ordered by the president not to audit his taxes. The House of Representatives has the right to see Trump's taxes regardless of whether the IRS is auditing them, or not. Also, just because a county assessor determines the value of properties, does not preclude an individual or organization from entering a different value on their tax forms. Part of the reason for the House of Representatives to review anyone's taxes, including the president, is to assess how well the laws which are supposed to catch such fraud are operating.
    1
  2638.  LAST CALL  - Oh. Did you miss the part where the section you linked to applies to "officers or employees of any federal agency"? The House of Representatives is not "officers or employees of any federal agency", it is a branch of the United States Congress which is defined by Article One of the Constitution. The section you referred me to applies to a much lower rank and pay grade. Don't play games with me, you are out of your depth here and grasping at straws. None of the law you linked to applies to Congress, which is spelled out in the document in the video. The section that applies to Congress is distinctly clear. In "closed executive session" of the "Ways and Means of the House of Representatives" or the "Committee on Finance of the Senate" or the "Joint Committee on Taxation", the chairman's of these committee's have the absolute right to view any taxpayers information. Here is the exact wordage: 26 U.S. Code 6103 (f) Disclosure to Committees of Congress (1) Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Finance, and Joint Committee on Taxation Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.
    1
  2639. @ltlblugrl - And yet, the top 10% got trillions in free money last year. All the financial asset gains were paid for with borrowed money that can never be paid back. Meanwhile, they mess with your brain pitting us against each others so that we will not notice the absolute looting of our people and government that the rich are pulling off. Get you head out of the sand and look around, homelessness is caused directly by the greed of the wealthy.
    1
  2640. John Smith - So this is the way you think it should remain? "whilst the poor would instead go to the local chemist/pharmacist to purchase medicine" Doctors can earn a fair wage without the "For Profit" insurance companies between them and their patients, actually it is the insurance companies who often deprive doctors adequate compensation through shenanigans only a middle man can pull off.
    1
  2641. John Smith - You have a habit of drawing conclusions that are wildly false. "Having single payer healthcare means you have to be okay with the government being the ultimate authority in deciding what treatments you receive." That is not what single payer means at all.
    1
  2642. John Smith - That is a lot of conjecture and a lot of use of the word "may". The Canadian system works very well and does not suffer from the flaws you say "may" be a part of a U.S. UHC system. Either way, a UHC system will save us a lot of money, will keep people like me from having my medications pulled by insurance companies, and will keep pharmaceutical companies from charging $500 for a .50 cent prescription medicine.
    1
  2643. What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day.
    1
  2644. Peter Nachtwey - There are no such things as makers and takers, that is something made up by the thieves of social wealth such as yourself Peter. No one is blind to the corruption, that is just you throwing out static to camouflage your position "Wealth is EARNED unequally." You entirely misspelled a word there buddy . . . I think you meant to say "Social wealth is Stolen unequally." There you go, that's a good boy.
    1
  2645. "What about the victims of illegal immigrant crime?" No, wrong question. "What about the victims of corporate and big business crime?" That is the correct question. Big business brought us slavery. Big business brought us illegal immigration. Big business has brought us once again to the brink of social upheaval. C'mon Peter . . . get a life. You can do better than uselessly harassing Professor Wolff, you always lose.
    1
  2646. Peter Nachtwey - You talk about me lying? 1). "No one forces people to work." That is a lie. 2). "Work is "It is a mutually agreed upon arrangement." That is a lie also. 3). "It is fun making fun of libtards and their inability to think." That is a truth at the beginning of the sentence and . . . you end the sentence with another lie. 4). "They just repeat what others have said." Here Peter, you lie twice . . . first about yourself because this sentence describes you to a "T" and then you lie again by projecting what your actions and beliefs onto others in an attempt to justify yourself. This lie is out of order because it is your favorite lie . . . . so I saved it for last: 5). "There is no stealing." Yes stealing happens when the capitalist who has taken NO risks, steals the collective wealth that society creates. Contrary to what you are always saying Peter, the capitalists have never taken any risks because they have stolen what they have to begin with from the society which created the capital. You think that endless economic growth is fine, but you cannot have endless growth in a closed system. You also think that because bullies seized property by force earlier in our history to become capitalists, that we are going to allow the bullies to keep what they have stolen. You always say that capitalist take the risks and therefore are entitled to all the rewards that follow, that is a child talking . . or more like the school year bully. Only children think they can lie so much with impunity, so this stage in your development is understandable because Peter, you are behaving as just such an adolescent. This is simply human society going through evolutionary puberty, but now the grown ups have started arriving on the scene and will correct the situation you capitalists have allowed to get so far out of control.
    1
  2647. Peter Nachtwey - You are making no sense at all. When you have written in the past, you made reference to when you started your own business . . . sometime in the 1980's. The only reason you have succeeded to the degree that you have is that we still had a national economy at the time and capitalism had not yet hollowed out the U.S. economy. You could not duplicate your business if you started today. So every time you utter your idiotic challenge . . . you are doing so while sitting back on your laurels. This is the problem that you have Peter, you think you have the answers because of those laurels. Take those away and you have no ground to stand on . . . so who here is really uttering all the lies? It certainly is not me buddy . . . look into the mirror. Hey, why do you never do your homework and answer my challenge? Chicken? Know you are wrong? Gonna spew out gibberish to cover your own ineptitude? Median wages of today . . . . I challenge you every time but you skate away. Bak, bak, bak, bak, bak, bak, bak, Chicken!
    1
  2648. Peter Nachtwey - You have proved nothing with your graphs, because you are ignoring everything else in the equation. What is so shamefully funny is that you have acted this entire time like a two dimensional being in a three dimensional universe, everyone else can see the cube but you still insist the cube is flat. "u have shown nothing to refute them." Dear me . . . Peter, what world are you living in? Why do you keep ignoring the question and pretending that I have asked you a different question?
    1
  2649. Peter Nachtwey - You have just proven yourself to be delusional and a liar. Too bad you don't have the guts to post your previous comment on this page where others can see just how delusional you are, instead you just post your nonsense here where you are "safe" because it is just you and I seeing what you are writing.
    1
  2650. Peter Nachtwey - Here is where you lied again Peter: "You have done nothing to back up your claims." Absolutely not true and you know it, I've posted extensive research and sources . . . . which somehow you are conveniently unwilling to see or process. Lie #2 for you Peter: "It is a wonder that the libtards would want to associate with you or acknowledge your posts." No, no, no, Peter . . . . you don't get to say that and get away with your lies. On the next video, Economic Update: A System Rigged Against Us, Tomato Pa wrote a comment we both responded to. My comments all have a "thumbs up", whereas none of your comments have a "thumbs up". You must be getting so desperate for attention Peter, is that why you continue to post your easily debunked capitalist economy theories on Professor Wolff's videos?
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  2651. Peter Nachtwey - What? . . . are you telling me that you cannot actually read? You wrote: "Meanwhile point out where the median personal income has dropped over 1/2 from 30 years ago as you claim." That is not what I said, I have written my statement very clearly (and several times) but your eyes and brain do not operate properly any longer. You had better retire Peter, you have finally succumbed to your own brain rotting arrogance. Meanwhile consider this, you would not have succeeded at all in life if not for "libtards". Chew on that as you figure out a way to pivot again.
    1
  2652. Peter Nachtwey - Ok Smart Guy, using your chart 1986 median income was $24,000 and 2016 median income was $32,000 with the CPI taken into account. That chart represents a 25% increase in the median income over that 30 year span. The price of housing alone went up 300% during the same time period. The price of energy went up 177%, the price of child care went up 546%, the price of health care went up 601% and the price of prescription drugs went up 894% during that 30 year period. All of those price increases went way over the 25% increase in median wages, hence the value of what can be purchased with the median income dropped by more than 50% even with the 25% increase in wages. Booya! You cannot refute that with you single item graphs.
    1
  2653. Peter Nachtwey - No moron, I did not edit my posts . . . I've posted the same question to you over and over but you have proven that you cannot read or comprehend. Time to retire buddy, you have lost your mind.
    1
  2654. Peter Nachtwey - you wrote: "I have a couple libtards working for me but the majority are in their right minds. BTW, they would not have jobs if there wasn't a capitalist to hire them." Peter, if it were not for the capitalists abandoning the U.S. labor market in the 1960's - 1980's . . . there would not be such deplorable wage levels in the United States. So why on earth should anyone feel grateful to capitalists for the puny jobs available now, as your comment inferred we should be?
    1
  2655.  @ACKZink  - Fight back. No longer is it true that each generation does better than the last. The wealthy have convinced the parents and grandparents to sell out the younger generations. Don't let this stand, fight back.
    1
  2656. No one died in this attack against Saudi oil refineries, because it was a SELF INFLICTED WOUND! No one goes to the expense of launching a missile attack without explosive warheads, which would have in the least . . . opened up those refinery towers like bananas, and more likely would have FLATTENED many of those tower and container structures. This attack was self inflicted by short range artillery rounds and the recovered missile parts were taken out of storage to show to a war hungry corporate media.
    1
  2657. SBow311 - Oh . . . I don't know . . . I sure get a kick out of how stupid the people are here. Why anyone takes a billionaire's personal propaganda channel seriously . . . .
    1
  2658. Cobra Black - What? Fox Not News? You betcha, Fox is the very definition of fake news Buddy!!
    1
  2659. Brandon Burge - You betcha!
    1
  2660. DB Brewer - Naw, I just like getting all the stupid people upset . . . . you all do it so well!!!
    1
  2661. Mike Foxx - Because anyone who listens to a billionaires private propaganda outlet and believes what Fox News is telling them . . . is so very stupid.
    1
  2662. Zach cash - Must be fun for you though, anyone who listens to Fox News is by definition an NPC.
    1
  2663. bearkify - Talking about yourself again?
    1
  2664. bearkify - Yeah, Fox Fake News is Awesome!!! . . . . if you have no mind of your own. A billionaires personal propaganda outlet is never honest.
    1
  2665. Satoshi Bitcoinsaki - Oh yea, them too . . . and don't forget MSNBC. Every one is dishonest or waving around the "shiny thing" so that you cannot see the dagger behind the back. Good call.
    1
  2666. Thefirstgalaxybeing - Wow, first on the stupid meter also! Way to go first galaxy being!!!
    1
  2667. Bitsie Bubble Bee - Awwww, don't you have just the cutest name ever. Good thing too, because that is probably all you have.
    1
  2668. Living wages nationally will be impossible as long as wealth grows faster than the economy. Since WW2 ended, the economy has been rigged to grow wealth at faster rate than economic growth. Until we eliminate that problem, wages will continue to deteriorate.
    1
  2669.  @rogersmith7396  - None of that actually matters if central banks keep propping up equity prices. Corporations will simply borrow from the Federal Reserve to stay in business and continue the grift. Inflation is actually caused by the existence of stocks and the stock market. Cannot lower prices and meet earnings expectations, raising prices and borrowing money floats stock prices and that is the real grift that is going on. When floating stock prices is no longer available, then corporations will go out of business. Corporations are currently recession proof, until central banks cut off the money printing.
    1
  2670.  @rogersmith7396  - That political science course was very astute. Instead of immolation, how about we impose what every other natural or artificial system must have in order to operate; upper and lower limits. For some insane reason, people believe that economics is immune to systems operations natural laws, every system has limits it operates within.
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  2671. Here are the latest figures released by Oxfam. Globally 54% of all wealth is owned by the 1% and also globally, the top 20% own 94.5% of all wealth. With the bottom 80% holding only 5.5% of all global wealth, stagnation is either already here or will set in for all global economies. The wealthy elites are well aware of the situation, yet will do nothing to change their behavior. My belief is that we need a global hard cap on the wealth an individual or business can accumulate.
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  2672. Capitalism will not fall all at once if we transition out of it rationally. That will of course means that capitalism as we know it will survive for some time to come.
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  2673. Victoria Seeley - It was that evil minion of capitalism Steven Mnuchin who, using his undeserved post as Treasury Secretary proposed a rule that the NRA and similar hostile organisms no longer have to disclose the origins of their donations. That is definitely a BAD idea.
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  2674. Evandro Lima - I do like your comment and I agree with both the premise that you put forward on capitalism and communism, plus the idea of a citizen education program that must be passed before a person is eligible to vote. Excellent post.
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  2675. Retalak - I do think you are correct about capitalism's sustainability. If our national economics are not retooled, I fear your assessment will come to pass. I'm 57 years old with two adult daughters and I don't want them going through what you describe. On another note: The damned YouTube notification system has completely failed to deliver your responses to me. If you would please, insert one space, one dash and a second space between my moniker and your comment . . that bit of addressing seems to help the notification system do its job. If I was not keeping an eye on these discussions, I would have completely missed your responses. BTW, I still do not understand what you were referring to with the word "Snap" in another posting, please clarify.
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  2676. Tomato Pa - Agreed, especially about the "Thom-Hartmann-New-Deal-FDR-Let's-save-the-good-old-1960's-capitalism-with-a-bunch-of-labor-unions kind of talking". Labor unions are a dying breed and they will not help us exit from the current form of predatory capitalism. I am going to copy and past a response to Retalak which I composed for a different comment,. I would like to hear your take on the subject matter: Retalak - What I am interested in is an easy to understand message that is simple and will penetrate the armor capitalism has built around society today. I don't think in any of my comments that I have described what I am advocating as socialism, even though I am firmly of the belief that the ownership of the means of production should reside with the workers involved in such production. Making such sweeping changes over the whole of society will not be easy, but it will be impossible unless we have access to a large enough lever. What we need to start that process towards overall worker owned means of production, is the economic equivalent of an armor piercing round in the political policy arsenal. Whether it be democratic socialism or true socialism itself, the forces arrayed against us preventing change to such an economic system are formidable. The constituency of the USA has been essentially brainwashed over the past 50 years against socialism and communism. Hell, I myself was brainwashed for most of my adult life and I am pushing sixty years old. I've spent the past two years immersed in study on the subject, the average "Joe" will not invest that kind of time and effort. We need an easy to understand policy weapon that most people will have no problem adopting and wielding, we need the thin edge of the wedge which pries open the door to adopting a socially responsible economic system. When a wealth cap in initiated, it will essentially shatter the hold of the capitalist over the means of production. We need something that powerful in our arsenal, because a $15/hour minimum wage, Medi-Care for all, and all of the other tools democratic socialists are currently using are too weak to stand against the "bourgeoisie" over a long enough period of time. A wealth cap will force all large companies and corporations to divest their holdings, no longer will a very small group of individuals be able own and control the means of production. A political weapon powerful enough to crack capitalism's armor, and a weapon simple enough for the masses to grasp and wield politically is what I am seeking. Only then can the beneficial economic policies of true socialism and communism sweep away the remaining remnants of the predatory animal that capitalism has become. An annual income and total wealth cap is that powerful political weapon.
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  2677. Tomato Pa - The difficulty to legislate arises directly from what you have described: "the armies of dumb, discouraged, passive, indifferent, or happily enslaved employees". Furthermore, you have raised the most pertinent point by saying: "Show these armies of petty temporarily embarrassed millionaires why the true capitalist and greedy way is to come together and turn against the capitalist, not in decades from now, but today." Problem: All avenues of persuasion are too nebulous and complex to grasp and use by the potential constituency who in turn would elect those representatives going to Congress and the White House for the express purpose of making the needed changes "not in decades from now, but today". What we need is a silver bullet, simple enough to grasp by the majority of the potential constituency and be used with conviction by the electorate. Since the vast majority in this country are under the boot, a cap on annual income and a cap on total wealth is something easy to understand, especially when the electorate grasps that they will be more prosperous in the wealth and income cap template than they currently are. The only ones who will really object is the top 10% of earners, and we outnumber them.
    1
  2678. Sandy - Sigh. We have already covered this ground. First, I never made any claim that socialism communism, social democracy or democratic socialism were interchangeable. Next, in my writings I've made it abundantly clear that systems don't, as you put it, "turn on a dime". I'm well aware of everything you have written, my education on these subjects has been extensive. We agree on practically every point you brought up. The largest problem that we have currently is that our population has been brainwashed and propagandized to adopt positions which favor the oligarchy and go against the best interest of the people. If you are referring to the idea of an income and wealth cap as turning society on a dime, I suggest you mull it over for awhile . . . perhaps ask some pertinent questions about the idea. The American voter would get behind such an idea once they understand the parameters, that it would help them immensely and it would effectively end the stranglehold corporations and the morbidly wealthy have on our political system. BTW, love your cat!
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  2679. WeaponizedLGBT - It appears from your comment that you are afraid of socialism and communism. What exactly makes you fear either those systems?
    1
  2680.  @captainhappy  - You have an interesting take on our problem economy, some of which I agree with, some of which I agree but stipulate there are obstacles, and of course some for which I vehemently disagree. I'll start with the latter, the disagree. The market and the people never win, example: the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome and the Great Republican Depression after the Stock Market Crash of 1929. The people did not win on the upside or downside of those two events. I'll explain why if you ask. On the agreed side, I believe the economy can be fixed, rewired or replumbed. On the agreed with obstacles, government is necessary for economic guidance and regulation. The obstacle here is the following equation: money equals power. Shut down government corruption at the front door and money/power will find a back way in. However, this obstacle situation points to its own solution, limit money and power concentration through government regulation and oversight. Put simply, we need to construct a wealth cap for persons real and corporate. After all, no system, be it natural or artificial, can successfully operate without upper and lower limits. Somehow, we have made economics an exception to systems law, and that is the real problem.
    1
  2681.  @captainhappy  - If you are talking long term effects only, then perhaps the people did come out of the Great Republican Depression better off than they were, but only after intense and prolonged suffering. However, the reforms made in the aftermath of that era have been steadily and effectively eroded by the power of concentrated wealth in the decades since. The problem with the rest of your analogy is that the people's power has been also steadily eroded by the Supreme Court so that the wealthy have a greater undemocratic say in how the government operates than the people do. When studied, the power our people have over government today is basically less than static background noise. According to a study by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern Universities, "economic elites and organized interest groups play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence." If this is going to change, then we need to elect those who would change the system rather than support the current system. https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained
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  2682.  @captainhappy  - As for the saying "no man should have more than four times the money/wealth than the others", my bet is on the Ancient Greeks! The Romans did not turn out to be all that bright in these matters. We have a vertical wealth distribution system, whereas what we need is a horizontal wealth distribution system. Horizontal wealth distribution requires a limit be placed on personal wealth, which is in line with an actual working economic system.
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  2683.  @captainhappy  - Please let me regale you with my biggest economic discovery has been so far. Using numbers supplied by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, I plotted out the annual numbers for "financial assets" and our "GDP" from 1947 to the present. The takeaway was this: financial assets stated out in 1947 as a pool of wealth that was 2.88 times the size of our economy. Since that time, wealth in the form of financial assets has grown an "average" of 0.5% faster per year than our GDP. Fast forward to last year, the growth ALONE of financial assets in 2021 was GREATER THAN 2/3'RDS of our entire GDP. Summary: Our economy is rigged to grow wealth faster than GDP. Unless this situation changes, all of the "bottom 99%" is doomed to become debt slaves and the middle class will be entirely eliminated. Our economy is debt based rather than production based, designed that way on purpose by those wealthy people who feel they have a god given "right to rule". If we are to salvage anything, we must deal with the uber wealthy by eliminating the entire class and make them as ordinary as all of us. If we fail to take these steps, we will devolve into a form of feudalism {because as you wrote: "well, because people are greedy, and that's it 😊 }.
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  2684.  @captainhappy  - I've got to say, I see the likelihood of our country dividing up as very high. The core problems will not be solved that way, but some people will feel better thinking that they have solved all of their problems. It has been a pleasure conversing with you, and also our conversation gives me a measure of hope that there are enough people out there which are capable of tackling our future challenges. Salute!
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  2685. How is the 80% "private investment" going to be paid back to the "private companies" that do the infrastructure "investment"? Tolls and fees. Fees and tolls. Then MORE tolls and fees. As if republican backed "extraction economics" have not robbed us enough already.
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  2686. A wealth cap. Not a tax, a hard cap on individual wealth.
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  2687.  @Demopans5990  - Really? Who did China false divorce?
    1
  2688.  @Demopans5990  - Even so, there is a limit. This is why I stress a cap on "individual" wealth. I am mostly concerned about how the wealthy use their money to affect votes and buy votes, the cap threshold must be set low enough so that even combined, organizations such as the Federalist Society and ALEC cannot be funded by a handful of individuals.
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  2689. Your point of view regarding economics is highly skewed, most likely because you have educated yourself with propaganda instead of facts. Each of those costs you mentioned are higher due to monopoly control of the market, not because some people cannot pay their bills. In the United States, every family pays at least $5000/year more for basic services and utilities than any other developed country, because of monopoly control of the market by a few large corporations. Be wary of oligarch propaganda, they will pit you against your fellow citizens in the age old "divide and conquer" maneuver, as they have successfully done with you already.
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  2690. Kim, the horse has already departed the barn. When the FBI disclosed to the Gang of Eight, Vice President Biden and President Obama that there was an investigation into the Trump campaign, Moscow Mitch threatened Obama with partisan attacks if he (Obama) disclosed to the American people what was going on. Obama was cowed by these threats. Trump is now cowed by anything and what Trump is doing goes far beyond this phone call event. I'm just not on board with your logic, we absolutely need the co-equal branch to hold Trump accountable. I have my reservations. There was mountains of evidence against Trump, but it was only when one of her 1/10th of 1% elite peers was threatened that Nancy Pelosi took action. This whole thing stinks, on all sides. However, not taking any action sends the message that corruption can go on unhindered . . . and we are supposed to be a nation of laws. Can't have it both ways.
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  2691.  @marybusch6182  - $200 million is a good start for a wealth cap, then ratchet the amount down over time until it is less than $50 million. We must also eliminate shell companies, offshore accounts and "trusts", ways that the wealthy currently use to hide their money from tax collection.
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  2692. Bernie Sanders 2020. Go centrist and we the people will be crushed. Go republican and we the people will be crushed. The only way the people of the United States can save ourselves is to vote for rational change over the status quo. Bernie Sanders 2020.
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  2693. dafttool - What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day.
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  2694. Perjury, yes. Multiple sexual assaults, yes. For those items alone Kavanaugh is not suitable for the Supreme Court. However, the outright partisan hissy fit when he said there was a democratic conspiracy against him and revenge for "The Clintons" . . . plural, that outburst alone states without reservation that he cannot make rulings FROM ANY JUDICIAL BENCH in a fair and unbiased manner. Kavanaugh must be impeached.
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  2695. The only way we get a government that is not for sale is to put a hard cap on individual wealth. I just ran the numbers for GDP vs financial asset growth. Over the past 70 years, financial asset growth has outpaced GDP growth to such an extent that within a few years, our entire GDP will not be enough to cover the growth of financial assets. We can't afford wealthy people any longer. The equation "the rich"=bad, is entirely valid because they are a cost burden on society, leading to fascism and they hate democracy with a passion.
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  2696.  @xxWolferikxx  - You want to build a real resistance movement? That will not happen with Biden. You will NEVER push Biden or his cabinet to be more progressive. Biden has made that clear. I want the orange buffoon gone also, but I've been around for too long to buy any of what you are hoping for. The only thing that will galvanize the left into a cohesive political fighting force is if Biden loses to Trump. Trump will trash the country badly, no doubt. However sometimes you have to break something before you can build something truly better.
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  2697. The True Texan American - When are you going to stop writing like you were educated in a foreign school? The way you write signals that you are not an American at all. The Astros cap has a big "H" on the star, I was very specific about a single red star . . . .
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  2698. The True Texan American - Ok Smart Guy . . . why are these so-called caravans of migrants so important to you? All of the illegal immigrants combined in the USA represent less than 4% of the total population, so it is disingenuous to claim they are a national security threat or that those immigrants have taken even a small portion of jobs that U.S. citizens might hold . . . so what is it? Don't bother to answer if you are just going to repeat your claim that these people are breaching the border and assaulting border officers, if those claims even happened it would be a minor event in the larger picture. If you are believing the claims of the Cheeto in Chief, then you have no credibility. Furthermore, why are you giving credence to this diversion? All of these national emergency border security claims being made by our fake president are diversions to keep the peasants occupied while he plays golf or relaxes during "executive time" . . . so what is your reason for even bringing up this non-issue issue?
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  2699. Jin Yuns - Are you enjoying the role of pawn? I've read your statements, you are all riled up over a nothing issue. Build a wall? What a waste of resources. Why do you pawns fall all over yourself over such nonsense, can't you tell that you are being used and then thrown away like old tissue paper? Egads, get a life already!
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  2700. Jin Yuns - Can't you do basic math? How is less that 4% of the total population of the USA a problem? It really isn't, this non-issue is being used as a diversion and you are falling all over yourself being diverted. How does it feel to be such a moron that you cannot tell when you are being used?
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  2701. Jin Yuns - Oh yes . . . those unarmed Palestinians were such a threat to Israel . . . maybe you could solve the problem they pose if you stopped shooting and killing them?
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  2702. Jin Yuns - Wow . . . such convincing and logical arguments you make . . . NOT. Come on Red, if you can't do better than "dumbass", then you are just creating a lot of hot air over nothing. Meanwhile, you continue to serve the purpose of your masters.
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  2703. Jin Yuns - The master of deflection is calling out my deflection? That is rich. This comment thread is all about the U.S. southern border. You were the one who brought up another country, as a deflection I might add. This is why none of your comments matter. The entire topic of border security in the USA is a deflection and a propaganda talking point. Illegal immigrants pose no significant economic or security threat to the United States. Their effect on our economy is trivial. The cost they impose to the federal or any state government is minimal. Loads of broadcast time is being taken up with this useless subject, and anyone with half a working brain knows it is all a diversion. So then, the question becomes . . . a diversion from what? Since you seem to have less than a half brain, you have been easily co-opted and are now serving as a useful tool. Congratulations Moron, you are actually hurting yourself while you help your Masters hurt all of us. Talk about being triggered . . . .
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  2704. Jin Yuns - Now why should I do that? Then I would just be buying into the same diversionary tactic that has roped you in. Anyone can do research on their own and figure out the numbers, though it does take a commitment of time to do so. Why don't you actually do the research and answer those questions for yourself? If you do a legitimate job of researching publicly available sources of information, it might start to dawn on you that you have been, and are now, being used as a tool. Claiming that I am dumb will not solve your moron issue, but some actual fact hunting might.
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  2705. Jin Yuns - Says the person who cannot and has not backed up a single claim. Your claims have no factual foundation, you certainly have not presented any . . . and now you have exposed yourself as a ranting juvenile. Let the grown ups handle the real problems, you can go back to your useless diversions now.
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  2706. Jin Yuns - See, this is how dense you are and why you are such a useful tool. I clearly stated I would not answer your questions. I then went on to state such an endeavor would take hours of research and if you were a smart little boy, you would find the answers on your own. Furthermore, you are so narrowly focused in your tiny brain way . . . you cannot claim that whatever answers I supplied you not immediately claim FAKE NEWS! Go to bed child, you are annoying the adults.
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  2707. Put a hard cap on individual wealth. Much easier to enforce than wealth taxes and will solve a lot of structural economic problems.
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  2708.  @hyper_pie6306  - Yup.
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  2709.  @Soleilune1995  - I like what you have written about "return on investment". What most people these days seem to be simply unaware of is this: At the end of 2019, households and non-profit organizations held nearly $100 trillion in interest bearing financial assets. By comparison, the entire national 2019 GDP for the USA was under $22 trillion. Now consider that investments making under 5% annually are not worth having, once inflation and taxes are factored in. Also factor in that over the past 30 years, annual GDP growth has been less than 3% annually (2.56% for 30 years average). Five percent growth on $100 trillion is $5 trillion, so here is the question everyone should be asking: The entire economy of the United States grew less than one trillion dollars in 2019, so where does all the profit come from, to pay $5 trillion in capital gains for those "investors" holding almost $100 trillion in "financial assets"?
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  2710. To the horror of my wife, I told her that if we get a centrist democrat like Joe Bidon or Kamalla Harris on the 2020 Democratic Presidential ticket . . . . I would be voting third party. She is rightfully horrified that a split vote will bring us another four years of Trump. However, there is no lessor of two evils . . . there is only evil if another centrist democrat becomes president. Unless we can get a progressive on the democratic ticket for president, all we will get is more evil. It is time to hold our ground. Sanders 2020.
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  2711. Ditto! Well said.
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  2712. So if I conspire to rob a bank and my co-conspirator gets arrested for an unrelated petty crime before the bank robbery, then he happens to let slip to the police that he and I were going to rob a bank . . . there was no crime because the bank did not actually get robbed. Since all we did was "think" about robbing the bank, and talked about robbing the bank, there was no crime. Got it.
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  2713. There is an all out war coming. Here is the bottom line: Our economy has been hollowed out, I have researched and that is my conclusion. Trump is a problem because he is out to make himself into Putin, so I am going to gag and vote for Biden. However, my livelihood is ruined and I'll be to old to rebuild once Covid is dealt with, so I am going to war instead. My weapons consist of the information I have distilled from my researching the economy and my strategic goal is to open the shutters and let in light on our hollowed out, dysfunctional economy, so that people understand that they cannot just keep going along to get along.
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  2714. For those who have the slightest interest in saving themselves and this country, you must understand the implications of two words: Financial Assets. The amount of financial assets out there is staggering.Try to wrap you head around this. Take a sample size of $100 trillion in financial assets and set aside just the interest gained over one year in a separate account. The interest gained over one year on that smaller account would be 3.3 times larger than all of the economic gains posted in 2019. Even that tiny sample is hollowing out whatever economy there is, so just think about what that larger $100 trillion account is doing. The wealthy are dependent upon your ignorance of simple math. Their wealth passed critical mass decades ago and even the global economy cannot support their capital gains. That is why these "bailouts" keep happening, the wealthy are parasites. The economy stopped being profitable enough to pay "interest" on their investments long ago. The only solution to this is to stop allowing unlimited wealth accumulation, but as long as people don't look too closely and fail to realize our economy is being hollowed out, the looting will last indefinitely. This is why there will be an all out war against the establishment in this country, if there is any possibility whatsoever of saving the country.
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  2715.  @chuck1prillaman  - Indeed. The wealthy have rigged the pipes so that the flow goes to them alone and sucks wealth away from everyone else. It is the latter that is so insidious, because the upper end of the 1% have run out of productive means to gain a "sufficient" rate of return, they have rigged the pipes to "extract" wealth from the bottom 99% and instead of calling it "skimming off the top" like an honest mafioso, they rebrand their theft as "productivity". This is why after over 50 years of living through this, I am calling for a wealth cap. Instead of GDP gains flowing through one valve to the elites, we need a manifold to cap that flow at a set limit so that others have the opportunity to benefit from the work we all do to make this economy work. The arrangement we have now is simply outright theft.
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  2716. Funny - the republicans were on the handicapped side for two terms . . . now that is HI-larious!
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  2717. Jaw Ehkueyou - You have your answer and his name is Christopher!
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  2718. Christopher - Hell, I subscribed just so I can point and laugh at idiots like yourself. Did you even finish grade school?
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  2719.  @joeanderson890  - Yes there is reason to hate someone, but not for any of the reasons mentioned here. As regular Americans, we have a real emergency on our hands. The 1% have over $30 trillion and using the most conservative interest payment of 5%, the 1%'s interest payments are 3 times greater than 2018's total GDP growth . . . . this is an urgent freaking emergency no one talks about. 2018's GDP increase was $560 billion, but just the interest alone on the 1%'s wealth was over $1,500 billion. That extra $1000 billion (1 trillion) is coming directly out of the 99%'s pockets in the form of increased costs for basic living needs. Every time the corporations raise prices an ANYTHING, it is to provide a rate of return on the 1%'s wealth. Wealth accumulation of this magnitude has only one outcome . . . the end of democracy. Get you priorities straightened out, we need to put a freaking hard cap on wealth accumulation or kiss our democracy goodbye. Race baiting, immigration, mass shootings and the NRA, trade wars . . . . they are all distractions being sent forth by the right wing elites. What are a few deaths to them if they can usurp democracy and put themselves on top? Kings and serfs, that is what they want. Focus Man and get a grip. We need to handle this out of control wealth accumulation by putting on controls, the alternative is the end of democracy's and our eventual extinction in 200 years.
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  2720.  @irvingkurlinski  - I have read Benjamin Franklin regarding wealth, but we have long since past the days when a "vain silly Fellow builds a fine House" . . . . "and in a few years ruins himself". Such a fellow could not bring down an entire society, as in our day. Today, these wealthy people can and are indeed ruining our entire planet, leaving no estate to be "in better hands". The accumulation of wealth must be capped, not only here, but in all countries of the world.
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  2721.  @irvingkurlinski  - 100% agreed. This is something "We the People" must understand and act on, threatening alone will not be enough.
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  2722. Look at the stark reality using 4th grade math. Between households and institutions, private wealth holds over $90 trillion in financial assets. Using an average of 5% interest in one year, $4.5 trillion is added to that $90 trillion. The interest alone is over 20% of our national GDP. One year later the $94.5 trillion makes another $4.725 trillion in interest, which is now 23% of our GDP. At this rate, in 22 years the top 10% will hold all wealth. In33 years the top 1/10th of 1% will hold all wealth. Centrism and the right is a black hole that consumes all wealth, the only way to stop this is to put a hard cap on wealth accumulation for individuals and businesses. . . . this much and not one penny more. The wealthy will get along just fine under a wealth cap, but we will not have anything once the black hole consumes everything.
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  2723. A virus has no nationality, is an equal opportunity infection machine.
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  2724. People who are working full time jobs are doing so much worse today: The value of median wages are LESS than half of the median wages from 30 years ago. What the stock market does or does not do has absolutely no bearing on what workers in the USA are having to endure . . . . the extraction of everything possible from wages and the accumulated wealth that working people may have. Republicans will not be happy until all the people are destitute . . . then they will have loads of fun pointing and saying to each other, "look at all the losers".
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  2725. How about 100% of you income once you reach $10 million in accumulated wealth. That is fair, no one needs over $10 million to live an opulent life.
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  2726.  @notamurderer6226  - Well ok then. If you move out, you cannot come back . . . ever. I have worked this issue out in much greater detail than I have written here. In reality, there would be a great deal of specific law attached to a wealth cap, part being . . . no offshore holdings. In addition, there would be trade sanctions against any tax-haven countries. We are not going to solve these problems on a global basis until someone takes the first steps, and that needs to be us, the United States. Once we do this, other countries will follow . . . of they will lose their ability to trade with us and possibly not be able to trade globally at all. I can write this out in more detail, but not if you aren't going to actually read and consider this idea. I can't judge your willingness to keep an open mind and to consider carefully from one comment. I just finished writing out a portion of the considerations in another comment, I would be happy to copy and paste that here if you are interested in the merits of this path. Unless you want the 1% to own everything in 40 years . . . . .
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  2727. That is because people don't pay attention to facts anymore. However, the equation "the rich"=bad, is entirely valid because they are a cost burden on society. I won't bother with the facts supporting that equation, because no one really cares.
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  2728.  @paddymcelligott5375  - I agree with you about all the desperately needed reforms you listed and they all need to be fought for. For a moment though, consider the entire battlefield past and present. We have made reforms in the past, all have been eroded by accumulated wealth. Who stands against each item on your list? Legions of lobbyists and lawyers, backed by multiple think tanks, all paid for by accumulated wealth. The wealthy like us fighting diffusely on multitudes of fronts, because they can pay to keep us stalemated. If you are willing to consider fundraising/donation caps, then an individual, and for that matter a corporate wealth cap (since corporations are considered to be "people") is not really a stretch. Think of a wealth cap in terms of a system we all nominally understand, a car engine. The engine reliably delivers what we want from it by operating within a range we understand, it does not quit when idling and will go fast also, but not too fast. We understand that an engine developing too many RPM's will blow itself up. We had that experience with steam engines and boilers blowing up in the beginning of their development, so regulators and governors were developed making that system reliable. Same goes for an economic system. We are running ours expecting unlimited RPM increases every year and we see the negative results piling up. The rules the economy uses are Roman Empire era, which regularly trashes society. If we are ever to overcome this, then we must have a simple universal regulator that starts the process. Solving our problems by fragmented piecemeal approach is exactly what the wealthy want us doing, because they are then firmly in charge. Money equals political power of an unelected, anti-democratic and unaccountable type, we change that by capping off wealth accumulation.
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  2729.  @paddymcelligott5375  - Perhaps there is some kind of structure in those countries which promotes wealth getting along with community. Everything has structure, including destructive forces. Wealth is structured for growth, very focused but also kind of mindless. If there is something stronger that can guide its growth, wealth can be productive and beneficial. I did a bar chart of GDP vs financial assets from 1945 to 2021, both are on an exponential growth curve but the financial assets far outpace GDP. In all of that time, the GDP annual surplus or growth totaled less than $30 trillion, while financial assets gained over $110 trillion. This is where all of our wealth extraction and inflation comes from, wealth growth that rapid creates a vacuum that forces a cost burden increase on all of society. We need a strong government to regulate out life supporting economy, yet ours is saturated on every level with private corporations, each in turn carving off slices of themselves to sell in the equities market (stocks and bonds). Taking back our government means voting for the poorest people with the least campaign funds to represent us. We cannot trust anyone who gets maximum personal donations or PAC money. Getting people to understand why we need to do this means shining a million watt spotlight on the wealth virus eating our economy. Another point, which needs mentioning, is that I don't think we need to change things all that much at first. This is not about changing capitalism into some other type of "ism". What it is about is putting emergency pressure release valves in place, then putting in other needed regulatory devices and fail safes into place so the economy stops spraying precious energy out of the top and bottom ends. As it stands now, every new billionaire is accompanied by over 700 new homeless people, and both of those extremes are a complete waste of our precious resources.
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  2730.  @paddymcelligott5375  - I'm going to put "But how would it work?" aside for a moment to concentrate on your second question; "By what means would you tell someone that money they rightfully earned is no longer theirs?" Your second question really hits close to the bullseye because very, very few people really understand the term "rightfully earned". Rightfully earned is the pay a worker earns for his/her labor. Rightfully earned is the profit from a legitimate business, producing goods and/or services people use and want. Rightfully earned stops right there, a line in the sand. There are a lot more ways to "earn" money once that line in the sand is crossed. One example is a franchise, which projects money earning beyond what one can do with their own labor, or a business full of employees or a partnership. Beyond that point, making money delves into breaking off imaginary pieces of a company and selling them as "shares". When we get into the world of "shares" and "bonds", or as they are colloquially known; "equities", then we are traveling in a realm of "illegitimate earnings". What is rightfully earned follows the up and down cycle of patterns that typifies natural life as we know it. What is illegitimately earned follows the unnatural mathematical construct of "compounding". At the core of our problems in society, is that wealth and debt are compounded, while the productive economy follows an "s" curve as all natural things do. The two systems are mutually incompatible, yet compounding is thrust upon us by policy designed by the wealthy and enacted through our politicians in government. The only way we can overcome this is to remove the artificial and reinstall the natural. By all means, keep what you have rightfully earned (power to the people), but do not allow illegitimate wealth/power to overcome us (take away the political power of wealth). Since we have this entrenched "equities" centered economy, we can't just tear it down and start over. Capping personal wealth (meaning individual and corporate persons) will cause a fountain of wealth to become available for society to use (restoring democracy). We just need to reroute the plumbing.
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  2731.  @paddymcelligott5375  - First fact, no one legitimately "earns" billions. That is impossible. Take Bill Gates for example, he did really well with Microsoft. Then he branched out into stocks and bonds, unearned income that grows exponentially. Then he got into finance, "earning" economic rents from transactions that used his software. His "unearned" income has now far eclipsed his actual "earned" income and is growing exponentially, thus granting Bill Gates enormous power that he was never elected to wield (not just here, but all over the world). Bill Gates legitimately earned a tremendous amount of money. No good comes from giving him the gift of a force multiplier in the form of equities. Same thing with Elon Musk. He did not "earn" the money he bought Twitter with. No one can legitimately earn $44 billion, but they can acquire it with the compounded growth of equities. Equities are a financial construct created by the wealthy to keep power in their own hands and away from everyone else. Give Bill Gates everything he legitimately earned (perhaps as much as $144 million), but don't let him take so much that he gets to make economic decisions for the continent of Africa. The real problem for you and I, is that equities cause inflation. Gas prices are a perfect example. The market capitalization of oil companies rose over 60% in the past two years. To keep that market cap (latest selling price applied to all outstanding shares), the oil companies must raise prices on gasoline enough to generate a profit commensurate with or greater than the previous business quarters. This was happening before the war in Ukraine, but our media and the president are bending over backwards to blame Putin and protect the equity market. If you don't believe me, then do the math for yourself. Compare the growth rate of the real GDP with the growth rate of equities (financial assets). I did the math and it is impossible for the real economy to pay the debts that are fueling the growth of financial assets. Every time financial assets grow, we as individuals and as a society are forced into greater debt, because wealth and debt always grow faster than a real economy. Has been that way since the Roman Empire, which fell because no one controlled the growth of wealth. How we control the growth of wealth is to be determined. I have ideas. Real GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 Equities growth- Financial Assets: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO
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  2732.  @paddymcelligott5375  - I'll conclude simply then, I cannot agree to disagree. Math does not follow morals and there is no difference between cosmological math and financial math. It is all just math. An economy is our life support, and it is not moral to direct the economy to suffocate itself, by installing an artificial infinite growth model for a single segment of an economy but not to the host body of the economy. There is no greater morality for a wealth cap than there is greater morality for a wealth tax, one is simply a permanent regulation while the other is an self eroding reform at best.
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  2733.  @paddymcelligott5375  - And why is it that we cannot have those dedicated social programs here in the United States? Who keeps getting in the way and derailing such programs for the American people? Latest examples are two Senators who are being flooded with dark money contributions, one of which killed the BBB legislation because it would have shut down the only coal burning power plant in the USA that buys his dirty coal from a mine he owns. A wealth cap would have prevented all of that, and maybe could have delivered us a president in 2020 who is not bought out by corporate interests. A wealth cap is not an extreme measure compared to the losses our people endure without one.
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  2734.  @paddymcelligott5375  - The language of financial math is mostly lingo or jargon, meant to confuse, fog up, obfuscate. That is why I started looking beyond the noise. The bigger picture has math we can all grasp. The Federal Reserve has the 1947 GDP listed as $259.7 billion, and the Financial Assets for the same year listed as $749.85 billion. The GDP is less than half the size of Financial Assets. So what happens when a 5% growth rate is applied to GDP, and a 6% growth rate is applied to Financial Assets? First of all, it becomes apparent right out of the gate that the economy cannot support the growth rate of financial assets. Spring forward to the present. GDP $21 trillion, Financial Assets $118 trillion. The political power of that kind of wealth cannot be overcome with mechanisms to stop corruption, because corruption is how that kind of wealth came into being. The same dark money that stopped BBB and chose our president for us, will kill any attempts to create such mechanisms. Now we are back to an area of agreement. This is a grass roots problem to solve, by electing "clean" politicians. However, before that can happen, we all must understand what is happening and why. This is not just an "American" problem, it is a human problem. We have always bowed to wealth and power. We may not even get a chance to change, current events could lead to all out nuclear war, spurred on by those with wealth and power. I think our current situation speaks to the dangers of concentrated wealth under control of persons, whether they be flesh and blood, soul less corporations or nations.
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  2735.  @paddymcelligott5375  - Completely agree. For the record, it took me a long time to arrive at my current understanding, and a lot of research. My own movement politically did not start until well after I started researching our economy, research that was motivated by my own business interests. After the 2008-09 era, there were noticeable changes, a drop in sales that just never picked up. There were a lot of grumblings, I worked out of a small industrial park of about 35 units and the only business that recovered was a wrought iron fencing company. Everybody else was working harder than ever but seemed to be slowed by an invisible hand, getting paid was requiring a lot of extra work. I moved my operation 100 miles east to a lower cost facility with low commute time, continued to encounter invisible headwinds. My business relies on discretionary income. I have "adapted" many times over the past 30 years, keeping up with new trends costs money and time. It was only after several years of researching our economy did the bigger picture start to focus. Higher productivity, yet stagnant wages. Housing prices going up, health care going up, shipping and transportation costs going up, shop rentals going up, power bill going up. The funny thing was, I was not getting anything better or fancier for all these cost increases, so I started looking into where the money was going. Now I am 60 years old and getting really sick and tired of fighting financial headwinds. I shrank my operations to cut costs and try to regain profitability, then Covid hit and everything went to hell. Yet, in spite of the fact that everyone I know was suffering severe financial situations, financial assets and house prices kept on growing beyond all proportion to the economy I was observing. My career has been in manufacturing and I see what is going on in my sector for small shops and the big guys are not manufacturing here, so where is all this money coming from (rhetorical)? When I looked at personal and corporate debt levels, they are going through the roof. The Federal Reserve has created more new money in the past two years than in all of its previous history. All this borrowing and money printing is simply pulling future earnings into the present, with the purpose of propping up the stock markets (the playground of the wealthy). When corporations take on this kind of debt, they raise prices on us, and this pattern has been ongoing for over two decades. When we get in this deep, basic reforms become nearly impossible. There won't be any major changes until after the system crashes, everyone is just too entrenched. After the crash, the only thing that will keep the cycle from repeating is major reform. So I ask this simple question: do you trust the wealthy people and corporations with their demonstrated decision making capabilities, on behalf of all of us? I don't. They need to be removed from power, and the only way to effectively do that is to make them as ordinary as the rest of society. Take away their morbid wealth and prevent this type of severe accumulation from happening again.
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  2736.  Poison Ivy  - No. You are wrong. The Uniform Code of Military Justice spells out very clearly what the obligation of a soldier is in relation to the oath they take. Notice the oath states, “I will obey the orders of the President of the United States...”, but the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) Article 90 states that military personnel need to obey the "lawful orders of his/her superior. The duty and obligation to obey lawful orders creates no grey area for discussion. But does the military member have a duty to DISOBEY “unlawful orders” including orders of senior officers, Secretary of Defense and even the President of the United States? The UCMJ actually protects the soldier in this situation as he/she has a moral and legal obligation to the Constitution and not to obey unlawful orders and the people who issue them.
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  2737.  @Piano999Man  - The word "shall", and the word "will" are not open to interpretation. Both indicate an inevitable action. There is no room to squeeze in a "maybe" or "maybe not", both words are definitive modal verbs. They are not "could", or "may", or "might", or "should". The word "shall" is as powerful a definitive modal verb as the word "must". There is simply no room for interpretation, which is why that particular law is written the way that it is. Both Trump (by ordering) and Mnuchin (by obeying the order) are breaking the law. If the Supreme Court finds that Trump and Mnuchin have the latitude to reinterpret that law to fit their own will, that will be the day the USA breaks for good.
    1
  2738.    - Oh get real. We all know it is the health insurance parasites that are stealing from everyone, not just the poor. Do better. How about the republicans running up $23 trillion in wasteful debt to feed the war machine and bankers.
    1
  2739.  @eemage9476  - Good one!
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  2740.  @jakemiller6476  - Trump does not take a salary, but he certainly took a lot more in taxpayer money being funneled into his resorts.
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  2741.  @mykldean  - Yes, elect Bernie. However, we will never get it right or solve mankind's biggest problem until we take to heart this one simple lesson: Everything has limits. We could solve most of our problems quite easily with two moves, put a hard cap on accumulated wealth for individuals. Put another hard cap on accumulated business wealth, if you got it then spend it on your company or give it back to society. The acknowledgement of limits is critical. Every graph showing the growth of the stock market, or financial assets, or the GDP of the USA, show growth over time that is on an exponential curve upward. There is no system, artificial or natural that can grow exponentially and infinitely, so why do we accept that individual wealth or business wealth can? Until we accept the logic and inevitability of limits applied to all things, even with Bernie, these problems will continue and get worse.
    1
  2742.  @thelinedrive  - "The fact the name had to be left off bills shows he’s a failure as a politician, particularly as a leader." That one line explains everything. When being on the winning side is the goal, it proves the whole point of the exercise is lost.
    1
  2743.  @thelinedrive  - That is very naive. Change happens and the precursor is intense suppression of change. When change does burst forth, almost everyone pretends they were secretly on board the whole time. You are on the suppression side of this equation, which means you are likely infected by the message of those most opposed to change. You exhibit the hostility that is bred through subtle propaganda messaging, being a good little guardian of the system. Good doggy.
    1
  2744.  @mykldean  - The opposition has done a masterful job of obscuring reality. As long as people don't see the cliff they are driving into, they will stay on the gas and plow right into it. This means extinction for humanity, so I agree with everything you wrote. I try to convey a simple message, but I've really drilled into the economy and its complicated. The wealth of the USA is now directly dependent upon extracting everything from the entire population and concentrating it, driven by an irrational political construct. We don't produce anymore, its all about extraction. We did not have a homeless population 40 years ago, and it is going to grow. What changed? The structure of the economy changed, accomplished entirely through politics. We must do it again. Everything is based around the notion of unlimited growth, which has been proven to be irrational. One penny at 5% compounded interest for 1800 years would turn into 150,000,000 earth size globes of solid gold. This has been well known for centuries, however the opposition has an actual plan called "The Powell Memo" of 1971, designed to take over while obscuring what they are doing from the population. It is open knowledge, yet few know of it or even read it. I refer to the mythology built by the opposition as the "Oligarch Propaganda Playbook". The playbook is in action in this very comment thread and is very subtle. To counter such a long running and complex scheme, we need very simple and verifiable truths. That is what I am working on. Everything has limits.
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  2745.  @tidus9942  - You really sound like you are on the ball. Head filled with all of the "correct" information, even a specific mention of "compounded interest". Thank you for all that. What this information tells me is that you know exactly what the wealthy establishment wants you to know, which is to say you really have not looked any further and have just taken their word as gospel. What you have not proved is that you know how to count and multiply. You have not proved that you are up to date on current information from the Federal Reserve. What you have not proved is that you are up to date on research regarding compounded interest. You are shockingly ignorant, proof is in your comment. Answer this, how can the S&P 500 go up 11% annually while the economy as measured by GDP can only eek out less than 3% annually? How can financial assets grow by $9.8 trillion in the same year the economy lost almost half a trillion? You are young and not really all that smart yet, what you are bragging about is a structure that will collapse under its own weight. Do you understand what the word "exponential" means?
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  2746.  @tidus9942  - Well now, aren't you the fresh young whippersnapper! I'll let you in on a little secret, I've been dollar cost averaging into the market ever since Reagan was president. Grew up in the Silicon Valley before it got that name, listened to Bob Brinker's "Money Talk" radio show on KGO, before the internet was a thing. Being 60 years old now means that I need less risk and volatility, which means I am out of the market completely now. Been dollar cost averaging into crypto for awhile, my portfolio gained 6.25% just this week. You are currently just as arrogant as I was at your age. My children are adults, so I have a great deal of experience handling their arrogance, but they are still wiser than most adults their age. You seem to think there is some kind of fundamental difference between us, and you are correct. I am decades older, seen more, experienced more and researched more. Given this experience and knowledge gap, I understand where you are and I even understand your attitude. There is something I have learned that you have yet to discover, though your arrogance may prevent you from comprehending or even understanding this basic fact. Our economic system was designed without any understanding of limits, meaning planetary limits will be exceeded by our economic system, leading to the extinction of our species. Now you have been railing on about what "the left" understands or does not understand, all the while not understanding much yourself. So let me spell it out for you. In 1772, Richard Price wrote a treatise titled "Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt", with reference to Britain’s war debts. Price suggested rather naively that Britain’s government should try to make use of this exponential principle to pay off the public debt by creating a sinking fund that itself would grow at compound interest. Price promised, the fund would grow large enough to pay off the entire debt. Price wrote the following: "One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Price was very excited by this notion, but the economy of Europe as a whole had only increased by 0.2% annually for the past 500 years and his proposal failed. It failed because the compounded amount in this sinking fund never actually materialized because you cannot make something out of nothing. This point is illustrated by asking this question: Where was the 150 MILLION earth size globes of solid gold supposed to come from? We are facing this situation now. We can keep printing money and shoving it into the stock market, at some point both the money and the stocks will be worthless paper. The only possible way monetary and economic expansion can continue, is if we expand our human footprint into space, mining asteroids, setting up manufacturing on the moon and Mars, then expanding in an ever widening sphere. If we don't do that, then economic expansion becomes impossible and if we expand anyway and exceed our planets capability, we will all die. So stop being such a right wing diva. You don't know as much as your think. Richard Price worked out the math of compounded interest over 250 years ago and mathematicians all the way back to ancient Babylonia have known all about how compounded interest grows faster than any economy. Back in Babylonian times, they had the good sense to reset debt back to zero periodically, usually when the current ruler died. The reset erased both debt and wealth, keeping their culture going for over 1000 years. The Roman Empire decided to ignore the necessity of resets and look what happened to them. We are doing the same thing. What you don't know is that the Chicago Boys (Milton Friedman and his ilk) also knew about the folly of compounded interest, but they wanted power. So they forged ahead with legislation to create the IRA, Roth IRA and 401k, so that they could get the public on board as accomplices to their plan. Little did they know that growth would be so high in just a few decades, as to endanger the entire planet and our very survival as a species. I am not "left" or "right". I am a pragmatist. There are facts we simply cannot ignore. But by all means, carry on, do your part to end our world.
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  2747.  @amosdotl6892  - Weak.
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  2748.  @amosdotl6892  - Those who win by lying fall into the two categories. Nice try, you lose.
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  2749.  @amosdotl6892  - Don't forget, when a republican wins at anything, everybody loses, even the republicans who voted for the "winner".
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  2750.  @amosdotl6892  - Look here, we are all losing. Both the democrats and the republicans are elites who think politics is a game. We need third parties that actually represent us. The world economy is only $75 trillion, yet the wealthy are making bets (speculation) that surpass the quadrillion mark. That is just stupid, like they have nothing better to do than play marbles with our livelihoods. We, that is us people, need to reorganize both our economies and our governing structures.
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  2751. Ohhh no. . . we are a totally socialist country. Free money just spews out of the treasury, that is how the federal debt arrived at $22 trillion. Tax cuts, tax loopholes, regulatory cutbacks and regulation loopholes, forever wars gushing out dividends (free money) from Ratheon, Haliburton, Boeing and Lockheed, all paid for by Congress. . . . we are crawling with damn wealthy sonafabitchin socialists!
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  2752.  @davidsambora8924  - Keen is an easily understood, straight talking economist. Michael Hudson is a very deep well of economic knowledge, both current and historical, definitely worth the time to learn from.
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  2753.  @paulcolburn3855  - Perfect score on the SAT does not prevent a person from stealing an idea and claiming for their own, that is Zuckerburgs life story. He got what he has on merit? BS. He got it because he is a twisted and corrupt as they get. On an unrelated note: Long Live StarBlazers!
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  2754.  @paulcolburn3855  - First of all, the "Build Back Better" legislation is dead. It will never pass, so your scary H1B Visa bit is a fantasy. I checked on this bit after I read your reply, Senator Haggerty of Tennessee wrote a letter to Senator Sanders about this, but you know what is missing from all the hullabaloo? Which Senator allowed the big tech lobbyists to slip this into the BBB bill? It certainly was not Senator Sanders, and since he is the only progressive senator currently serving, it must have been one of the corporate owned shill senators, and those people do not qualify as "leftists". Corporate owned democrats are virtually the same thing as republicans. Now on to housing. What is the number one reason that people cannot make their mortgage payments, hmmmm? Job loss. When the financial markets crash the economy and millions of jobs just go "poof", how is that the fault of the homeowner? The only people who are safe from the financial sector's misdeeds are those who work in the "wealth defense industry", or the top 10% of income earners. The rest of us are at the mercy of employers, who don't give a shit if you lose your home as long as they make a profit. Now it is time for you to be accountable. I did the research and the math. We have a rigged economy, a spiraling tunnel from which there is no escape. Now I am sorry if this is too much reading or thinking for you, but I am going to give you straight facts and I'll even provide the research material so you can check the math for yourself. This country is in a financial vise, and we were put there by wealth seekers and those who feel they have right to rule, democracy be damned. I was asked two simple questions, and I answered with irrefutable facts. Lets see if you can grasp this, because if you cannot or you just blow it off, then you are willing to just flush our country down the toilet. Ahh, you are so funny, and yet you asked the proper questions at last. "Why do you care if someone is rich or not? How does their wealth effect your life?" The answer to the first question is, on its face, I don't really care. The rich buy some cool stuff and I like seeing videos of that. Now the second question cannot be answered properly without the first question for context, so I appreciate them both. Their wealth affects my life and yours, all of our lives, because at some point the rich decided they needed more than a productive economy could offer. It was easy for them to break free of the productive economy, because the rich employ logic puzzles in business and the workers simply do not use logic puzzles in their everyday life and most just want to do a days work for a days pay and then go home. So here is what the rich did, demonstrated with a logic puzzle. Puzzle: Starting in the 1960's the rich gave everyone, including themselves, one dollar. Not a dollar to spend, but a dollar to invest. This dollar represents the economic well being of every person in the country. There were rules to the investment. For the rich and those who would become rich, the dollar earned 9% annually, 6% of which came from the economy and 3% of which came from everyone else's dollar. Everyone would know about the 6%, but only the rich would know about the extra 3% and where it came from. Everyone who was not to be rich would earn 2.6% annually on their dollar. Now you are probably thinking this is all garbage. That is what people usually think about logic puzzles. The rich count on that, they like you ignorant. Here is what happened when the rich enacted their plan based on this logic puzzle: The economy: 1965-4th Quarter GDP = $4.304 trillion. 2020-4th Quarter GDP = $18.767 trillion. Up by 336%. The growth of wealth: 1965-4th Quarter Privately held Financial assets = $2.224 trillion. 2020-4th Quarter Privately held Financial assets = $104.517 trillion. Up by 4599.5% Financial capitalism is fake capitalism, designed to extract all wealth unto itself. The gain between Q4 of 1998 and Q4 1999 was 9.48%, or $3.276 trillion. The GDP during that period gained $594 billion or 4.6%. Now 4.6% is really good compared to the last twenty years, but it was not enough to pay for the over $3 trillion in "financial" asset growth. At this point in time, the growth in financial assets had long surpassed the ability of the economy to support them. That is why our economy was gutted of anything valuable, mainly our industry. The USA became a nation of debt, in order to pay for wealthy and their "F" asset growth. Wages cannot keep up with rising house prices, because homes are not a necessity for living, they are a "capital asset", and that makes loads of money for the wealthy. So far this year, the growth of financial assets is equal to 49% of our GDP. Back in Q4 of 1999, the growth of financial assets were equal to 25.41% of our GDP. Do you see where this is going yet? I puzzled this out myself, having some decent skill in logic puzzles and a good mind for research. Not the kind of thing your average work-a-day person does. The way the economy is set up, where wealth earns more than the economy can produce, this was not an accident or natural order. It was designed this way by the wealthy and our politicians made it happen. Everything else you hear is just noise. FRED-Households and Nonprofit Organizations; Total Financial Assets, Level (TFAABSHNO) | FRED | St. Louis Fed https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO FRED-Real Gross Domestic Product (GDPC1) | FRED | St. Louis Fed https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1
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  2755.  @paulcolburn3855  - First, I did not come up with a model. This is information directly from The Federal Reserve. Second, the stock market and Wall Street are not industries, they produce nothing tangible at all, not even useful information.You are either deliberately missing the point (something that people "invested" in a rotten system do), or you are so indoctrinated into this rotten system that you will fight to defend it (echos of The Matrix, my man).
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  2756.  @Jianju69  - Oh, well now, the wealthy are not good people. They don't simply hire "financial experts" to manage their money for them. The wealthy employ legions of lobbyists to intercede with and write legislation for Congress, to get them loads of specifically tailored tax exemptions which the president then gleefully signs into law. The government does not need their money after all, because the government creates the money we all need and the wealthy are first in line to get the lions share of new money, which leaves the rest of us broke and lonely.
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  2757. None of this matters when in 30 years the wealthy will have all of the money in the world and none of us will be able to breathe.
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  2758. Our economy is going to tank. It is just a matter of time now. Unsustainable practices have been the norm for decades. I have been searching all through history and it seems that wealth and corruption has lead to the downfall of most societies. As a country with the worlds reserve currency, we are way out over our skis. This year alone, for every dollar in economic growth, financial assets (including stocks) have gained $14 in value. This is what Pelosi is protecting. At a whopping $9.9 trillion, gains in financial assets currently stand at 49% of our entire economic output. The choice now is quite stark. What we really must have is a hard cap on wealth accumulation, or we get extinction.
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  2759.  M Murph  - Anyone who loves Trump has lost their freaking mind.
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  2760.  @mritalianhillbilly  - Respect for the office of the President is distinctly different from respect for the slime ball who currently occupies the office.
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  2761.  M Murph  - The fact that Trump hides everything he is doing as a public servant is a clear sign that he is a criminal. Nice job Buddy, supporting a criminal instead of a real president.
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  2762.  M Murph  - Naw, I'm not a hater, nor am I a "liberal". When a man or woman takes public office, their duty is to serve to public . . . . . openly. Actually, we have bigger problems on our hands than Trump. Over 9000 retail stores closed in 2019 and U.S. Steel just shut down their Detroit operation and laid off 1500 workers (ironic that Trump was just bragging about bringing steel jobs back). The Federal Reserve is pumping cash into the banks, again. We have significant problems we must confront together, as a nation. Trump is a massive failure, a massive recession or depression is just around the corner. Best to prepare for that, and no amount of blaming immigrants or building walls is going to make things any better.
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  2763. How about we scrap having a congress and a president, it does not work for the people. What we need it an council at the top with a parliament below it. Council represents stakeholders (citizens and the economy) while the parliament represents simple geometric blocks of land with upper and lower population parameters.
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  2764.  @ahwmahwm5533  - Awww, what a nice dream.
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  2765. Hey Peter - Still waiting for you to answer . . . but I know you are too busy chasing Professor Wolff's new videos and making nasty comments there to actually follow though here.
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  2766. JoeyFiveandDimes - Peter Snatchaway is a chickenshit. He went on to post on the latest Professor Wolff video and when I confronted him about how capitalism is a racket and asked why he would not answer here on this video, he wrote: "@coolmodelguy, Capitalism isn't a racket. That statement didn't deserve and answer." Peter continues to claim that the left would use force to implement changes to the economy. Capitalism is force in action. He talks only about the seller and buyer agreeing on a price, that is a cop out. When the seller agrees on a price and that price FORCES workers to accept less for their work . . . nuff said. Capitalism is a racket and a con.
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  2767. Sorry Fox Idiots, its too late for you, you have ingested so much oligarch propaganda that your brain has been permanently damaged. Too bad you will never understand that oligarch's from the USA interfered so much in Latin American countries that it created a refugee crisis that drove those folk to seek refuge, yes even illegally, in a safer country. But go right ahead, keep accepting the lies they feed you, knowing the entire time that your enemies are right here with their boot on your neck.
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  2768.  @ryanarchuleta3754  - Limited government is exactly the tool used by the billionaires to loot our economy. You have no idea really what you are talking about, you have been corrupted by the billionaire propaganda playbook. We need big government to keep thses bastards in check, and taxing them to death is the least we should do. Let me spell it out for you: According to The Federal Reserve statistics released in August of 2019, the top 10% will hold 100% of the wealth within 33 years. This was the goal of so-called "Reaganomics", when the entire way our economy was run was changed. You can see it right now, the bottom 50% has lost $900 billion in wealth over the past 30 years, while the top 1% has increased their wealth by $21 trillion (which very coincidentally, matches our federal deficit in scale and timing). No one seems to note one particular fact, that the 1% has over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth (some reports say $34 trillion, but lets be conservative and use $30 trillion in our little math problem). They don't need most of that to live on, so they "invest" most of it to get a rate of return. So, $30 trillion at 5% interest gets $1.5 trillion as its rate of return. Now consider that the USA has an annual economy (GDP) of just under $20 trillion per year. GDP growth for 2018 was $560 billion, far short of the amount of interest (free money) that the 1% is getting on their "investment". So lets do the math. $1.5 trillion minus $560 billion equals $940 billion. The 1% consumed all of 2018's economic growth . . . . plus they consumed almost 1/20th of the total U.S. economy in 2018 . . . . just to satisfy their need for "growth". The bite out of 2019 will be greater, all of the economic growth plus up to 7.5% of the economic output will go to the 1%. Every year after that the bite will be bigger and bigger. This is more than just legitimately earning your money, this is about the cannibalization of our entire country.
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  2769. @Big Day Out - You have a skewed view, possibly because your civics class let you down or you were not paying attention. For example: Regime change wars. The U.S. taxpayers pay 0 dollars to support these wars, because the federal government does not need your taxes to fight a war. All dollars are solely manufactured by the U.S. government, i.e. the Congress appropriates and the U.S. Treasury cashes the check. The only reason you pay taxes is to moderate the economy, to keep inflation in check . . and that is also a scam. The USA does not need ANY taxes from the people to run itself. There is nothing subjective about lobbyists writing law or promoting wars. The lobbyist are paid to get more money for the 1%, regime change wars are just a way for the 1% to pad their pockets at government expense because most of the money for defense goes to Boeing, Lockheed or Ratheon and that is what the 1% hold stock in. The examples go on and on, whether we have government big or small, the 1% rig the economy until we do something about it. You are spouting nonsense right out of the billionaire propaganda playbook. The best example is when you wrote "It has to be issue by issue". No its not. That is their tactic to keep us divided. Stop breathing all those nitrogen fumes and get your head in the game. You are just mouthing off here, when really you don't know very much at all.
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  2770.  @AmbrotosArkhon  - What we really need to do is install a wealth cap. No one gets over $10 million in accumulated wealth, after that it is 100% taxed away. This is the only way we are going to bring this inequality situation under control. I have a lot more to say on this subject, but this is the thumbnail gist of what kind of action us citizens must take to protect ourselves.
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  2771.  @TJHTouring  - That is a good start. In our local district elections there is a $2500 limit on individual donations, yet when tracking donations the number of donors each gave the maximum with no smaller donations at all. Now I don't know about Australia, but here in California there are very few regular people who can afford to make a $100 donation, much less a maximum donation. This indicates that the donor class is made up of the top 10% income bracket which has a vastly different agenda than the working classes below that top 10%. The best method I believe is to eliminate private funding of elections altogether and have government funding of elections with a campaign finance cap. That way the wealthy cannot dominate elections the way they do now.
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  2772. Iran has done nothing but to respond in a proportionate manner to the aggression of the USA and Trump. This is all Trumps fault. Trump pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump put crippling sanctions on Iran for no good reason. Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's top general. zIran has done nothing to hurt the USA. There is no evidence that Iran has taken any hostile action toward the USA. Iran has a one million man army, while the USA has a few thousand troops in the area. This is their part of the world, which the USA is mucking around in. Graham is an idiot. Trump is a moron. Pompeo is a buffoon. These half wits are going to get us into a war that we cannot win, and all this is a diversion by Trump to get us to look away from his crimes in and out of office. Anything that Iran does is directly the fault of Trump and those who support him.
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  2773.  Johnny Shawn  - Moron.
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  2774.  @chaosinfusion8127  - "we also need to stanch the unidirectional flow that allows capital to accumulate in the first place" That is exactly what a Hard Wealth Cap will accomplish. Every distribution manifold is a closed system. The system can always be expanded, yet it remains a closed system. Until we close down the free flow of capital across borders and into the accounts of the relatively few, we cannot solve other problems. David Harvey, the noted Marxist and anti-capitalist, recently made the following stunning observation. Paraphrasing: "We cannot have a revolution against capitalism, or 80% of the worlds population will starve. Instead we must modify capitalism." Unless and until we solve this critical economic problem, we cannot deal with global climate change and a whole host of other "must solve" issues. I am continually astonished that the best minds cannot seem to grasp that the solution is incredibly simple, a hard cap on accumulated wealth.
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  2775.  @chaosinfusion8127  - To your first question about the "undo" of accumulated capital, the first logical step is to nearly eliminate inheritance of wealth. Jackie Chan is a great example, he is giving his $300 million to charity and will not give his son anything. We need to mandate that inheritance cannot be more than a single digit percentage of accumulated wealth, not to exceed a hard wealth cap. My figure for the wealth cap is $10 million, based on the current average of the wealth of the top 1% divided among all the people who are part of the top 1%. If you cannot live with only $10 million, tough shit. This will be plenty to allow for the rewarding of individual merit. The David Harvey video is called "Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Global Unrest". The section I was referring to starts at time stamp 33:10 Here is the link to that video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv6RtBC44UE
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  2776.  @chaosinfusion8127  - You are correct about David Harvey, you cannot just put him on in the background. I have often been busy about my workshop then must backtrack on what David is saying because I know I missed a key point. This latest video is one that I was glued to, there is a bit about compounded interest of a penny at 5% since the time of Christ being worth over 170 earth sized globes of solid gold by 1782, this is something I must look into. It clearly demonstrates that there are practical limits to everything, from which there is no escape. Once you start doing thought experiments using a hard wealth cap of $10 million and applying it to different arena's of the economy, such as real estate (housing, specifically on speculative investment), apply it to compensation packages for upper management and corporate board members, or what kind of decisions get made by business once the owners approach the cap limits on wealth . . . . . so many problem get outright solved with one simple change. Of course there will an will be a myriad of other changes to go along with the wealth cap, but the ramifications of that one move on capitalism will be staggering and will directly benefit the whole of society.
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  2777.  @starboysuniverse9956  - No place for idiots eh? So why are you here? What Nikki Haley will never tell you about capitalism is the following: The U.S. economy of 2019 was about $21.5 trillion and grew 4.1% over the year. Meanwhile, 2019 holdings in privately financial assets was over $90 trillion, which grew at an average of 5% over the year. Economic growth is supposed to be the engine for capital gains, so lets do the math. The economy grew $881 billion, the value of privately held financial assets grew $4.5 trillion. Where does the money for private wealth growth come from when economic growth is five times smaller than private wealth growth? Answer, wealth squeezes us and loots the United States Treasury when they cannot get enough from the citizens. Fact bomb.
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  2778. technatezin - I agree with your last statement. There is the problem however, in that a significant part of the population consists of these insane and irrational people and they have to be dealt with somehow. My consideration is that forced limits will have to be placed on their behavior at some point, simply because their world view has already proven hostile and harmful the the rest of humanity. Only true force of political will backed up by true force of law can accomplish this. The insane and irrational have no problem whatsoever using such tactics to enforce their beliefs, we also must employ strength doctrines to save humanity and life on this planet. We can start by limiting income and limiting wealth accumulation. By all means work as hard as you wish, but beyond a set threshold, all your additional income returns to society. For those who don't want to continue working when that threshold is reached, great . . . stop working. The threshold will be high enough so that is an affordable option. For those who are inspired to work beyond that threshold, more power to you! Those folk will be the ones exploring the oceans, doing science and seeking to make things better for humanity as a whole. The funding for their work will come from all the surplus society generates beyond the wealth limiting threshold. People will work because they want to, not because they are being compelled to. Since wealth accumulation beyond the threshold will be impossible, greed is removed from the economy. To get there, we have to be willing to enforce our will upon society. These insane and irrational people will not respond to anything else except force, and if we leave their wealth intact they will immediately set out to dismantle whatever "reforms" to the laws we might make. Their wealth is their weapon, do you defeat an army and then not disarm the defeated army? We have to come to grips with this reality.
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  2779. OMG- Learn how to spell Lawney!
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  2780. The criminal president stopped witnesses. The House democrats had the long experience of trying to get Don McGahn White House Counsel as a witness by going through the courts. This was not about winning the impeachment for the democrats. By going through the courts first, the dems proved that Trump would obstruct and tie things up in court. By going the impeachment route, they have exposed the other end of the snake, which is the GOP is just as corrupt as Trump. All of the GOP participated in a cover up of Trumps crimes in office. Now we get to see how the people react.
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  2781. Thom, why is there such an anathema about discussing the solution? Putting a cap on individual wealth is the answer to so many of these problems. This much, no more. A wealth cap would solve the problem of democracy against corporate power forever.
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  2782.  @dinard38  - What I learned from the 2016 election is that we have had too many elections where we picked the lessor of two evils . . . and that got us Trump. So what are you going to do, the same thing again and expect different results this time? Have you learned nothing from the past 30 to 40 years? If Joe Biden gets elected this time, just because people want to get rid of Trump, the next republican president is going to end the Republic and give us a full blown fascist dictatorship. We are very nearly there right now, why do you think Mitch McConnell is packing the courts with pro corporate/anti consumer/anti citizen justices? These people are anti-Constitution, they are out to end the USA as we know it and finish installing a corporate run dystopia. Your response is typical of those who simply look at the surface qualities only, not the underlying facts or history. Bad call.
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  2783.  @dinard38  - Most of what you wrote, I am in agreement with . . . especially your second paragraph. The problem I have is with your first and third paragraphs. I have been voting for nearly forty years. The arc of my political alignment is this: Republican for the first four years (I was impressed by Reagan), Independent from 1992 to 2016, Democrat from 2016 to present. After the 2016 election, I took on a self-motivated research project into our economy. There were a mix of mystifying facts and beliefs regarding the economy I wanted clarity about. Turns out both the facts and the beliefs were false. There is a mythological propaganda narrative embroidered into Americans view the economy and it is conjoined with our politics. Biden, Harris, Booker, Buttigieg and several others are firmly in the American mythology camp. We cannot win anything if one of those candidates gets the nomination. I am now in a strange position since I have uncovered the ugly truth behind the American economic and political mythology. On the right hand is Trump, we don't want him. Three fingers and the thumb of the left hand will deliver us another Trump like figure in a future election. I will vote for the finger on the left hand which actually changes our future prospects, and if I cannot do that because the nomination goes to water carriers for the American mythology . . . should I just turn a blind eye toward the truth of our situation for the short term gain of getting rid of Trump? What good does that do? The answer is that we will be worse off with a democrat who is aligned with the current American myth than we would be with Trump for another term as president. He cannot work with anyone, which means nothing will get done . . . Trump is actually the lessor of two evils here. The core of the American myth is that we are a democracy and that we are exceptional. Neither is true. We are a hairs breath away from losing what little democracy we have and Trump is a symptom of this problem . . . not the cause. The real issue is that all of us are slaves, shackled to an economy where we spend most of our adult lives and we have no democratic input into what happens to the wealth we create. Until that singular fact is changed, we stay slaves. I will no longer support any candidate that supports the status-quo. If we are going to have change for the better, we have to make it happen. Half measures and platitudes are no longer a currency that I will spend, we either vote in change or we sink with the ship. Your choice.
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  2784. Interesting how we now hear nothing about "caravans" coming up from the south, unlike last year when that was all Trump would talk about. No new border wall has been built, Mexico is not paying for the wall and we American are paying the tariff taxes brought on by Trump's trade war (trade wars are easy to win, remember that?). Are we winning yet?
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  2785.  @grant0796  - Why not? You would rather have the thieving republicans of the thieving corporate democrats than a democratic socialist? So you enjoy having your hard earned money stolen by both mainstream political parties?
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  2786. Nancy Pelosi's donors love Trump so she is certainly never going to act on our behalf and even allow an impeachment inquiry to take place.
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  2787.  @mastertwitch1  - Republicans fall into two categories: the ones that lie, and the ones that willingly believe those lies...
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  2788.  @pythondre  - That was the stupidest, most ill informed comment I've read today. So-called "conservatives" are brainwashed by billionaire owned media and they leave blue states because they cannot stand being called out for believing utter nonsense.
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  2789. Trump is a liar and a thief. When the 1% of the USA gets paid only 2% interest on their $30 trillion in accumulated wealth, that alone consumed all of 2018's GDP growth plus a little more. Last time I checked, S&P 500 index funds have averaged over 9% sine 1994. The entire republican party is a scam and a front for billionaire thievery. Every republican is either a pawn or a thief.
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  2790. Apparently Hannity and Fox News are carrying water for the Trump war against Venezuela, using a conspiracy with Saudi Arabia to increase oil output to drive down the price, combined with the unwarranted sanctions placed on the country by Trump. This is why Trump made his first state visit to the Kingdom of Murderers. The UN Investigator and Human Rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas, has issued his report and clearly the USA is committing Crimes Against Humanity by choking off Venezuela so that it can then be looted by the 1%.. This is all an effort by the 1% and multi-national corporations to topple the legitimately elected leadership in Venezuela so that a failing capitalism can seize and exploit that countries resources . . . because they have almost finished looting every other resource on the planet. People, if you believe this fraud Hannity, then you are simply pawns in their game who come here to get your daily dose of propaganda pacification.
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  2791. Darryl Gore - This is a repeat performance for the Greedy Old Pricks, took at the 1920's. The republicans are reckless, irresponsible, and have not been upholders of the Constitution. There is only one thing on the minds of GOP members, support the morbidly wealthy so they can get some small sliver of that wealth for themselves.
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  2792. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just said on TYT "the republicans are afraid I will send their kids to college". Priceless!! I certainly wish we had a JD win out here in California, but I'm so happy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her district.
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  2793. I also want to thank Hamguy Bacon, CJ Titan and Radical Socialist Democracy . . . . for one of the most intelligent conversations I've been privileged to read in the YouTube comment section. Most of the time I feel like I'm banging my head onto a granite wall with those like Kristen berer and Anonymous, who seem to be willfully ignorant. I say willfully, because the information and research necessary to understand UBI and a Resource Based Economy is very easily attainable . . . plus it is verifiable. The way the systems run now, it cannot be all about the economy, or we would have solved that already. It is all about power, and those who are unwilling to give it up for the good of all mankind.
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  2794. ManScoutsofAmerica - That was an idiotic statement. You obviously know very little about socialism, I recommend looking up Professor Richard D. Wolff on YouTube, Come back after you learn something.
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  2795.  @biometronome7010  - Easy. Place controls on personal wealth accumulation. Solves so may problems with one simple action.
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  2796.  @sylviam6535  - "What about if we consider the 10% or 1% based on wealth? Someone in the top 10% has a net worth of $1,219,126, while someone in the top 1% has a net worth of $11,099,166, according to the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances from 2019". Given that nine out of ten households never breach the top 10%, it seems unlikely that the vast majority would find a wealth cap demotivating, or cause entrepreneurial talent to migrate to other countries. The wealthy that are causing terminal damage to our society reside in the top 0.001%, a status that an uber majority will never attain. This must be thought about logically, not emotionally. A wealth cap set at $5 million allows ample room for motivation and entrepreneurial talent to flourish, while limiting or eliminating a great many systemic problems like aggressive lobbying of our politicians, billionaire propaganda (Fox News and NewsMax) and wealth funded institutes like the Federalist Society that has an out sized role in picking our judiciary.
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  2797.  @sylviam6535  - "If you are in tech, any successful company at the very low end blows way past that limit." Without thought or consideration for the economic distortion such a situation creates. The finance industry is another example you could provide to make your point. Can you imagine what rerouting the economic plumbing could accomplish? Based on my own experience and observations over a lifetime, most, if not the majority of people do not understand economics, with the exception of some artfully cultivated mythology. I've now studied economics operating in real time and shaken down the myths. Any competent engineer can see that our economy barely holds together as a system, because the system has giant ruptures and energy drains. The real kicker is, the system is faulty by design. The economy that we all depend on and the nurturing of wealth should be interdependent, but wealth is behaving independently. Every system has to operate within limits, even an expanding system such as an economy. Only money has no limits, allowing this has introduced a growing imbalance. Very soon, our entire economic output will not be enough to match the growth of wealth. Maybe this is too far out for you to consider, but when wealth owns everything we produce by default, we are all slaves. I've waved the numbers about, but people just cannot bring themselves to do a little math. A personal wealth cap is a matter of freedom and survival.
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  2798.  @sylviam6535  - Does not matter the source of the wealth, physical or digital. A wealth cap means more than just a personal wealth limit. It also means that the excess wealth generated over the cap flows back to society in numerous ways. This becomes especially important when wealth is digitally created. I noticed that you made no reply about the capital and talent drain you were worried about, I hope that looking at the real numbers will assuage your concerns. We cannot tolerate non-elected billionaires making critical decisions on a world stage while shutting out the democratic process, the clear results of which are currently causing homelessness and worsening crime inflicted upon society at large.
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  2799.  @sylviam6535  - I could converse extensively on brain brain drain flows, intellectual property rights and what exactly the United States has been the beneficiary of. Mostly that would use up a lot of words and time. To be very succinct, I was politically conservative for the majority of my life, then I started to sit on the fence when too much started making no sense. Eventually I reached the core, after peeling away layers of mythology and obfuscation. After all the political BS is peeled away, the stark issue is that the economy is supposed to be the power generator that creates wealth. Oh, you can find wealth on the ground if you are lucky enough, but it takes an economy to convert what you find into useful exchange value. What we have for an economy however, is a mathematical impossibility yet we pretend that it is real (and we humans have done this dance many times throughout history). If we begin after World War 2 with two pools, one of wealth and the other of the economy, the pool of wealth started out over 2.5 times the size of the pool of the economy . . . . . and has grown at a faster pace than the economy. Such a thing is supposed to be impossible. This cannot happen with any other system I have studied. I am a mechanical engineer, conversed with knowledge of may types of mechanical systems. I also have an interest in cosmology, stars are natural systems. There is not a single system in existence, natural or artificial, that operates without limits. Yet we have bought into a myth that the economy and money do operate in a system without limits. Such belief in a blatantly erroneous operating system for an economy we all depend on, is pure lunacy. The results are growing crime, growing homelessness, increased gun killings and most of the rest of society's ills. All so that a few sociopaths can claim they "earned" billions (physically impossible) and the right to make decisions for all of mankind.
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  2800.  @sylviam6535  - We already have the "collectivism" problem, doing exactly what you wrote, feeding into the worst psychology of politics. Caused by wealth on three fronts, the industrialists seeking of lowest possible labor costs over decades, the extraction of wealth via the FIRE Sector of the economy over decades, and the wide scale adoption of straightforward propaganda by billionaire and corporate media moguls, once again over decades. I don't buy into the fearmongering over social/political.economic change any longer, because we are already in the grips of really bad decision making by the "experts" . . . . made over decades. There is a pattern here, and not one that is benign and helpful for society. It may be bold of me to say, but you seem to be in the grips of fear yourself, but fear of change instead of fear over the really rotten decision making process, that quite frankly is making a deadly mess of our planet, a mess that may not be able to be cleaned up.
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  2801. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  2802. Steven Nur Ahmed - We have all been played. I will be 57 years old in a couple of months, in that time it was only recently that I have been able to get a "real" education about the economy and the politics which drive it. During the majority of my lifetime, the information I have been receiving from the mainstream media has been in the main . . . propaganda. That propaganda continues today, yet I can now perceive it as such. Robert Reich started me on that journey, so I will always hold him in high esteem . . . even though he still to this day does not get to the core issues. Yesterday I learned a new term, the FIRE Sector of the economy. FIRE standing for Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. These are all vehicles for the 1% to extract wealth from the rest of us, and the FIRE Sector is the only part of the economy that routinely gets bailed out by the government when they over reach. Now perhaps the rhetoric and slick graphics are not enough, but Robert still provides an entry portal to education for people like me. Professor Michael Hudson is very informative. I reccommned the following video for follow up on the FIRE Sector:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3sWd71leRQ&t=622s
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  2803. Kelpy - Yes indeed. Just learning about MMT from Stephanie Kelton and Michael Hudson. Seems we have been being lied to and filled with all sorts of false economic information. I highly recommend this video called "Why Monetary Theory and Policy Is a Critical Terrain for the Left: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwNTrN-Lhss
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  2804. Republicans are going nuts calling the democrats socialists, yet the 1% is consuming 10% of our annual GDP in "free money" (interest, dividends and economic rents) for which they did not lift a finger to earn. In 30 years the top 10% will own everything due to free money funneled to the top. Corporate Socialism for the 1%, price gouging on health care, housing costs, education and more . . . . for the bottom 90%. Are we the frogs in a slowly boiling pot? Where is the outrage?
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  2805.  @Distress.  - Ridiculous. Cosmology shows us what is beyond the horizon, however economics shows us no such thing. When financial assets are five to ten times larger than the economy itself and financial assets dominate both the economic foreground and the horizon, what else could possibly be over the economic horizon except crushing debt fueling the expansion of more financial assets?
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  2806. Yes, the Supreme Court made a ruling. It is time that we the people act through congress to redress these interpretations and put them into proper context. None of these . . .(corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies) . . . are me. I am a person, and I want it clarified that my rights come first and foremost over any other type of . . . construct.
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  2807. This was never about illegal immigration. What the entire immigration narrative is about is this: Changing the subject from the wealthy squeezing 900 billion dollars out of the bottom 50% over the past 30 years. Immigration is a distraction tactic, nothing more.
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  2808. The simple root of all of our problems political and financial is this . . . accumulated wealth. The oligarchs will obscure this fact in shrouds of propaganda fog, yet there it is. It is time for us to place a hard limit on wealth accumulation, a wealth and ownership cap. No reform, not $15/hr, not medicare for all, not even Social Security, can survive the onslaught of wealth power pitted against these reforms. So we must remove the tools of power from the oligarchs by getting rid of them. Cap everyone's wealth at a set limit, failure to do this will cost us our future as we go extinct from the excesses of the oligarchy.
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  2809.  @johnd6389  - I rely on publicly available information, specifically the Federal Reserve numbers on GDP and Total Financial Assets. Where do you get your information from?🎯
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  2810.  @johnd6389  - Do you practice that if front of a mirror? "The left"? Where do you get that nonsense from?
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  2811.  @johnd6389  - Your comments are short, vacuous and have no actual content to reflect upon. I on the other hand, have intellect and research prowess. Not your average bot.
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  2812.  @johnd6389  - Psh. You are not interested in data. Go back under the bridge, Troll.
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  2813.  @mygrandkidsareveryepically4637  - If the present occupant of the highest American office was not such a hater, then we might not have anything at all to disagree about.
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  2814. Americans are stuck on the economic hamster wheel 6000 feet in the air. If we jump off, there is no net to catch us and we go SPLAT.
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  2815. Nelson 623 - You are a moron. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  2816.  @nelson6236  - The name calling came first . . . so how could you ascertain anything about my knowledgeably if you could not get past the first sentence? Come on man . . . this is the problem with those who have succumbed to the wealthy elites propaganda mills. Get real Nelson, I know how this game works now . . . because it worked on me for 55 years. Break out and learn what is real, stop being a pawn.
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  2817. In the USA over the past forty years, worker productivity has gone up 72% while wages have gone up only 17%. Meanwhile wealth in the form of financial assets has grown to five times the size of our economy and grows five times faster than our economy. Wealth has grown so much that the productive economy cannot support its growth any longer, so now our national treasury and central banking system is being looted just to pay the annual rate of return the wealthy have become accustomed to. Therefor the old logic of "No work .... .Go find a job. Little pay.... Go work somewhere else. Simple as that.", no longer applies, because people cannot get jobs that keep up with housing, education and health care.
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  2818. Nancy Pelosi's donors love Trump so she is certainly never going to act on our behalf and even allow an impeachment inquiry to take place.
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  2819. Private schools are for brainwashing and propaganda, not actual education. Private schools are worthy of being banned, for the safety of society at large.
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  2820. Bernie, I love that you stick up for Americans and you give real information instead of lies. However, you need to punch harder . . . . like this: The wages of Americans have been stagnant for four decades, while the basic costs to live have tripled or more. Where is that money going? We have no real economy, but instead an extraction economy whose wealth is dependent on draining you of everything you have. Roughly around 1982, wealth generated by rents, dividends and interest payments have surpassed not only all wages paid in the USA combined, but also the combined profits by all companies and corporations world wide. This is extraction economics, it is unsustainable and has to end . . . today.
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  2821. Job creators my a*s, these people are sucking us dry like parasites. Overall, the value of financial assets grew by $13.68 trillion in 2021, an 11.58% increase over 2020. That value increase is just over 66% of GDP for the year. When financial assets increase in value, it is not because of savvy investment planning. That increase represents a vacuum cleaner that is sucking wealth straight out of the paychecks, wallets, purses and bank accounts of the bottom 90% of households in the USA.
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  2822. Funny how most people do not seem to notice that correlation, certainly the wealthiest people do not.
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  2823. Adam Pauley - Unfortunately it is very obvious you are drowning in an ocean of misinformation and propaganda, given the number of mental programming talking points recited. "It's not the federal governments money. IT'S OURS!!!!". That statement you wrote is a diversion and a lie told to you. . . where do you think our currency originates? Who hold the patent on the manufacture of U.S. currency? Indeed I feel so sorry for you, as you have so fiercely declared you will be guardian of the oligarchs system and strike down all who would converse with you outside your bubble. . . naming them your foes even as we fight to save you. Someone who wanted to actually converse or discuss, would not hurl out so many unsubstantiated statements and believe them to be true.
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  2824. K D - The thing who owns Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, likes Trump because he got a YUGE tax cut. Same reason Nancy Pelosi's donors like Trump, which is why she will not move toward impeachment.
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  2825. Why are people not as concerned about inflation when the 1% have doubled their wealth holdings over the past 30 years, causing housing costs to go up 200%, health care to go up 500% and higher education costs to shoot through the stratosphere? We have a bogus economy, socialism for the wealthy and austerity for the people . . . and this under educated caller is concerned about the inflation costs of a $15/hr minimum wage? The public has succumbed to oligarch propaganda.
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  2826.  @Dennis-nc3vw  - You seem to have a disconnect if all you are looking at is local high end housing prices drive solely by the purchases by the wealthy. Banks lend to push housing prices up and charge interest rates well above GDP growth (a form of wealth extraction from the middle class). Banks then plow 100% of their profits into stock buy-backs, inflating the stock price and extracting that profit directly from the greater economy, in other words they are chewing on both ends of the licorice. That is how the 1% affect the housing prices in rural Alabama or Detroit, they are sucking out our wealth to satisfy their need for a rate of return. If you look at markets through a myopic lens, you miss the bigger picture.
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  2827.  @Dennis-nc3vw  - Three million Americans make up the 1% in the USA, and their holdings have doubled to 32 trillion dollars over the past 30 years. This doubling is solely due to compound interest, at an interest rate much higher than the 2.561% average annual GDP growth over the same time period. The only way this doubling is possible is to "extract" wealth from everyone else, because our economy is certainly not supporting that kind of wealth growth. The end result as of today it that the bottom 50% of Americans have lost 900 billion dollars, not because they were irresponsible and spent unwisely . . . they had that wealth extracted from them to pay an excessive rate of return to those who already have enough. This extraction has taken the form of higher housing, medical and education costs . . . if you have another applicable explanation, lets hear it.
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  2828.  @Dennis-nc3vw  - Reagan's tax cuts and the subsequent explosion of 1% wealth have nothing to do with work or employment and everything to do with rate of return on existing capital. The 1% get very little of their wealth through actual employment or labor, they get their money through capital gains . . . which in turn are taxed at 1/3 less than earned income. Good old boy Ronald Reagan should have accepted the leisure time his movie star income generated and spent more time on his ranch instead of complaining that taxes limited his ability to get more than his already substantial income. Besides, no one actually paid 90%, the effective tax rate was more like 50% and the country was healthier because those with capital reinvested in their companies and earned substantial tax deductions for doing so. That era ended with the suspension of the Bretton Woods Agreement, the removal of the U.S. Dollar from the gold standard and the beginning of international labor exploitation. With regards to the growing size of housing square footage, that is all part of the real estate scam which has been perpetrated since the 1970's, convincing Americans that the path to prosperity was through real estate. This was the beginning of the "wealth extraction from the middle class" era. With stagnating wages starting in the USA, the 1% started to promote real estate and debt as the main tool for extracting the "undeserved and excessive wealth" gained by the middle classes from 1945 to 1970. The con involves banks and housing developers who are both pushing up the price of housing, something which cannot be accomplished if a greater quantity of smaller housing is built for the purpose of housing the nations population. This is in part why we have such a problem with homelessness today. Where are you getting your information from? I ask because what you are writing here is highly skewed with oligarch propaganda talking points. You Sir, are a foot soldier engaged in an loose order that we call "guardians of the system", propagandized citizens who defend the oligarchy by believing and regurgitating propaganda specifically designed to keep the oligarchs in control. People like you exist in an information bubble, which means that those of us who have researched why the system fails most of us so badly . . . cannot take you seriously and are able to deconstruct your talking points quite easily.
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  2829. No one died in this attack against Saudi oil refineries, because it was a SELF INFLICTED WOUND! No one goes to the expense of launching a missile attack without explosive warheads, which would have in the least . . . opened up those refinery towers like bananas, and more likely would have FLATTENED many of those tower and container structures. This attack was self inflicted by short range artillery rounds and the recovered missile parts were taken out of storage to show to a war hungry corporate media.
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  2830. I can't figure out my fellow Americans, are you too scared, or do you just not care? In 30 years, 10% of Americans will OWN ALL WEALTH. Today Donald Hump proposed rounding up homeless in California and putting them into internment camps costing over $700/day/per individual . . . paid for by the Federal Government. Fox News has been drumming up support for this policy idea all week. For the cost of this "internment" plan, all homeless could easily be housed without losing their freedom. More people are on their way to homelessness and it will include people that used to think it would never happen to them. The 1% in this country have $30 trillion in accumulated wealth they are not spending, at a mere 2% interest it would take all the GDP gains for 2018 plus an additional $40 billion to pay. Yet when I look at S&P500 index funds, they have been paying over 9% since 1994. Look at a more moderate 5% rate of return, that comes out to $1.5 trillion which eats all 2018's GDP gain plus 1/20th of the entire economy. Thom reported on the U.S. Treasury report in August 2019 which spelled out in detail that in 33 years, the top 10% will own ALL wealth in the USA. The bottom 90% are all going to end up in internment camps. So what is wrong with all of YOU, that whenever I bring this topic up of the wealthy eating our economy whole . . . I hear nothing but silence? Are you all too scared to react, to horrified to take serious action, or even to think about what must be done? Is fighting a racist agenda more important to you? These wealthy people don't care at all if you are white, black, brown, yellow or purple. They are distracting us on purpose with everything under the sun, do you simply not care that soon you and your children, your entire families will be homeless or worse . . . in internment camps?
    1
  2831.  @jonasgrumby4393  - So . . . apathetic. Great. You will contribute to the ruin of all then. Thanks.
    1
  2832. Senator Joe Manchin is trying to protect the system which allows the top 10% in this country to grow $3.6 trillion wealthier during the first business quarter of 2021. To put that in perspective, that would be $11, 250 for every man woman and child in the USA, and not one of those top 10% lifted a finger to earn any of that wealth. I don't recall going on a spending spree big enough last Christmas to account for this, because I am broke. However, our corporations are borrowing money to the tune of more than a trillion dollars a month to fund stock buybacks so that their executives and shareholders can "earn" millions off their stock compensation packages and growing share prices. That is what Senator Joe Manchin stands for.
    1
  2833.  @wadegoodwin6773  - I'd give you three thumbs up for the General Smedley Butler comment if I could.
    1
  2834.  @jamesnelson7731  - Exactly!
    1
  2835.  @jgalt308  - Yes, the government does not actually do anything without subcontracting the work to layer upon layer of corporations, every one of them with stocks that must gain value every year . . . . it is not so much that they are government dependent industries as it is the chopping up and handing over government functions to the "private sector", which in turn transforms government functions into financial assets which must turn a profit for their shareholders.
    1
  2836.  @jgalt308  - No mystery at all, private billions are spent to weave narratives that shroud reality from most of those experiencing it. What you describe seems to me to be only partially accurate, insofar as "wealth" (an umbrella term I use for simplicity's sake) is following the pattern you laid out far more closely than the governments are. It has been half a century since the government had to solely rely on wealth extraction to operate, about the same time that "wealth" could no longer rely on extraction from productive sources to grow. Half a century ago is when "wealth" started to dig its tendrils into the government directly for sustenance, hence the infiltration in length, width and breadth of corporations taking over government functions. "Wealth stated out just after WW2 in 1947 with a pool of value 2.88 times the size of the economy and has grown ever since at a average percentage rate higher than economic growth. Now the pool of value that "wealth" represents is over five times the size of the annual GDP and its annual growth is greater than 2/3'rds of our economic output. The government is ultimately non-productive in that it has allowed itself to be subsumed by corporate entities. When considering that corporations exist in the first place as a "gift" to private interests, it is ironic that government has allowed itself to be consumed by the private sector it helped to create.
    1
  2837.  @jgalt308  - "Like I said, your timing is off, your calculations are incomplete and your understanding of wealth and power are inaccurate". And yet, you offer nothing to either counter what I have researched, or anything to contextualize the opinions you have expressed. What timing would be optimum for understanding? In what manner are my calculations incomplete? With the exception of lived experience, what other accurate understanding of wealth and power am I lacking? If being oblique gives you joy, then by all means, carry on. Other than that joy, making obtuse statements without context is a useless endeavor.
    1
  2838.  @jgalt308  - Whoa Howdy. Just hold your horses there. What I am working on is an over simplified message, something easy to grasp and easy to check or confirm. The goal is to get people engaged enough to understand how this "economic system" will never work for them or anyone who is not already wealthy. You may want to pick on Professor Wolff and his cherry picked topics, personally I wish that he would broaden his lessons beyond worker co-ops, because that will never work until the economic structure itself is modified. That modification of the economic structure cannot take place until the financial elites are dealt with, which involves changing the financial plumbing significantly and as a major step would require a personal wealth cap (confiscation of wealth beyond some set limit). However, most people are not engaged enough or simply don't know enough about economics to see that having an open ended system (capitalism without regulation) is repeatedly causing wealth flows to choke at the lower levels and is unduly rigged to concentrate vast volumes of wealth flows to the extreme upper levels. What you have written in your replies, is what I call an "attitude issue" with my over simplified comment subject. Of course there is much left out, if I tried to include every factor I know about, no one would read the damned comment! We are, you and I, fighting the same war on the same side. There won't be any winning unless people understand what the problem is at a gut level, not so much an intellectual level. Only then can political potential be properly focused. The wealthy specialize in diffusion, that is why they pump out so much propaganda. Our message must be refined and simple if it is to be effective. If you want to be effective as a communicator as I strive to be, you need to stop picking on your allies.
    1
  2839.  @jgalt308  - Actually, yes. We do have an illegitimate, corrupt and unconstitutional government. I have learned a great deal about how this was accomplished and I would very much like to read your take on how that happened, before addressing remedies. I actually thought my attitude regarding the government would be apparent already, this financialized system would not be possible without government participation.
    1
  2840.  @jgalt308  - So how does the citizenry fight the loss of rights when most people (including myself) are barely aware of, or completely unaware of The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and its application? I can see how this is a problem when corporations saturate all government processes. So what exactly do you believe is the remedy for this mostly invisible yet very tangible problem?
    1
  2841. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
    1
  2842. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
    1
  2843.  @User.9.459  - Not the planet I live on, that's for sure!
    1
  2844. Jon Triebsch %%&&ginger&&%% - Trump is a lying sack of shit and he nor the republicans are handling anything for the benefit of our veterans. Get your head out of the sand man, you are suffering from delirium.
    1
  2845. Jon Triebsch %%&&ginger&&%% - Lock yourself up crazy man. Morons like you cause all the trouble for the normal folk.
    1
  2846. ICE man - Well now, I see that illiteracy and stupidity go hand in hand . . . must be the ICE in your blood keeping oxygen from getting to your brain. If you were to read all the postings, you might learn something and then not post such idiotic responses. Insults you understand, rational discourse you disregard. Typical.
    1
  2847. Aegon Targaryen - I agree with your comment. Also I am heartened that a candidate won without the DNC or any other party backing, so I will be voting for regular people from now on. That is the way we can permanently change the political landscape. What we really need is a BIG picture agenda, after we accomplish all the items on the Justice Democrats platform . . . where do we go from there? Without that big vision goal, the democrats will once again descend into disarray.
    1
  2848. You people want real answers? Then you must first look at the real problem. We have a $22 trillion economy, but $5 trillion of that is interest payments on over $100 trillion in financial assets (the wealth of the 1% mostly). Those interest payments are the reason our housing and healthcare costs keep going up. You want real solutions? Then get it through your thick heads that a wealth cap for individuals and businesses is the only solution to most of our problems. No reform, no law can hold up when wealthy people and corporations can simply dismantle the reforms. Get real for once in your lives and stop chasing petty idealistic ideas.
    1
  2849.  @alan2102X  - Clarification. What I meant by "petty idealistic ideas", is that virtually all progressive platform ideas (which I agree with BTW), are unattainable because of the resistance by, or will be undermined and eliminated by "wealth". Every reform FDR manages to pass have now been destroyed. Every reform is first undermined,, then destroyed by wealth. Until we take away the tools used to destroy reforms, we progressives will get nowhere.
    1
  2850.  @TheBigGSN5  - Pete is a corporate tool, bought out by the likes of Bloomberg. Mike Bloomberg, and all oligarchs for that matter, have convinced Boomers (my generation) and those before the Boomers, that is just fine to sacrifice the future of OUR children and grandchildren. Modern capitalism is a con game, as best illustrated by a quote from Michael Hudson's paper titled "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four Thousand Year Overview. Part 2." "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold." Today, the top 20% have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Using the same 5% interest rate, the interest payment alone on those financial assets would be 13.41% of the 2018 U.S. national economy. Since the economy grew at far less that 13% in 2018, this means that the interest paid to the top 20% was EXTRACTED from all of us. For those interested in Michael Hudson's paper, here is the URL: http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
    1
  2851.  @imnotmike  - Chicken or egg first? The population grew so much in the last century because of economic expansion and oil. With the curbing of both, populations will stabilize. Look at what is happening in the USA . . . birthrates over the past three decades have declined as the economic situation for the population has also declined.
    1
  2852.  @allgoo1990  - Nope, the 1% lost no money. The 1% have been exponentially hollowing out the 99%. Where do you think this is leading to people?
    1
  2853.  @jonathanmccain8646  - Who said anything about communists? The point of capping people wealth is that no system, natural or artificial, can actually operate without limits. To make an exception in the case of wealth, is to create massive imbalances within society leading to war and collapse. You have allowed oligarch propaganda to cloud your common sense, that is why you immediate leaped to use the word communists in your comment reply. Use you own brain for once in your life.
    1
  2854.  @NovaDoll  - Poor people almost always vote against their own best interests.
    1
  2855.  @jonathanmccain8646  - I'll give you that one, I confirmed that. Any others, or was Warren the only one you could find? Besides, audits are not really the point here. The wealthy get loads of unearned free money from "investments", but do they pay a fair share of taxes on those "earnings"? It has been well established that they do not, and that the IRS cannot audit the labyrinth of shell companies the wealthy use to hide their income.
    1
  2856. Peter Nachtway - What is the economy for if not to "promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"? How are you going to do that when the median wage of today purchases less than half of the essential consumer goods the median wage of 30 years ago bought . . . goods we need to survive with? Peter . . you are spew nothing but ass-gas when you post on Professor Wolff's videos. How many jobs have you cost the world this month with your automation business . . . hmmmm?
    1
  2857. NATURAL LAW - Peter is not interested in the least in alleviating suffering, his joy is in promoting the suffering. He has the most fun when he puts people out of work with his automation business . . . and he is only here to gloat and rub pain in everyone's faces. Peter is a serial abuser of Professor Wolff, he cannot pass up an opportunity to rail against the "libtards".
    1
  2858. NATURAL LAW - "It isn't that I want people to suffer is it just that there will always be winners and losers." This is Peter lying his ass off, he loves it when people suffer. That is what he gets off on. He has a very long history of posting false claims about capitalism, and then saying that his word cannot be refuted. Hey Peter, when are you gong to set up that debate between you and Professor Wolff?
    1
  2859. John Nycto - Touché . . . good point!
    1
  2860. Yes . . . it was Clinton. And Reagan. And both Bush's. And Obama also. And they all played a part, every one of them. That's not our problem anymore. We have to do something about the new oligarchy they created, that is the real threat here. Blaming past presidents won't help, that is a tactic they have deployed against us. Straight out of the oligarch's propaganda playbook, turn the population against each other by giving them bits of red meat to fight over. Our real enemy is where the money and wealth is. There needs to be a hard cap on accumulated wealth. Every system has limits built in, but they have conned us into thinking that rich is good and richer is better. Unlimited wealth for those who can grab it. Once you understand that this system needs one single limiter, one governor to make sure the machinery of the economy does not rev out of control, that is when "We the People" will actually have real meaning. Ours is the power they fear, which is why they must have us divided . . . because together we can put the governor on the machinery and make them just plain old ordinary. Its a simple thing, but it is their greatest fear. A HARD CAP ON WEALTH. Make it to the cap and still be a millionaire but everything above the cap is taxed at 100%. THAT IS THE SOLUTION.
    1
  2861.  @househunterhomes  - What tax dollars? Whatever the United States government spends out does not come out of your tax dollars. You are another one of those poor saps who has succumbed to oligarch propaganda, while they pull off the biggest "free money" scam in all recorded history, with your help by the way. How can anyone have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, when we are falsely indoctrinated and then enslaved by capitalism? Hmmm? You have an answer for that smart guy?
    1
  2862.  @househunterhomes  - Riiight. So are you going to pay for this move? I think not. Perhaps our country should not be infested with billionaires, who feel entitled to free money out of my pocket simply because they are billionaires. Perhaps our country should not be infested with private banks who create USD out of thin air, thus diluting our currency. What gives them a greater right to be here than I? Perhaps you should move to another country, maybe Delushistan, I hear they need foolish people.
    1
  2863. @Harold Potsdamer - You are missing something vital in your analysis. Capitalism may be an economic system, yet because of the capitalist system, which always moves toward monopoly and the concentration of wealth, it ends up purchasing the political system. Economic and political systems are intrinsically linked, you cannot separate them. Therefor when referring to a political system, it is correct to call a political system capitalist or socialist, in addition to calling it a democracy, a theocracy, an empire or a dictatorship.
    1
  2864. Elvin Ostrup - Agree, except it is not the rank and file of the military who are the war criminals . . . it is the top leadership. Republicans and Democrats alike share the guilt.
    1
  2865. Ansel Ford - Not know much about the USA's military history? Your ignorance is showing.
    1
  2866. @Debra Hopp - The Merriam Webster definition is hopelessly outdated and was influenced by the same propaganda the oligarchs like to use today, which had its origins in the McCarthy era. I'm very much like you, in that I do not post on matters I have not thoroughly researched in depth. Over the span of my lifetime, I have thought myself to be very well informed. Turns out I was incorrect about that thought. Now pushing 60, I have found out over the past three years that most of what I thought I knew or understood was propaganda. It takes a lot of research to reach the understanding that most what we take for granted are flat out lies. Everything you wrote about socialism in your first paragraph, falls under the heading of flat out lies. Please look into it.
    1
  2867.  @jhansen221  - As if that is any different than what the United States has done, with a greater death toll and the building of empire without the permission of our citizens. Read or listen to the book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins, and "War is a Racket" by USMC Major General Smedley Butler. In addition, look on YouTube for Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. Lawrence B. Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell(republican). He will in a forthright and straightforward manner set the record straight about what the United States under capitalism has accomplished in the world, and it is not pretty or even close the the myths that have been spun to our people about the USA exporting democracy around the world. We have been thoroughly duped by the "powers that be" in this country and the death toll is far greater than Stalin's purge or the atrocities of Hitler.
    1
  2868.  @AdamWeatherall  - Maybe 600k before cashing in their stock options and after they have used all company profits to pump up their company stocks.
    1
  2869.  @AdamWeatherall  - The math in your reply post does not make sense. Remove the S&P500 companies from your 7000 publicly traded companies (corporations) and you get 6500 x $12m = $78 billion. That is less than 1/20 of GDP. Yet in 2021, financial assets (of which corporate stock is the largest part of) gained over $13 trillion in value. Net revenues of only $12 million for 6500 unique corporations which are publicly traded does not generate that kind of growth. Try again.
    1
  2870. Diane Lively - Then help change the system instead of turning your back on it. Get educated about what the real problem is . . . wealth run amok. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
    1
  2871. We already have a wealth tax in the USA, one dime out of every dollar made or spent goes directly into the pockets of the top 20%, "free money" to those who already have the most wealth.
    1
  2872. - KITN - KittilsVogel - Wow . . . the trolls fantasy life is spilling out. Whatsamatter, living under a bridge getting to you ?
    1
  2873. - KITN - KittilsVogel - Yes . . . I can see why. That is some rugged and beautiful country you live in. Very far from the USA and our politics. As a California resident I know the budget numbers get skewed by politics, yet we are running a budget surplus at the moment. As for the rest of your statements, you have access to the same news we do and what you wrote is full of conclusions that publicly available information does not support.
    1
  2874. Summary of the Trump Presidency: "It's not my fault, it's not my fault. Save yourself, I'm not going to do my job."
    1
  2875.  @La-familia-de-Fazio  - You are telling an outright lie about the Michigan governor. I read your comment and it took me less than two minutes of research to find out you are dead wrong. This is what fearmongering does. Besides, ever heard of eBay? You can get seeds at loads of places online.
    1
  2876. @cafemartini - Underage girls, sex trafficking, kidnapping, private sex island for oligarchs and their minions . . . vs two consenting adults. That is comparing a mud puddle to the ocean.
    1
  2877. Then perhaps the corporation should spell its name correctly. Chee-POE-tlay instead of Chipotle.
    1
  2878. Our economy is completely enveloped by a sphere of financial assets that is five time the size of the economy itself. Medicare Advantage is just one of many entities whose sole function is to grow the value of financial assets. Same with the guns, same with oil, same with real estate, same with banking. Open ended, unrestricted growth is called cancer, any type of cancer must be killed or the host body (our economy) will die. It really is that simple.
    1
  2879. The only reason people would watch that show is to check out the women.
    1
  2880. From the moment Jan Crawford opened her mouth until she stopped talking in the first segment ( 1:13 to 3:33 ), the spiel was a political spin job and was certainly not anything resembling "reporting". When the camera showed the other guests, they were all nodding and smiling in agreement. There is a simple common sense reason a perfectionist like Robert Mueller would submit a incomplete job on his report, which follows the next point. The new Attorney General and his staff were not confused in the least by the form of Mueller's investigation, because everyone including Barr and his staff are well aware of Justice Department OLC policy. This supposed "confusion" was clearly meant as political cover for the act of ordering Mueller to conclude his investigation. Since Mueller had an active investigation and Grand Jury empaneled in support of his investigation, it stands to reason the hurried submission of the report on a suddenly terminated investigation would be incomplete.
    1
  2881. This action by the republican House members of storming a closed committee hearing room is a blatant use of force. This demonstration shows what the republicans in this country will resort to in order to keep the wealthy in power over the rest of us. In the near future this type of action will no longer be sufficient and republicans will move to use of lethal force to get their way.
    1
  2882. Kyle, the Mueller team responded to the media misrepresentations, not Mueller himself. That team has been disbanded. Mueller himself has never spoken out, so we don't really know if he would speak up to correct Barr or not. The entire progressive media is treating the Russia investigation like it was not important and was a waste of time. This is simply not the case. The fact of the matter is that the American public wants to know what happened, that is why the corporate media fixated upon this one topic. The progressive media has done a good job keeping us informed about so many other important subjects, but don't fool yourselves into thinking that the corporate media would have covered these topics if they were not fixated on the Russia investigation . . . they would not.
    1
  2883. Election rigging is the Hostile Takeover of our government. Who backs the GOP? Big business, large corporations and wealth generating interests. Less voters equals GOP wins and the GOD does the bidding of its donors. So who is the real problem here? It is time for a National Maximum Income Law and a Wealth Cap Law. The limits are set so anyone can get filthy rich and live in absolute luxury, but no one has enough money to buy the government. It is OUR job to run our politics and our economy, we must take our government back. Right now large corporations and wealthy interests run our government, with the VERY few making decisions good for them and bad for all of us. The only way we fix this problem is to take away the tools that give large corporations and wealthy interests so much power. Take away the ability to accumulate morbid amounts of wealth, and "We the People" will run our own politics and economy.
    1
  2884. Summary of the Trump Presidency: "It's not my fault, it's not my fault. Save yourself, I'm not going to do my job."
    1
  2885. @Rude Awakening <------Ignoramus.
    1
  2886. Following a moron? Good luck with that. Yaron omitted a great deal of pertinent information from this interview regarding the federal debt and government powers, for instance how "the government" is practically owned lock, stock and barrel by wealthy interests, or how a majority of the federal debt went to prop up the "free market" financial assets over the past decade.
    1
  2887.  @stephj9378  - Everyone involved needs to fall and pay the price, I don't care who they are. With the exception of Carter and Eisenhower, every president over the past 50 years has been a criminal . . . they all need to burn. The president I am most concerned about today is Trump, and he is apparently scared shitless over the JE arrest and the trove of evidence already gathered. This is why he suddenly picks a racist fight with the "Squad" . . . and keeps it going, to obscure and create fog around the JE case and his own involvement.
    1
  2888. What astonishes me is the following: The top 20% because they have wealth, have gotten $2.75 trillion in free money in 2019. That is over 13% of the entire GDP. This mode of financial capitalism is unsustainable, not only is it creating record poverty here in the USA, it is literally poisoning our life giving planet. I'm currently 58 years old, born in 1961 and I have never been able to make it out of poverty regardless of my education and skill set. This economic model must end, capitalism can continue but only if a wealth cap plugs the gusher that makes so few people well off.
    1
  2889. The republicans will resort to shenanigans and do something blatantly illegal to keep Trump in power, just look at what they did on September 11th in North Carolina . . . lying to the democrats about not doing any votes on that solemn day, then doing a clearly criminal vote to override a legitimate veto by the governor while the democrats were honoring the dead.
    1
  2890.  @CoolBreeze413  - That is all you have got? Moron. See what I mean? You idiots are so easily conned by the wealthy.
    1
  2891.  @jimmyjam5453  - The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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  2892. Benny Hill, funny. I get it, but I am 56 years old and use to watch the old Benny Hill Show on late night Saturdays. The chase music was hilarious. Seriously, we are kinda screwed. I took the time last year to look into the mess we are in. What it distilled down to is this: decades ago our national economy was abandoned by our own industrialists, in collusion with our politicians. You can't tell the people outright you are going to abandon American workers, so illegal workers are encouraged to migrate and undermine American labor . . . which also provides a very handy political scapegoat later on. Worker ire is focused on the illegal immigrant, meanwhile our noble market oriented banking corporations introduced mass credit to ease our suffering and preserve the illusion of keeping up with the Jones. Now our own citizen corporations have "gone global", playing havoc with the tax base here while raking in record profits. American worker and family wealth starts to be drained. This "rigged" election system is essential to the wealthy interests, and it also distracts us from what they are doing to us. Those statistics that say household median income has grown, yes it has grown but a closer look at why it has grown exposes a horror story. Multiple incomes per household, and what those incomes can buy is less than half what the same would buy three decades ago. Our wealth and earnings are being drained by economic vampires . . . the worst part is that all the republicans and a majority of democrats (corporate democrats) are actively assisting the vampires. We have been trained not to see what is going on, even though we can all feel it happening. Democrats as they are now will never have a coherent robust policy platform, because they have been bought out by wealthy interests. They are resisting the progressive element of their own party, they must because corporate campaign donors are staunch anti-progressive. The two factions are moving at light speed toward irreconcilable differences. The legal term for that phenomenon is: Divorce. No one wins in a divorce, but something has to give. The corporations are bleeding us dry and moving on to exploit other parts of the world, but their feeding tendrils run deep in the USA and they will not let go without a serious fight. We either have to get serious and fight this monster . . . or we have to figure out what to do with the husk and crumbs they leave behind when we are eventually useless to them, because there is no longer anything of economic wealth remaining to extract.
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  2893.  @ChickensAndGardening  - Enjoy your fantasy.
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  2894.  @darrenrussell3695  - Really?
    1
  2895. Using 2018 data, the top 20% in the USA have over $55 trillion in financial assets. Financial assets pay interest ranging from 2% to over 9% depending on what they are. So lets use an average of 5% to do these calculations. At 5% interest, $55 trillion in financial assets will yield $2.75 trillion. The national GDP for 2018 was $20.5 trillion. The GDP growth for 2018 was 2.9%, so with $20.5 trillion the growth in 2018 came out to $595 billion. Just to make the math easy, let just round the GDP growth up to $600 billion. The interest earned on the financial assets of the top 20% swamped GDP growth, ate that growth for a snack. After eating all the GDP growth for 2018, where did the remaining $2.15 trillion in interest come from, if not directly out of GDP? The $2.75 trillion in interest represents 13.41% of the entire economy, please tell me how this interest was paid if not by extracting wealth from the bottom 80%. Since banking and finance are now included in GDP numbers, along with health care and housing, it looks to me like the top 20% made their interest by raising the cost of health care, increasing the cost of housing, bank fees and penalties, plus whatever shenanigans the financial sector is up to. Am I wrong? If so, then please explain where the interest money comes from if not directly from the GDP. There is no gains in the productive economy, all the gains were made by extracting wealth from average American workers. Most jobs these days are low pay, no benefits, with contract work supplanting salaried and hourly wage jobs. Furthermore, on a global scale, the top 1% is now holding 54% of all wealth, and the top 20% globally is holding 94.5% of all wealth. There is no more room to grow wealth for the top 20% globally and the economy is stagnating because the bottom 80% lack purchasing power.
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  2896. Mike Papantonio - I think you are on the edge of buffoonery. What are you talking about? The only action course available to the democrats of the House is investigatory, and there is a hellava lot to investigate with the criminals in the White House and the Senate enablers who have dropped their obligation to be a co-equal branch of government. Do you think republican voters are going to get any less angry? Not with republican law and policy which is designed to hurt them as much as it hurts democratic voters. The House of Representatives needs to do policy in preparation for when democrats hold both the houses of Congress and the White House. But if you think democratic voters are going to put up with them sitting on their hands with regards to this renegade president or his Senate enablers, then you have crossed into buffoon territory yourself . . . perhaps you are the one who needs a muzzle?
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  2897. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
    1
  2898.  @emsnewssupkis6453  - Nonsense. what you are spewing is wealthy oligarch propaganda, meant to divide and conquer. You are on the wrong side of this mess Buddy, wise up.
    1
  2899.  @emsnewssupkis6453  - So your family is part of the support system for the wealthy elites, you wipe out the natives on their behalf and call it progress. No wonder this country is in such a stinking mess, blind followers of oligarch propaganda and enemies of humanity to boot.
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  2900. ​@String Theory Music - Strikes me that most people have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . you enjoy being used like toilet paper? Blue or red, makes no difference, they all have the same masters, which put a lot of money and effort into confusing people.
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  2901. The equation "the rich"=bad, is entirely valid because they are a cost burden on society. I won't bother with the facts supporting that equation, because no one really cares.
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  2902. After the 1971 Powell Memo, business leaders sought to take over all establishments in the United States, education, government and media, to save us from socialism and communism. Look at how they have ruined the economy for the majority of citizens over the past forty years, and with Covid-19 they have shown us with stark clarity that the market will never prepare for anything that does not involve a profit.
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  2903. Peter Edwards - No, it is not Noam who makes my skin crawl, not even a little bit. Listening to people who have traveled to Cuba, they remark about how everyone . . . even the homeless, have great teeth. You see, Cuba learned a long time ago to take care of their people and do preventive medical and dental for everyone. Not only is the population healthy, but the system is cost effective. Far from starving, the people are fairly happy even though they do not have what we have here in the USA. I have also seen first hand reporting from Venezuela, the crisis there is contrived because there is no scarcity of goods except that which is artificially manufactured. Goods in short supply in one neighborhood are in plentiful supply across town. The country is also overwhelmingly capitalist, not socialist except for a few national dividend policies which have long since ended. You may think that the USA is a wonderful place, full of innovation and hard workers. Sure, you are correct . . . but it is also a place where there are 800,000 medical bankruptcies every year, tearing peoples lives apart. It is a place where the republicans tell you that Medicare for All will cost taxpayers 32 trillion over ten years, but neglect to tell you that Americans will pay 34 trillion over ten years for our existing partial coverage system. Lies built upon lies. It is the lies we are told about ourselves which makes my skin crawl and the crawl gets worse when the lies about U.S. foreign policy told by John Bolton are accounted for.
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  2904.  @lackadaisicale492  - No, what you are saying is an outright lie. I've checked on this, the only "statistical sites" that have any numbers reflecting what you are saying are propaganda outlets favoring right wing oligarch talking points. Fact is that the tax burden in the U.S. has been transferred from corporations and the wealthy to the middle class and poor, this is how the wealthy have managed to tap into and loot the U.S. Treasury. You want to be taken seriously? Put up facts instead of oligarch propaganda.
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  2905.  @lackadaisicale492  - Here is an addendum to your last comment. Quote: "The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of total individual income taxes. ... In other words, the bottom 50 percent paid 3 percent." Funny, that statistic . . . because over the past 30 years the top 1% had their share of wealth grow by 16 trillion dollars, while the bottom 50% had their total wealth reduced by 900 billion dollars. Seems fair that the wealthy pay more in taxes, don't you think? Take into account this also, tax money paid to the federal government is not used to fund the federal government. All revenues are simply a line entry on a ledger, there is never a balance sheet given to the federal government saying "this is what your budget is, don't go over this amount" No. Congress appropriates and the Treasury always pays the check because the United States cannot go broke. Taxes are supposed to be used to modulate the overall economy, not to fund federal spending. Why? Because the U.S. is the sole manufacturer of the dollar. Bottom line is this: the federal government does not need taxes in order to operate. They are not a household, they do not need to operate within a "budget". Therefor, arguing about who pays more taxes only serves to keep us from dealing with the real issues at hand . . .
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  2906.  @lackadaisicale492  - Ok, reasonable enough. Lets hit on the basics. A household runs on a finite budget. So do all local and state governments. However, things are different with the federal government. It is a fact that the federal government spends all U.S.dollars into existence and must leave those dollars in the economy for us to spend. The only reason the federal government needs to tax money back to itself it to moderate inflation. So the federal government with its sole proprietorship over the manufacture of its fiat currency, does not need our taxes in order to operate. All U.S. dollars currently in existence, were put there by the U.S. government. The wealthy cannot just pick up themselves and their hoarded dollars and move someplace else, so that idea is pure fantasy. If the wealthy want to keep their wealth and move someplace else, they must transfer out of dollars into another currency or into other tangible assets. If they ever want to buy anything, they need liquidity and right now the U.S. dollar is the worlds reserve currency, hence the reason the wealthy won't be leaving anytime soon. The real problem we have is not taxation, it is the hoarding of dollars in international investment portfolios. Right now in only a single arena, 17 separate international investment firms hold $50 trillion seeking a rate of return. Even at 5% rate of return, that far exceeds the annual GDP of the USA. It will only take 14.4 years for that money to double at 5% interest, that ball of money will be $100 trillion in less than 15 years. Fifteen years after that, it will be $200 trillion and fifteen years after that it will be $400 trillion. There is no way that kind of obligation can be met without looting the treasuries of many countries (origin of regime change politics) and extracting all the wealth from the bottom 80% of people world wide. This will cause wars and China will certainly not stand for the U.S. sticking a straw into their economy to suck them dry. The real problem is not how much taxes the wealthy pay, the real problem is how much "unearned" capital are we going to allow them to extract from us . . . just to pay a rate of return on their hoarded wealth? Also consider, hoarded wealth is not circulating into the economy, it is like a river that is dammed . . . the flow of currency among the population is severely curtailed when wealth is hoarded. Unless the wealthy are taxed at 90% or greater, or a cap on accumulated wealth is put into place, the USA will be stuck printing more and more money which will never even get into the economy at all . . . which is a total perversion of the federal treasury to serve the 1% alone. That is our real problem, The perversion of our tax code to serve the wealthy and corporations alone. So when you recite the numbers you started off with that the wealthy pay 80% of taxes, that is pure propaganda designed by the oligarchs to enlist you into defending them and their perverted goals.
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  2907.  @outside2080  - Perhaps I should have been more specific? As in what benefit for us regular folk was achieved? Nice long list though, good points, and all of them are going to cost us more in the future.
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  2908.  @Thyalwaysseek - What piqued my interest is two videos: 1) All the missile parts laid out for a news conference, apparent "malfunctioning" cruise missiles that crashed in the desert. These caught my eye because I have built, flown and crashed fiberglass composite r/c aircraft and these missiles looked more like they were torn apart and smashed by hand tools rather than crashed. In addition, one of the missiles had "cobwebs" inside the open spaces between the fin and the sheet metal braces (shown in the longer video not this short clip). . . not something that would have survived flight at several hundred MPH. 2) The towers in the oil refineries were not hit by missiles. All missiles pack warheads that explode, blowing all non-armored metal structures they hit into shards. These towers were hit by short range artillery rounds, not missiles. This means the Saudis did this to themselves and all this is a set up. Even the parts shown in this video where whole panels with holes, square holes, panels that should have been greatly disfigured due to catastrophic explosive force . . . even the smallest missiles with a 50 pound warhead would do greater damage than that which was shown. This whole thing stinks of collusion between the Saudis and Trump to cause a war with Iran . . . .my fellow citizens of the USA, beware.
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  2909. Imagine being almost sixty years old and finding out in the past few years that almost everything I believed in was a propaganda lie. I'm really pissed off. It took me three years after I initiated my own research project into our economy to dig up this simple truth, the wealthy want to stay on top and will scorch the earth before they give up their power. I never thought I would be alive during a time of conflict, but the events of this new year have fractured the country. I want to move forward but I can see that the wealthy are never going to let that happen, therefor they must be opposed. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting rich, but not so rich that "power for power's sake" becomes the sole reason for living.
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  2910. Wages have been stagnant since the 1980's, yet ordinary costs to live have tripled. Other things we need like daycare have gone up 600% and medical insurance has gone up 800% in the past three decades.
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  2911. I hope it is all coming apart, our economy is being cannibalized to keep the powerful in power and I've had enough of that.
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  2912.  @davidlafleche1142  - Yes, and Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, and Bush Jr should also be ashamed . . . but they are not.
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  2913. Ha! So let us disregard all the most corrupt nitwits in Congress from Kentucky, Texas, Florida and all the other states that suppress voters.
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  2914. Why does everyone keep looking through the wrong end of the telescope? You want a healthy capitalism? Fine. Start at the top instead of the bottom of the pyramid. Put a hard cap on accumulated wealth of $10 million per adult individual. That much, no more. This one move will solve so many problems, from ending executive pay excess to the the ending of neoliberalism itself. Wealth must be limited by law in order to wrest control of world governments back from the 1%. Failure to recognize this will mean the end of mankind, as the current leaders will do nothing as long as the 1/10th of 1% control all politics.
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  2915. @Dave C - Thanks for the question. Of course we have to acknowledge that a hard wealth cap has never been applied to capitalism, so we are talking about theory. The part that is not theory is that money is both the power source and the lubricant in every modern economy. First we have to look at how the results of economic output are distributed and how that affects overall economic output itself. I'm sure most people know what a water tower is. We have several in our small city. Big tank of water sitting high up in the air with a couple of pipes going from the ground to the tank. One pipe is water being pumped into the holding tank. When that tank is full, it represents our annual GDP. The other pipe is connected to all the surrounding houses and businesses. When the system is operating properly, we all have good water pressure. What happens when there is a break in the main distribution pipe? The water pressure in the surrounding area goes down and everyone gets less water. Using that analogy, convert water into money. We have a big hole in the main distribution pipe which distributes the gains from economic output. The difference here is that unlike the water main break, this was no accident. The main distribution pipeline for our economic output has been tapped and diverted, filling up a huge swimming pool of money for those who tapped into the pipe (the 1%, CEO's executives on corporate boards of directors, etc). The result is there is less money to go around for everyone else. So now lets say we dispatched a economic pipeline repair crew and they found the tapped line. Do you think we should just leave it alone, they asked themselves? Naw, lets hack off that tap line and repair the pipe, restoring normal flow to everyone. The repair is a hard wealth cap. What I am talking about is capping the amount of money anyone can capture and store as wealth. If Jamie Dimon got paid $250,000 per year instead of $18 million, there would be over $17 million per year that J.P. Morgan/Chase could use within the company. Since these high paid CEO's currently employ an army of accountants and tax experts to avoid paying taxes, a wealth cap would eliminate the need for such shenanigans and taxes would normalize somewhat over all personal income tax brackets. Now I'm not saying that a hard wealth cap alone would solve all problems. We need to change our tax structure so that companies are forced to keep their capital inside the USA and not be able to use tax haven countries to hide their profits, that would instantly increase tax revenue. The bigger potential I see for a hard wealth cap is most easily seen in the real estate market. With a wealth cap in place, speculation in the housing market for profit would slim down and no one would be able to buy a $40 million estate unless they got the whole family together to do it. Financialized capitalism would have all the air let out of its sails. We would not be preyed upon for profit nearly as much and perhaps there would not be $30 trillion in 1% idle wealth seeking a 5% or greater annual rate of return on a $20 trillion annual GDP which is only growing at 2.5% per year (which is economic cannibalism).
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  2916. @Dave C - Lets be realistic. There are those among the 1% who do not yet have $10 million in accumulated wealth. That means 99% of working adults have not achieved that level of wealth for sure. So the idea that 99% of working people will lack incentive to work goes away on that basis alone. Also consider that it may be better to have some people move on rather than stay a CEO, with a wealth cap in place we will not be as susceptible to sociopaths having so much power over us. If a company would rather move out than be held to a wealth cap, fine. They lose access to our markets. I never held with the idea that rich people would move if taxed too much, not with uprooting the wife and kids, new schools, new language, far from family, simply not as likely as people would make it out. Same for companies. We have a huge problem no one really talks about. Humanity's ecological footprint is 1.7 earths capacity for renewal. We cannot have ever expanding capitalism, if we keep gong like this, we go extinct. We must create limits especially for those who use the most resources. That means wealthy people must give up their jets and fly first class instead. This means we must have local industry instead of global shipping. Cuts must be made and they are best started at the top.
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  2917. @Dave C - Then let me put this in the simplest possible form. We have a $20 trillion annual GDP. There is a concentration of capital much higher than our annual GDP seeking a rate of return that is greater than GDP growth. This concentration of wealth is comprised of retirement savings and the accumulated wealth of the 1%. We cannot have $30 trillion plus, seeking a rate of return from a $20 trillion economy without cannibalizing the economy. It is simple math. In 22 years all wealth will be owned by the top 10%. There is a critical mass of concentrated wealth, so much so that it is overwhelming the economy. Someone is going to have to give something up, it will be the mass of people or it will be the wealthy. Choose.
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  2918. @Dave C - Because we have gone down this neoliberal path over 40 years, increasing tax rates on high earners will not have the mechanical effect needed to save the economy from cannibalization. You keep arguing the "undesirable effects" clause, but the "undesirable effects" have been here for some time and things are already worse overall than you think. Economic growth is currently a myth. I just don't understand how you can be missing what the math tells us already. Let me try to spell it out very plainly. U.S. GDP = $20 trillion with a growth rate of 2.56% ($560 billion in growth) $30 trillion (minimum) in invested funds seeks a rate of return greater than 5% ($1.5 trillion in interest payments) Subtract $560 billion from $1.5 trillion and you get $940 billion (1,500 - 560 = 940) Just to pay the 5% interest it take all the GDP growth ($560 billion) PLUS $940 billion directly out of the economy. The problem is that to satisfy interest requirements, $940 has to be sucked out of the economy. The way its done to hide its true nature is to raise prices on health care, housing, energy, etc and call the higher prices by a "product" of the economy. This way the extraction gets hidden inside the GDP and the population remains ignorant as to the causes of their distress. We don't have economic growth. What we have is economic contraction so that the wealthy can get paid their free money and they lie to us about it. You really need to get your head wrapped around this. Undesirable effects are already here my friend and I am no longer being fooled. Apparently you ARE still being fooled. Go through the math and tell me where I am wrong. The problem is larger than what I lay out, the 5% interest a low estimate for demonstration purposes only. The real interest rate is 7% to 9%, which is cannibalizing our economy at a much faster rate. If we are going to get out of this, then the 1% is just going to have to sacrifice their wealth and become ordinary.
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  2919.  @TheSpartan3669  - No market will be killed when everyone gets cut down to ordinary. Level playing field (or at least more level that what we have now). Besides the professional sports market is a tool of distraction while the 1% pick our pockets.
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  2920.  @TheSpartan3669  - Yes. Everyone means everyone, no exceptions. The first Olympics in Greece were also used by the elites of the time as a distraction for the masses. The whole point of economic policy is to build machinery that provides an intended outcome. The wealth cap is necessary, as I stated in my other comments here, the current economic system will see all wealth transferred to the top 10% in 22 years. Tell me, how well do you think that is going to go over with the masses of society?
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  2921.  @TheSpartan3669  - Yours is a typical reaction of someone who has not thought this idea through even a few rudimentary levels. Have you read through all of my posts here and taken into account that information in your analysis? I think not. What is it about our current economy that is not economically ruinous or in the slightest politically viable? Your business example is ludicrous. An individual wealth cap has no connection whatsoever to your business and therefor holds no incentive or disincentive value. Yours is what I call a "knee jerk reaction". No actual thought went into your comment, so you cannot be taken seriously.
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  2922. @Dave C - Look up the historical interest rates for the S&P 500 index funds, hedge funds, mutual funds, real estate aggregate gains and average gains since 1995. There is no single source, but the information is easy enough to track down. It requires you to make some lists, write down some numbers and do the math. You can do math, yes? You have not disputed my math so I'm assuming you are able to check this out for yourself. Look, I am a 58 year old late stage boomer with two adult daughters. I am conservative by nature, you have to be to raise some decent kids. Three years ago I began looking into the economy because things are not turning out the way we were taught. Bottom line is that the economy is not its own animal, it is a product of a political story. All economic forms are born, they thrive and then they die. We are in the death throes of capitalism, where capitalism is cannibalizing every economy. You think the GDP will go to shit? News flash, it already went to shit and it in the rotting phase. Let me tell you what is real. Every reform is eroded and destroyed by the wealthy. That is why Medicare for All, free college, the $15/hour minimum wage, all of these reforms are useless unless the tools to dismantle those reforms are removed from the economy and from politics. What most people are doing is what I call "looking in the wrong end of the telescope". Have we learned nothing from FDR and the New Deal? You are correct, I haven't even shown this to be a potential solution to the problem, because it is not all one problem. I pointed out what can be done to solve a great many problems. Have you considered what a wealth cap would do to real estate and housing? Have you considered how salary distribution would be altered in corporations with a wealth cap in place? Have you considered the potential for more worker owned companies once it is understood that a small minority can no longer manipulate company finances to enrich themselves? The list goes on and on. This is a manifold issue. Take for example an engine with fuel injection, how well do you think it would run if #8 cylinder received 20% more fuel than the other seven? It would run, but it would run like shit and break down often. So why treat an economy like that?
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  2923. ​@Dave C - Interest made on investments is called income. The first pie-chart in the link below shows an income distribution comparison between 1989 and 2016. There is a $5.76 trillion difference between the two sets of numbers, which is a 44.7% over 27 years. In 1988 the top 10% had $2.99 trillion in income. In 2016 the top 10% had $6.44 trillion in income, an income that more than doubled over 27 years. The income of the bottom 90% went from $4.06 trillion in 1988 to $6.44 trillion in 2016, an increase of 63% . . . . yet the bottom 90% lost ground because their share of income decreased from 57% of total income to 50% of total income. That decrease in income represents interest payments that were transferred from the bottom 90% to the top 10% of income earners. When you compare income earnings growth to GDP growth, it is clear that the GDP is being outpaced by the income growth of the the top 10% and more starkly by the income growth of the top 1%. These figures come from the Federal Reserve. If you fail to do the math for yourself, then your head is buried in the sand. https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2019/august/wealth-inequality-in-america-facts-figures
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  2924. No Thom, you are wrong. Taxing the wealthy will solve nothing, it will simply be repeating history. We will just end up in the same boat once tax reforms are eroded again. The only real solution is to put a permanent hard cap on individual wealth, because real systems have limits and allowing billionaires to exist is the same thing to the economy as driving a car with a hole in the gas tank.
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  2925.  @bigdopamine9343  - Are you watching the same video as I am? I watched the beginning of this video several times. The student who was tazed was not shown to be attacking anyone. Is there some other video of this event showing what happened prior to the start of this video? In any case, the police are big and strong adults. They can handle situations like this without resorting to pepper spray and especially without using tazers. The young man who was tazed never got up. The officer who did the pepper spray and tazing also did a lot of aggressive shoving, looks like he has anger management issues.
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  2926.  @bigdopamine9343  - Absolute nonsense. At the beginning of the video, the young black man who was tazed was not attacking anyone, both of his hands were down at his sides and there was plenty of space between him and the officers. Upon being pepper sprayed, both arms came up to protect his face, then it was clear that the pepper spray entered the students eyes making him unable to see. There was another young man (white male) got into the officers face repeatedly and was not pepper sprayed or tazed, instead he was aggressively shoved back. As I wrote previously, unless there is another video showing the black student clearly attacking the officers, which so far I have not found, then the officers actions are aggressive, unwarranted and very clearly racist.
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  2927.  @irlgrinder7623  - You people are out of your minds, finding threats where there are none. Like a teenager is any kind of threat to a police officer. Did you see a gun or a knife? No. The kid had already been assaulted by the officer when he had his hands down at his side, after which the kid was flailing with pepper in his eyes. Did you even watch the video? I did, there was no threat that the police could not handled without force.
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  2928.  @bigdopamine9343  - The problem with your idea is, the police are not doing their job. They are simply sowing the seeds of future rebellion by reacting to STUDENTS with violence. It is too bad you cannot see or understand that. Violence has never worked, no in the past and certainly not now.
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  2929.  @bigdopamine9343  - Utterly stupid comment that is without merit. The wars or "police actions" the USA has been in since WW2 disprove your claim. Violence to solve problems rarely works, the only exceptions are to stop or end madmen. I solve my problems without fighting, because fighting is a waste of resources and leaves only destruction in its wake. The evidence is all around us.
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  2930.  @bigdopamine9343  - This situation is entirely political. The school administration made a policy decision in the wake of a sexual harassment act, punish the victim and let the perp go free. The student responded with an act policy protest. The administration made another policy decision in the face of this protest, call the police. The police made a policy decision to use force against black student protesters, instead of a policy decision to use deescalation. All policy decisions are political, that is where the word political comes from. Letting the original perp walk is a political decision that will result in more violence later down the line, just like WW2 was caused by a political decision not to write off the debts caused by WW1. Spoiler Alert! Political decisions often result in future interpersonal violence, which is going to be the case at this high school, you can count on that reality.
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  2931.  @killaj2k281  - My teenage fists against a much larger adult officer wearing protective gear? Against that? No my fists are not weapons. Drumsticks maybe, but not weapons.
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  2932. ACCESAD - Sad, so sad. AllCommies wrote: "You guys really need to find another process besides name calling." So the excessively long moniker you write under does not come under the heading of name calling? Just sayin'! :) Reading through your multiple posts it is readily apparent that your economic and political education, along with your take on current events is made up entirely of extreme right wing extremist propaganda. I'll list it for you: "free stuff, Russia, violent agitators on the left, tinfoil hats, jobs are up, the economy is better, the borders are more secure, the country was third world under Obama . . . . all signs of someone completely out of touch with reality. Those violent agitators you are referring to . . . those are right wing thugs wearing masks sent out to deliberately cause mischief for peaceful protesters. None of them were arrested in DC, the police waited until the black masks were finished causing destruction then mass arrested protesters who had nothing to do with the damage. Same thing happened at Berkeley, the police pulled back at the same moment over 100 black clad vandals in brand new clothing showed up. That was a coordinated event meant to stir up trouble, right out of the nazi brown-shirt disruption manual. Would not be surprised if they were Eric Prince mercenaries, because that is the new face of the Waffen SS serving tRumPutin.
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  2933. sprybug - Outstanding! Thank you for taking the time to write out the debunking in detail. Could not do that myself this week due to a pressing project nearing completion, so I really appreciate your effort. Love the part about the PragerU videos, I went to listen to one of Dennis Prager's campus speech videos and it was unbelievable the number of lies the man told in just five minutes! Well done. Eat that ACCESAD.
    1
  2934.  @OMGAnotherday  - I did not see the comment made by "Sioux Rose" as anything but advocacy for nature itself. Such advocacy gets left out of entire narratives, even climate change narratives. She ( I'm guessing), is correct. For my part, I find that too complex of a comment will garner no responses, so I try to keep my comments as simple as I can, while hitting on a vital point. I appreciate both you and "Sioux Rose" bringing forward excellent comments in response to my own. Bottom line is this, the wealthy have control over the media narratives. This means that the population which relies on the media for information will never know about the earth moving beyond the natural tipping point that leads to endless feedback loops we can never exit from. With Trump as president, a senile Biden being pushed by the wealthy and Sanders being shut out, we are going to become extinct. People simply do not understand that endless growth is not possible. I've used a quote from Michael Hudson's paper on compound interest many times over the years. However, when putting the quote into a recent comment, I found that I had missed a critical word, "millions" in the quote. See if you can catch the significance of understanding this quote, with and without the word "millions". This is from Michael Hudson's paper titled: "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four-Thousand Year Overview Part II". "It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold."
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  2935. I'm voting for Biden/Harris and I hope they win. That will get rid of the wannabe dictator and his crazy tweets, but it will also be the the beginning of the end for the neoliberal experiment. The progressives have awakened and are going to take a wrecking ball and blasting TNT to the establishment in the down ballot 2020 and 2022 elections, propelled by the economic devastation and absolute failure of economic game set in motion by Reagan and the Powell Memo. I'm pushing 60 years old and I have witnessed this economic catastrophe unfolding over my entire working life, and I have had it with the establishment. It is time to tear this shit down and build something better.
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  2936.    - That is what you are concerned with? As regular Americans, we have a real emergency on our hands. The 1% have over $30 trillion and using the most conservative interest payment of 5%, the 1%'s interest payments are 3 times greater than 2018's total GDP growth . . . . this is an urgent freaking emergency no one talks about. 2018's GDP increase was $560 billion, but just the interest alone on the 1%'s wealth was over $1,500 billion. That extra $1000 billion (1 trillion) is coming directly out of the 99%'s pockets in the form of increased costs for basic living needs. Every time the corporations raise prices an ANYTHING, it is to provide a rate of return on the 1%'s wealth. Wealth accumulation of this magnitude has only one outcome . . . the end of democracy. Get you priorities straightened out, we need to put a freaking hard cap on wealth accumulation or kiss our democracy goodbye.
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  2937.  @rainer250  - What an idiotic propaganda fueled rant, the wealthy have you on strings PUPPET. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  2938.  @IceSk8Princessa12  - Where do you people get your information from? Oh yeah, oligarch owned right wing hate media. Divide and conquer, the oldest strategy to keep and maintain power since before the written word . . . and you are buying it. Thanks for tearing us all down, get real lady.
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  2939.  @Raymond7779  - LIAR! Projection much? Right wing hate radio and Fox News . . . that is where all the hate is coming from. TYT and the other progressive YouTube outlets are TRUTH tellers . . . while your head is being packed with lies. Now you are a liar because of the right wing oligarch owned garbage you listen to.
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  2940. The line: "Borrowing money from future generations" is total bullshit. We all know now, that the federal government can create unlimited money and has done so for the past 40 years. There has not been a single moment since the Reagan administration, where anyone in the federal government has honestly considered erasing the existence of Treasury Bonds.
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  2941. Greed is what the GOP and many democrats are all about. Forty years of 1%'er capital gains accumulation and tax cuts have drained all of our wealth. The math is inescapable, wealth in financial assets is a huge mountain compared to our tiny hill of an economy. The only way $90 trillion of privately held financial assets make 5% interest a year off a $21.5 trillion GDP growing at 4% or less a year, is to drain us and the national treasury dry, while at the same time doing the same to our far flung empire of smaller countries. This economy was designed, it was not an accident or natural in any way. The purpose is to destroy democracy and place us all in a form of techno feudalism.
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  2942. No one looks at economics in the same manner as one looks at cosmology. The mass of "wealth" has always been larger and grown faster than the economy. On this day, the mass of wealth is larger than it has ever been, over five times the size of our economy. That wealth will simply roll over anything in its path, leaving destruction in its wake. Always been this way and always will be, until we decide to control that mass.
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  2943. ​ @be4unvme  - I don't disagree with what you are saying. The problem is that your observations don't account for the the earlier years before we had any real international trade, when the mass of wealth got built up several times the size of our economy. The main issue is one of math, wealth builds up faster than a productive economy can support because matters are arranged that way on purpose, which leads to inevitable bubbles and crashes. The only real solution is to confine wealth building to within parameters that a productive economy can support. All endeavors plateau at some point, the stock market has done so at least three times in the past 30 years, but instead of letting nature take its course, the market is propped up artificially so that the wealthy don't lose. Unfortunately, wealth building has very little to do these days with products. It is now all about financial instruments which produce nothing, yet are able to drain wealth from the mass of people and concentrate it into large masses that "must grow", regardless of how much damage is being done to society. Take gasoline these days, the market cap for oil companies grew by over 50% in two years (before the inflation started), a virtual guarantee that gas prices would have to be increased just to keep floating the profit margin. Inflation is simply a mask for the transfer of wealth, that is why inflation exists (it is not a natural phenomenon).
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  2944. Hey there Joe, I am agreeing with the first half of your observations here. There was a lot of quotable material in this video and some basic analysis, but nothing in depth. I was rather hoping to hear more about how the blend could work given current economic and social conditions. I agree, capitalism taken to the extreme would function, I believe, just as you laid it out. What I really wanted to converse with you about is what you wrote after the line, "Conversely imagine a world that is completely socialist.", because if we are to solve any problems, there has to be some clarifications about the narratives that pass for information and knowledge. What most people don't take into account is that ideas evolve, so when a narrative makes a claim, often the claim may have been true in the past but is no longer. Under other circumstances, the narrative fits what the narrator wants people to believe, such as falsehoods claimed as truths. For my own curiosity, I am going to number these narratives. 1) Socialism: "That means the government owns everything." This is no longer the way socialism handles the means of production, the ideas that govern socialism have evolved, learning from the massive failures of the past. The enterprise is now to be owned by the workers, who decide together what to produce and how to accomplish logistics. Who is better qualified than the workers to run a factory or a retail store? The government would not own anything, the governments job is to regulate the economy, not own it. The saying; "That means the government owns everything.", is a narrative used now for propaganda purposes only, mainly to scare people, and is not a current socialist plank. 2) "There is no incentive to produce anything because human beings being inherently lazy would not have motivation to do so." No way. Rarely if ever are the most important inventions and ideas created by companies. They are created by self funded individuals or groups of individuals funded by organizations such as universities, people who find motivation and satisfaction in the doing and in the achievement. There are just as many lazy people in capitalism as there would be in socialism because economics does not decide what drives a person, people are what they are no matter what the economic organization is. This is another narrative used as propaganda, with no actual proof to substantiate the narrative, no direct proof, no empirical evidence acquired by observation or experimentation. Not so fun fact here, capitalism stands in the way of motivated people by placing economic burdens upon them, huge monetary barriers to entry, thus short circuiting motivation and initiative. 3) "If you are a "progressive" you believe that the government is responsible to solve all ills of society even those created by individuals." If your wording had been "especially those created by individuals", I would be in full agreement with you. We need government, it is the only thing that can control rogue elements in both the economy and society, plus the only thing that functions to build a decent future (don't forget FDR and the New Deal, that was government all the way and it did a lot of good). As it stands now, it is individuals who are the greatest threat to us, because it is wealthy individuals who have taken over the government we have, along with our economy. We depend on both and neither is in our control or working for us. Damn straight progressives believe that government is responsible to solve all the ills of society, how else are we supposed to accomplish that? Last and most important, while I respect many of the people in this video, none have really thought out how an economy should run. Our economy is an open system, always has been, with unlimited top end wealth and no responsibility for externalities. The other end is open also, witness the explosion of homeless, not because these people are lazy but because housing is considered a capital asset and is not measured as part of consumer prices. Put simply, people are priced out of housing because it is a capital asset instead of a vital necessity for life, and there is no floor to save them. That is the problem, economic must be a closed system and it is not. The only way we can solve that is with a government, because individuals will not and individuals make a conscience decision to not create solutions running contrary to their perceived self interest. An example is this: capitalism would function almost perfectly if individual wealth was capped at both ends of the wealth spectrum. Encourage people to invent and/or exploit their way to loads of wealth, right up to the point where that individual wealth can start altering political decisions. Since no one should have the privilege of altering or influencing anyone's vote but the one that they are entitled to as a citizen, the wealth cap needs be set at the border between personal wealth and political influence. On the other side, no one should lack for housing, food, education, transportation and health care. Does not matter if a person is productive or not, give them what they need for survival and comfort and there will be little trouble from them (property crime would virtually disappear). For those who have more productive ambition, clear a path for them by providing what they need to fulfill those ambitions, instead of blocking them at every turn. Mankind will benefit enormously from the inventiveness of its people, once they are unshackled from the punitive and predatory capitalism that enslaves us now. BTW, I can prove that last statement, we are shackled and little more than glorified slaves at this point, we are in a no win situation. So yes, government is the only answer to this debacle, the progressives are correct.
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  2945.  @joecarmo9059  - I am much more concerned about trouble inflicted upon society by wealth accumulation. This year, a sum greater than 60% of our GDP has gone into raising the value of financial assets. Every time a financial asset increases in value, society is inflicted with greater costs to live. A wealthy persons gain is paid for by all of us, but it is not that simple. People are forced out of their homes so some wealthy jerk can buy a new yacht and add another million a day to their wealth portfolio. People go without medication or food, just so some rich slob can buy another Rolex. You think self inflicted problems are an issue? They pale compared to the wealth inflicted issues.
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  2946.  @joecarmo9059  - Ok Joe, I respectfully disagree with your disagreement. You wrote: "The reason why I am not bothered by billionaires having all of that money is because it largely does not affect me and most poor people." This is no true Joe, and I am not talking strictly billionaires. The aggregate of wealth, adding up all the billionaires, millionaires and those with 401k's and IRA's, all of it together in a big pile of so-called "investments", is draining wealth from our entire society. Look at the math and then tell me where my error is. Our GDP, under $20 trillion and growing at an average rate of 2.6 percent per year. Financial assets, over $114 trillion and growing at a rate of over 9 percent per year ($9.9 trillion just this year so far, equaling 49% of you GDP to date). Of those financial assets, the top 10% own 89% of them. Over the past three decades, these assets have been used to transfer $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 10%, and you think this does not affect you? Every time an insurance premium goes up, it is because its tied to a financial asset that gets most of the gain. Same for every other price increase you can encounter in our economy, especially housing. All of that employment the wealthy supposedly generate, that is miniscule in the aggregate and is all a part of our tiny GDP (when compared to the power and strength of financial assets to generate a rate of return). Our country long ago passed the point where the real economy could support financial asset gains. Now it is a shell game, three card Monte, where corporations sell bonds to the Federal Reserve and use the money to buy back their own stock to boost stock prices. It is a game and it is rigged. You cannot escape the math and neither will the rest of us when this house of cards caves in. If two people have a dollar in savings, with one getting 2.6% annually and the other getting 6% annually, who comes out on top after 40 years? And what if an additional 3% was taken from the person getting 2.6% annually and paid to the one getting the 6%, giving them 9% annually? You think that is fair? The person getting 2.6% is now losing 0.4 percent of their principle annually and going backward. That is the way financial markets work, they produce nothing and extract wealth from the poor to give freely to the wealthy. Final note, when you benefit from your "investments", it is because money was borrowed or prices are increased for the consumer. Take the inflation we hare currently experiencing. All of it is due to decisions by corporations to raise prices, and they are recording record profits. You still think what the wealthy do, still does not affect you?
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  2947. GeminiPanda - Yeah, according to you and fake Fox News. Get out a little bit, leave your bubble and you will find out socialism has been here all along. Police and fire departments, public roads, public schools . . . .
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  2948. GeminiPanda - People are moving to the USA from Venezuela? Wow, that is rich! Why would they do that when the people of Venezuela know full well that the USA is responsible for their problems? The USA is committing Crimes Against Humanity toward the Venezuelan people to put pressure on them in hopes the people there will topple the legitimate government . . . all so that multi-national companies can swoop in and loot the resources of that country. This is what happens when capitalism starts to fail because the wealthy hoard all the cash and ordinary people cannot purchase enough to accommodate GDP growth demanded by fraudulent equity funds where the wealthy park their money. When there is not enough wealth to extract from ordinary people to satisfy the wealthy, then invade Venezuela! So Fox Fake News keeps telling you the real reason for suffering in Venezuela is the failure of socialism (which being so ignorant, you buy this story), when really it is sanctions put on Venezuela by the Federal Government of the USA that is asphyxiating the people and government of Venezuela. You see, we on the left do research and study to find out what is going on and provide remedies, while you idiots on the right stupidly believe what you are told by the billionaire owner of Fox Fake News. Why do you think that is? Could it be that Rupert Murdoch will personally benefit from raiding Venezuela's resources? Of course it is, and you stupid people believe him and his Fake news puppets. Why don't you look things up for once, instead of drooling all over your armchair. If you do, you will find out that socialism has evolved and is no longer "centralized government planning" . . . like the propaganda you listen to says it is. Get real!
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  2949.  @artirony410  - So you don't tolerate Ronald Reagan? George Bush? Rupert Murdoch? Glad to hear it!
    1
  2950.  @misterc8387  - Ok. Let us assume that I am really stupid. What has the left been doing leading up to today? Your comment is a little short on actual information, so I have no idea what kind of left activities you are referring to.
    1
  2951.  @wouldntyouliketoknow7363  - Find a broader based study. One study consisting of six parts using select participants in a highly polarized region of the planet is not enough to form a scientific consensus.
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  2952.  @wouldntyouliketoknow7363  - Must have struck a nerve. Still projecting, except more shrill.
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  2953. Where is there to flee? No where is a safe haven. Better to fight and protect our home than to flee only to fly into the arms of the enemy. Oh, and in case anyone is wondering what the enemy is . . . . . it is accumulated wealth and those who wield the power of accumulated wealth. We are better off fighting the enemy at home than anywhere else.
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  2954. The architect of our current system was a Supreme Court Justice, Lewis Powell. In 1971 he submitted the now infamous "Powell Memo" to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce . . . both the republicans and the democrats have been using the Powell Memo ever since as a blueprint for the corporate and business takeover of the U.S. government. The Powell Memo: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/ Read it if you want to understand what is happening here. Lewis Powell used fear of socialism and communism to galvanize businesses into taking over our government. The Powell Memo has done more harm to us than socialism ever could.
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  2955. Indeed. Ever since I first heard of MMT and started watching Stephanie Kelton videos, I have become very angry with our Congress. They have spent and spent on large corporations, the military and bailouts of private financial firms. That is our money they are spending, think of what 21 trillion could have paid for over the past thirty years if that money had been spent domestically on education, infrastructure and public works. The Congress knew they did not have to worry about the debt, but they kept telling us, the US public, that we had to tighten our belts and do with less. Criminals, all of them . . . making sure their donors got wealthy by looting our public treasury!
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  2956. The democrats are bound to fail if they put up a centrist candidate for president. They are already projecting that a centrist will be their choice, that is why they are giving up on Ohio. To the horror of my wife, I told her that if we get a centrist democrat like Joe Bidon or Kamalla Harris on the 2020 Democratic Presidential ticket . . . . I would be voting third party. She is rightfully horrified that a split vote will bring us another four years of Trump. However, there is no lessor of two evils . . . there is only evil unless we can get a progressive on the democratic ticket for president. It is time to hold our ground. Sanders 2020.
    1
  2957. As a 57 year old Boomer, I repudiate both Kamala Harris and Beto.
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  2958. Shadow X - Maybe the only people remaining today with a conscience are leftists? That is the way it seems these days to me.
    1
  2959. Shadow X - Given the extra economic power of your employees, it would not surprise me if your personal bottom line got a bump up from 3 billion due to the extra spending your employees could do. You would most certainly benefit from that - Smiley Face!
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  2960. It is not Barr's place, nor the place of the Deputy AG, nor anyone in the Justice Department to pass judgement in this matter. Barr exceeded his authority by passing JUDGEMENT, it is Congress and ONLY Congress that that has the authority to look at the evidence provided in an investigation of the President and then decide what to do. What Barr and Trump are saying is that a president is above the law. Read your Constitution, what has happened is Executive Branch over reach and blatant corruption.
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  2961.  @bluehorseshoe444  - What the OP is ignoring, is that nearly all of the Federal debt happened under republican administrations. We as citizens received no benefit from $23 trillion of Federal debt, but hallaluya for already wealthy, the banks, oil companies, major corporations, Wall Street and the military/industrial complex. Taxes were slashed and federal subsidies were handed out left, right and center over the past forty years, mainly by republicans.
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  2962. Debora Williams - Harry Truman had to fire General Douglas MacArthur, because MacArthur threatened to turn North Korea into a nuclear wasteland . . . or as he put it: "a cobalt zone". The North Koreans have never forgotten that . . . would you forget what a bully did to you? Back then the North Koreans were puny, a nothing power compared to the USA. There was no reason for Douglas MacArthur do ramp up his rhetoric like that except that he wanted to play with his new toys . . . nuclear bombs. It was meant to send a message to the USSR, but when you threaten someone smaller than you . . . don't be surprised when they show up with a weapon that will hurt you badly next time. We started this mess. We . . . the United States of America, should apologize to North Korea and invite them to name their terms. Then we can negotiate and end this mess. Only warmongers want this conflict to escalate.
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  2963. Deshawn - The ignorance is strong with this one. So, I take it you never heard of the Permian Extinction Event . . . when so much methane gas was released that larger life on earth was extinguished and did not arise again for a half million years? That was a natural event caused by volcanic activity. So what you are saying is that it is ok for mankind to generate so much carbon and heat that we cause another mass extinction? It hurts us more when morons who will not open a book or do an internet search, make stupid decisions that are a death sentence not only for themselves, but for everyone else as well. So I have no bad feeling at all when I say . . . Deshawn, you are an utter and complete moron.
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  2964. David Laurie - You are the King of Stupid. The onset of Pliestocene Eocene Thermal Maximum happened over several thousand years, as opposed to the current man made global warming which has occurred in less than two centuries. In addition, during PETM there were mass extinctions in the water and on land. The ancestors of man that you so glibly refer to were on the level of parameciums and other single cell animals. So apparently when mankind dies, you will be ok with that because future intelligence will arise from whatever single celled creature survives mankind's folly. Sorry son, no one buys your idiocy . . . so keep on posting and keep on being an embarrassment, maybe someone will be nice enough to wipe the crazy drool off your face someday.
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  2965. MAGA = Mueller Ain't Going Anywhere! Get over it republican maggots!!
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  2966. Erin S. Thank you for that well written and well considered comment. I am concerned, as all of us should be, about whether or not the memo released by the president is accurate and credible. To the last part of your comment, I feel for your confusion having gone through similar. To bolster elements within the party, I changed my registration from Independent to Democrat last year to hopefully push the party left. I don't think it will work, the corporate so-called "centrist" democrats stand firmly on the right while sputtering "unity". The corporate dems are paid to lose, so I think the progressives in the party and the corporate dems are suffering from irreconcilable differences. Time for a divorce. Last year was a big deal for me and was not all about the election . . . it was because I pulled the trigger on my own personal investigation into something that had been bothering me for some time. There is no way to thumbnail my own investigation results, but here is what I was after: What in the bloody hell has gone wrong with our economy? I thought I could research back to 2008 and that would be good. Nope, too many threads had origins further back. What kept popping up were political milestones . . . tax cuts and regulatory tinkering. This was confusing to me because I was researching "the economy". By the time I put a wrap on my research, I was back at the First World War. There were connecting threads going farther back still, but I by this time had enough already. It was time to crunch the numbers and draw some conclusions. In a nutshell, what I found out is that we have all been played. By "we" I am talking about citizens of the USA. Most of the population (including me) have been carrying on, blissfully ignorant of massive economic and political forces moving in our country over a period of decades. The economy and politics are one and the same. It is entirely because of political games being played, that the economy tanks and sputters. The republicans are of particular interest, they seem to be entwined in all of the tumult and very little of the good. Part of what I found related to this so-called "memo". What the president and the congress has now done is just too similar to the tinkering Hitler was doing back in the 1930's. What alarms me is that due to my hobbies (r/c airplanes) I have become very familiar with the price the German people paid for Hitler's actions by 1945 and after. I don't want our people to pay that kind of price for the current president's and congress's irresponsible actions, because they are truly trying to dismantle our republic and make us unto a fascist regime with Trump as dictator. We have one recourse, and it will not allow for a recovery but it will allow us a restart. The recourse we have is with our vote . . . never vote for a candidate whose campaign is funded by a PAC, a billionaire, corporations, banks, unions, or any type of organization. Our vote need to go to the candidate who raise the entirety of their campaign funding from us . . . We the People. The republicans have sold us out. The corporate democrats have sold us out. They do not represent US anymore. Our country has been taken over by big business, and we need to take it back from them, and then keep this from ever happening again.
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  2967. chris fromm - Funny thing is, republicans are not interested in debate . . . besides what else should I call the creatures crawling all over and throughout the rotting body of the USA, who are in the main responsible for the shape this country is in?
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  2968. chris fromm - Have to disagree with you about the "rotting a lot less". If anything, the rot has accelerated with a brick on the gas pedal. The media is not going to do their job, have not done so for 30 years at least. Look, I spent a lot of time researching back over 100 years to learn what was going on with our economy. We have been sold out since the 1970's, republicans backing big money and the democrats backing Wall Street and the professional class. We the People have been left out and left behind. The current administration is not only hitting the gas petal to accelerate this selling out, they have done so on steroids . . . . much worse than what the republicans did in the 1920's which lead to the Great Republican Depression. Do you remember who paid for all of that? It was We the People. Upsetting the world economy in the 1930's also had a direct effect on the World War that followed. How many Americans, British and Germans had to give up their lives because of the selfish greed of the Republican Party? The same thing is happening now. How many of us are going to have to die this time for the Greed of the 1% and the republicans?
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  2969. chris fromm - If you see Democrats importing foreign workers, and giving amnesty . . . . dig deeper. I can agree with most of what you wrote, but not that. Republicans backed by the industrialists who wanted to break the unions, they are the ones who started the whole illegal immigration process.
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  2970. valiant crusader - I hope you take great comfort in your fake wizard god in the sky, because he is not real. Get a telescope and look at any bright star in the night sky, there is your Sun of God and the creator of all life . . . . not your stupid biblical version.
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  2971. valiant crusader - Adam is a myth, god is a myth. We have now learned where life comes from, so we don't need myths like this anymore. Only the fool uses words like "sinner" anymore.
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  2972. valiant crusader - You are wasting your time with meaningless drivel.
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  2973. Billionaires are the real welfare queens of our time. Financial assets rich people own tax us without representation and gift that money to the already wealthy.
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  2974. Kyle, no reform will last as long as the tools used to dismantle reforms remain. Accumulated wealth is used to destroy reforms, so until there is a hard wealth cap there will be no lasting reforms. Social reform cannot happen without economic reform. The idea that unlimited wealth accumulation is a bug rather than a feature must take hold, without a hard wealth cap all reforms are doomed.
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  2975.  @zackeryzackery9381  - You are a freak who believes in the propaganda of the oligarchs, wow, talk about false labels. You need to take off the tinfoil hat and do some actual research. You don't know what Marxism is, you don't know what communism is. Marx wrote a critique of capitalism and capital, that is all. He NEVER advocated for the redistribution of wealth. You have been conned, and you wholly believe the con because you are just too damn stupid to do the work and learn about the economy yourself. What a freaking idiot.
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  2976.  @jamesmorton7881  - Well, I've got to back you up on this. Wealth grows faster than the economy. That wealth is fueled by debt, and debt grows faster than the economy. When I have asked a few simple questions of the investor types, not a single one will answer my questions. This leads me to believe that A) they never even looked at how capital gains are generated, or B) these investor types are perfectly willing to siphon off the wealth of the bottom 90% or get bailed out by the U.S. Treasury in order to get capital gains. Either way, capitalism is not the great freedom giver and poverty annihilator that the propaganda makes it out to be. Here is how I addressed my unanswered questions to investor types: For those of you who are commenting one way or another on the merits of investing, I would like to ask a question or two. When the sum total of financial assets ( "investments" ) in the USA top $90 trillion and the economy as measured by GDP is around $21.5 trillion, how do "investments" make 6 to 7 percent while the GDP only grows by 2.56% annually? With wealth being larger and growing faster than the economy, how does the economy pay off the dividends wealth earns?
    1
  2977.  @jantheking7028  - CNN might be ok, but do you really trust "news" that originates from the biased opinions of a billionaire owner? Not hate'n, just say'in.
    1
  2978. None of this matters when in 30 years the wealthy will have all of the money in the world and none of us will be able to breathe.
    1
  2979.  @beesplaining1882  - That is true, especially when the electorate has been spoon fed propaganda for generations. Look, for me it is a simple math problem which exposes a con. You cannot have immense wealth whose "earned" interest rate is growing faster than the economy, without also draining the citizen population and the government. This was true of the Roman Empire and it is true of the American Empire. Our people need to learn that financial capitalism is a long running con job, simple to understand. The problem as I understand it is this, our people are too freaking lazy to do simple math. Households and non-profit organizations hold $97 trillion in financial assets which "earn" at least 5% annually. Those holdings dwarf our economy which is $21.5 trillion growing at 2.56% annually over 30 years. The "interest" from those financial assets is more than 22% of the entire GDP. The trend is wealth grows faster than the economy, which cannot be sustained and in fact is the single leading cause of our national distress over the past 50 years. People need to get off their asses and think hard about this, or simply watch Netflix as our country go the way of the Roman Empire.
    1
  2980. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
    1
  2981. This why we have to refocus our energy. Our efforts are wasted when we try to do reforms of any kind, because those reforms will always be dismantled. Instead of changing a myriad of different laws trying to combat undue influence, there are only two simple rules that must be placed into law. First in an Annual Income Cap, the second is an Accumulated Wealth Cap. It is vast wealth in the hands of individuals which is the root cause of all our woes and the dysfunction of wealth inequality in our worldwide collective societies. Vast wealth is the toolkit used to dismantle all reforms put into law, and the one glaring example I will put forward is FDR's New Deal. In the decades since the New Deal, the wielders of vast wealth have been dismantling the New Deal piece by piece. Now the New Deal is gone, destroyed. This happens to every law, every reform ever put in place to protect the majority. There is a simple guide as to what the caps should be. By all means, earn your millions until you have enough for you and your family to live in the utmost of luxury for a lifetime. Beyond that point, return everything you earn back to the society that helped you create the wealth in the first place. No one makes millions in a vacuum, everyone who does so has the help of the entire society of human beings . . . every millionaire made is a joint venture with society. I'm 57 years old and my eldest daughter is 30 years old. Between us we have the life experiences of our generations. We did a "thought experiment" to ascertain what the income and wealth limits should be. Her ideas encompassed more than my own, so we generally went with her numbers. I would like to see more of us doing such "thought experiments" so we can come up with a consensus that will make an annual income and accumulated wealth cap palatable to the majority. Do these two things and all dark money political contributions evaporate down to a level where the will of the few no longer dominates the will of the many. We already know excessive wealth beyond what is needed to live a life of utmost luxury is mostly then used to exert power over the powerless.
    1
  2982.  @niradnagrom2356  - The definition of failure: Trying to compress some anti-propaganda reality checks for poor dumbsh ts into two sentences or less. These people listen to hours of propaganda without even realizing it, it is not easy at all to get through. I've given your question considerable thought over some span of years, no real solutions yet and exponentially growing obstacles.
    1
  2983.  @anthonytwohill9726  - I was going to reply to Febopenny Ficari about this, however since you are so sick of correcting these idiots, you deserve the attention. Tell me something, what is it called when financial assets (erroneously called "investments") has mass at least four times larger than our GDP and a growth rate nearly double the GDP growth rate? I'll give you a hint: it is not capitalism because true capitalism involves risk.
    1
  2984.  @febopennyficari8716  - So in your economy based on capital so you have capitalism, what do you call it when you have so-called "investments" which have an up side, but do not have risk? Also, what do you call it when wealth in the form of financial assets are four times larger than GDP and grow twice as fast? Surely neither of these questions involve answering by assigning "capitalism" as an explanation, do they?
    1
  2985.  @twoshedsjohnson8540  - Oh no, no, no, that is not correct at all. The corruptive cronyism that plagues us today comes from outside the government. The rise of government power is fueled by wealth, therefor wealth runs the government, not us. In order to change this, we must vote for the person we never heard of who has the least amount of campaign funding, not the person who buys the most television ads.
    1
  2986. Capitalism kills. Criminalize capitalism!
    1
  2987. Lets cut straight to the solution . . . an absolute wealth cap. We have limits and caps on everything, except wealth. Why have we left out wealth? Bottom line is this, with a wealth cap set at $10 million . . . we get rid of lobbying, money in campaign finance and income inequality all in one blow. Why bother making all these other rules and reforms when the wealthy will just erode them away? Lets just cap everyone's wealth . . . . problem solved.
    1
  2988.  @Lee-xb7lb  - Have you ever heard of "critical mass"? If you have, then you know critical mass is a tipping point, where everything changes. Capitalism reached critical mass about two decades ago. Nothing more in profits could be squeezed from productive means within the global economy. This put the "mass" of capital on a collision course with the "mass" of people. This is easy to read if you can do math and are willing to look at hard factual numbers. I'm not very confident that most people these days can actually do 4th grade math, but here is a factual example: Just in the USA there are over (meaning above) $90 trillion in financial assets which pay interest. Using a middle ground number of 5% interest, that sum is $.5 trillion. In interest alone, financial assets in the USA are paying in excess of 20% GDP. Since most financial assets compound, the next year the interest would be over 23% of our GDP. There are many ramifications to the above equation. To disregard those ramifications by dismissing them is akin to lying, being deliberately dishonest. There is a single ramification that is inescapable. In 22 years, all wealth will be concentrated into 10% of the adult population. In 34 years, all wealth will be concentrated onto the hands of 1/10th of 1% of the adult population . . . . just because of compounded interest. That is the goal of capitalism. Monopoly. I want it all.
    1
  2989. What I see here is this, capitalism is gasping for air. Economies around the world are in stagnation. Growth is only happening through the extraction of wealth from common citizens and the manipulation of the stock markets by the central banking system. Here is the USA and elsewhere, the votes are being manipulated to keep the democratic socialist wolves at bay. We are witnessing a dying economic system at the same time we are witnessing our planetary life support system under duress. Change is inevitable.
    1
  2990. advocatus diaboli - You are not making any sense.
    1
  2991. You want to solve the issue of a dysfunctional money system? The only way that will happen is to put a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation. Similar caps would also need to apply to companies and corporations.
    1
  2992.  @wudupfammm8555  - What I am referring to is a maximum, not a minimum. Applied to everyone, no exceptions.
    1
  2993. I believe these right wing networks have been doing more than just indoctrination. Over the span of 55 years, from 1965 to 2000, our economy expanded by 336 percent. Wealth on the other hand, expanded 4599 percent. Think about what kind of long term planning is required for such a feat. I don't think our economy can generate that, just so far this year the gains for financial assets equals 49% of our entire economic output. There is no way half of our economy is being sucked up by the wealthy, is there?
    1
  2994.  @therationalnational  - David, since 1965, until 2020, our economy grew by 336 percent. During the same period of time, wealth in financial assets grew by 4599 percent. Do you think the wealthy will ever have enough? This is a mental illness. Individual wealth needs to be capped for the good of society, high enough for real luxury in life, but never high enough to do what the Kochs, the Mercers and the Murdocks do with their indoctrination networks and political ownership of our government.
    1
  2995. True statement. Accumulated wealth is harmful to the economy, which can be proven using simple math. Using the figures for 2019 shows the harm, confirming your statement. Privately held financial assets (wealth) exceeded $90 trillion, with a average growth rate of 5% to 7% annually. The GDP for the USA was $21.5 trillion with a growth rate over 2018 of 4.1% for the year. The pile of wealth grew by $4.5 trillion (using 5% figure), while the GDP grew by $848.8 billion. If only 18.8% of the wealth growth was converted top capital gains. that would wipe out all the GDP growth for 2019. Accumulated wealth is cannibalizing our economy, eating us alive, and for no better reason than for the wealthy to have bragging rights. Enough is enough.
    1
  2996. This why we have to refocus our energy. Our efforts are wasted when we try to do reforms of any kind, because those reforms will always be dismantled. Instead of changing a myriad of different laws trying to combat undue influence, there are only two simple rules that must be placed into law. First in an Annual Income Cap, the second is an Accumulated Wealth Cap. It is vast wealth in the hands of individuals which is the root cause of all our woes and the dysfunction of wealth inequality in our worldwide collective societies. Vast wealth is the toolkit used to dismantle all reforms put into law, and the one glaring example I will put forward is FDR's New Deal. In the decades since the New Deal, the wielders of vast wealth have been dismantling the New Deal piece by piece. Now the New Deal is gone, destroyed. This happens to every law, every reform ever put in place to protect the majority. There is a simple guide as to what the caps should be. By all means, earn your millions until you have enough for you and your family to live in the utmost of luxury for a lifetime. Beyond that point, return everything you earn back to the society that helped you create the wealth in the first place. No one makes millions in a vacuum, everyone who does so has the help of the entire society of human beings . . . every millionaire made is a joint venture with society. I'm 57 years old and my eldest daughter is 30 years old. Between us we have the life experiences of our generations. We did a "thought experiment" to ascertain what the income and wealth limits should be. Her ideas encompassed more than my own, so we generally went with her numbers. I would like to see more of us doing such "thought experiments" so we can come up with a consensus that will make an annual income and accumulated wealth cap palatable to the majority. Do these two things and all dark money political contributions evaporate down to a level where the will of the few no longer dominates the will of the many. We already know excessive wealth beyond what is needed to live a life of utmost luxury is mostly then used to exert power over the powerless.
    1
  2997. MaGarthur - What we need to focus on is a minimum income AND a maximum income level for all citizens, including a cap on wealth accumulation. The cap on wealth accumulation will short circuit the creation of morbidly wealthy individuals who use that wealth to magnify their one legitimate vote into millions of votes through the funding of propaganda. The difference in the income spread between the minimum and maximums will allow for plenty of incentive for the individual, while the wealth accumulation cap will eliminate the tipping of the political scales because no one will have enough money to do what the Koch Brothers are doing in the present day.
    1
  2998.  @johnd6389  - The experts? They support the system that grows wealth faster than the productive economy can cope with. There is always some self appointed wise guy who can't do math, I guess it is your turn today. Fun eh! You are following the "divide and conquer" propaganda that the billionaire right puts out like bread crumbs for suckers to pick up and spread. That makes you into one of their lackey's, enjoy your ignorance, rejoice in it, though it will get you nowhere and earn you loads of ridicule.
    1
  2999. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
    1
  3000. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
    1
  3001.  @rise_and_reborn4048  - In the 1950's McCarthy type propagandist socialism, there is no choice to be had. Please, try to catch up with the times, they are a changing. Your opening argument fails on it's merits. So we can just walk away from our healthcare provider? To go where? So we can walk away from a landlord, to go where? Try walking away from a lemon car, see where that gets you. The FIRE sector of the economy is parasitic and has infiltrated all levels of our economy, how are we supposed to walk away from that? We cannot. This is what capitalism has done, leached out everything it could from the productive economy and then moved on to looting governments. Really nice system, that capitalism.
    1
  3002. Don't forget about a wealth cap for individuals and businesses, otherwise even these reforms will be eroded and eliminated.
    1
  3003. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
    1
  3004. The real problem we have is this, interest payments on the 1%'s wealth exceed three times our annual GDP growth. The 1% are eating us alive.
    1
  3005. So, when the 99% learn to operate at the correct mind frequency, all will have riches, homes, cars and vacations. Hmmmm, so meanwhile, your home will be taken care of by the very best gardeners and house cleaners, your car will be worked on by the very best technicians and mechanics, plus your vacations will be attended to by the very best in pilots, ground crews, hotel clerks, bartenders, cab drivers and massage therapist's, each of whom also operate at the correct mind frequencies, which means they all have riches, homes, cars and vacations. Great! So no one really needs money anymore because everyone has everything.
    1
  3006. Our president? Oh, you mean that oaf who is not representing all Americans, but instead is only serving himself? What happened to all his wonderful campaign promises? I'd like to see that health care for everyone that he promised, he had the chance when republicans controlled both houses of Congress . . . . but nooooo. Trump passed a major tax cut for the wealthy and drove up our national debt. Aside from that, Trump has done nothing whatsoever for the people who elected him.
    1
  3007.  @Earthnewz  - Hey Earthman, I'm anti-oligarch propaganda, against bloated liars and against those who are trying to take my liberty. Trump is at the top of all three lists.
    1
  3008.  @janschulte8434  - We will have battalions of very creepy people breaking into homes and rooms, switching out red pants for bluejeans . . . . until like a sardine shoal that suddenly changes direction, what color your pants are, is no longer relevant. This whole topic serves only to attack Sanders.
    1
  3009.  @reasonerenlightened2456  - No cap at the top? Simply not true and I will outline why. Throughout history, all reforms that create a better life have been modified downward or eliminated by wealth. The only way we are going to change things is to muzzle wealth, if we don't, then wealth will muzzle us. Next, we have an exponential wealth growth scheme that pretends to be an economy. Just look at one section of wealth called financial assets. In the first half of 2021, financial asset value has increased by $8.7 trillion. If that trend continues, and there is no reason to believe it will not, then the growth of financial assets will be greater than 80% of our GDP. At this rate, in 2022 financial asset growth will surpass the entire GDP. Exponential wealth growth means that 0.01% will own every asset within ten years. Cap individual wealth at a set level and wealth will distribute horizontally through the economy and society, helping everyone. Right now wealth distributes vertically. Think of it like a municipal water system, would you and your town or city sit still if some rich punk tapped into the main water supply and diverted all the water to fill a private lake? Check out this chart from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. just look at the curve first, in 2021 the line is almost vertical. That is called an exponential curve. Then hover your cursor over the 4th quarter of the past two to three years and look at the annual gains, in the trillions per year. These assets only gain value when bought and sold. Someone is spending a great deal of money to do this and all that money is useless to the economy. The total is now over $113 trillion, five times the size of our economy and growing three times faster. This cannot be sustained and the only reason it has grown this much is because the entire country is being looted. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO
    1
  3010.  @reasonerenlightened2456  - I read you correctly, and you are dead wrong. There will be no bottom net, the wealthy will not allow it to happen. They have spent decades and billions of dollars to create convincing propaganda so people believe the poor are responsible for their own plight, that they are lazy bums. With that kind of investment in projection propaganda, they will fight any bottom net on principle and they will win. The only way to deal with this is to remove the wealth used to buy politicians, set political agendas, pack the courts and spread propaganda.
    1
  3011. Capitalism kills. Criminalize capitalism!
    1
  3012. The simple root of all of our problems political and financial this this . . . accumulated wealth. The oligarchs will obscure this fact in shrouds of propaganda fog, yet there it is. It is time for us to place a hard limit on wealth accumulation, a wealth and ownership cap. No reform, not $15/hr, not medicare for all, not even Social Security, can survive the onslaught of wealth power pitted against these reforms. So we must remove the tools of power from the oligarchs by getting rid of them. Cap everyone's wealth at a set limit, failure to do this will cost us our future as we go extinct from the excesses of the oligarchy.
    1
  3013.  @malinhead322  - Oxfam has just come out with their latest numbers. World wide, the top 1% own 54% of all wealth. However the most astonishing number to me was the following: Globally, the top 20% owns 94.5% of all wealth. This leaves only 5.5% of ALL wealth for the bottom 80%. The global elites are rudderless, They have no idea how to keep growing their wealth now that they have attained these levels. With so much wealth concentrated at the top, the rest of us don't have enough money to keep the economies of the world going and stagnation is setting in. Time to change.
    1
  3014.  @zzygyy  - The stock market is a casino, and I don't gamble or steal from hard working people.
    1
  3015. Felix T-Rex - Irony.
    1
  3016. Things are far worse than what Farron is explaining here. The top 20% has over $50 trillion in financial assets. That accumulated wealth is 2.5 times greater than our entire national economy. This makes it impossible to pay any kind of interest on "investment" for this sum without cannibalizing our economy and extracting wealth from the bottom 80% to pay a normal Rate of Return (RoR). This whole system has to go. Just imagine trying to balance 2.5 times your body weight on the top of your head, all day long and every day of the year. You will be crushed. That is what is happening right now to our economy and our lives, we are being crushed. It is time to end capitalism as we know it.
    1
  3017. Overall, the value of financial assets grew by $13.68 trillion in 2021, an 11.58% increase over 2020. That value increase is just over 66% of GDP for the year. When financial assets increase in value, it is not because of savvy investment planning. That increase represents a vacuum cleaner that is sucking wealth straight out of the paychecks, wallets, purses and bank accounts of the bottom 90% of households in the USA. Job creators my a*s, these people are sucking us dry like parasites.
    1
  3018. We are not a nation of laws, as long as Nancy Pelosi continues to obstruct justice.
    1
  3019.  Jackyboy335  - Not me, far too carcinogenic. At the rate they are going, the 1% will own all wealth in 30 years. A hard cap on wealth accumulation is necessary.
    1
  3020.  @jeremyrangel8138  - My, my my. Is projection your hobby? The comment Bill Cote wrote was an accurate representation. Your comment was filled with propaganda fueled "spew", much like another comment of yours I just replied to. You have bought into the oligarch propaganda, hook, line and sinker . . . . and it is so obvious too. Hope you enjoy fighting against your own best interests, and you are doing it for free too! Take solace and comfort in the knowledge that oligarchs love you, for you are such a wonderful tool that does exactly what they want.
    1
  3021.  @jeremyrangel8138  - By using the word "own", I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. You are already twisty enough to hang yourself, which you promptly managed to do. Your projections are filled with vitriol, which is a sure indication that you are not all that happy, for someone doing "quite well". I wonder why that is? Picking on retired folk, picking on homeless folk, could it be you have a bone to pick with society? Could it be that those considering "socialism" strike a chord within, and that somehow makes you angry?
    1
  3022. Kelly Rellis - Your profile is as empty as your brain, so whatever you have to say counts just about as much as a goldfish's opinion.
    1
  3023. In the USA, the top 20% have over $50 trillion in financial assets, garnering over $2.5 trillion in interest every year. This interest is greater than 10% of our economy, which is AFTER they eat all the economic gains. This is FREE money, given to the wealthiest people in our country, without any of them lifting a finger to actually earn it. No longer is wealth an investment in our economy, it is a means in which to steal from our economy.
    1
  3024.  @hawkmoonvt  - You are correct in that if the treasury prints more money, it decreases the value of that currency, thus making it harder for the lower classes to pay their debts. You are incorrect about the connection of paper money to precious metals. In 1971, Nixon took the United States out of the Bretton Woods Agreement and at the same time took our currency completely off the Gold Standard. That means we have a free floating or "fiat" currency. There is no longer anything "physical" backing up our currency except the "good faith" that the USA will pay its debts and interest on treasury notes. Nowadays, paper money is only 1/10th of the currency circulating in the economy, the majority is "digital currency", just keystrokes on a computer. What you are referring to is the old way that money used to be handled, like in the run up to World War Two when France and Great Britain bankrupted themselves paying in gold for war materials from the United States. That world no longer exists.
    1
  3025. The problem is, the people of the USA have been scammed into believing in "investments". Right now households and non-profit organizations hold almost $100 trillion in financial assets. That sum dwarfs the economy. How do financial assets pay 5% on $100 trillion while the economy at $22 trillion cannot get above 4% annually? The answer is that "investments" were never about growing the productive economy and earning an honest profit, it was always about looting the U.S. Treasury and the taxpayers. The idea of investments was sold to the American people so that the wealthy would have accomplices (retirement account holders) while they looted the country.
    1
  3026. Red Death - First the people have to understand what Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism each truly represent. At the present, what we have is a people educated through propaganda . . . so that few truly understand what each represent.
    1
  3027. @The Jews Laugh at You - What you have concluded is absolute nonsense. Being non-Jew and non-Arab, most of us learn what is going on from the outside and from history and are not on any side. Speaking for myself, I see what has happened to Jews in the past and feel empathy. Then I see what Israel is doing today to the Palestinians and I feel outrage. Wrongs of the past cannot be righted by inflicting pain in the present. It is the "State" of Israel which is doing harm today and I am perfectly capable of drawing a distinction between Israel and the Jewish people. With regard to "Arab atrocities", I am also capable of drawing a distinction between the perpetrators of these atrocities and the good Arab people across the world. The only "side" to be on is the side that recognizes to good in all peoples and decries those harm good people. We are not on the side of murderers, whatever their faith or national origin.
    1
  3028.  MEN56  - Nope, sorry. Whatever you were trying to accomplish, it did not work. Blaming the Jews for all our problems is a ridiculous proposition.
    1
  3029. The truth of the matter is: Wealth grows faster than the economy does, and as you all know wealth does not grow by itself. Wealth feeds off the economy, kinda like a parasite because wealth is the ultimate freeloader. Take for example, the playground bully. More than twice the size of the other kids and using that advantage to shake down the smaller kids. That would be a good representation of wealth and our economy in 1947. Since then wealth has grown 6% per year averaged, while the economy has grown 5% per year averaged. Since the economy started with a smaller body and grows at a slower rate, you won't be surprised that wealth is now very nearly five times larger than the economy. This is simple math folks. We have been conned into thinking that finance and investment is how money grows. The truth is that the government and banks creates new money using debt, which is then promptly stolen by wealth. And when the new money is not enough, wealth shakes us down some more and calls it "inflation".
    1
  3030.  @harrychufan  - The sources are from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, Real GDP and Financial Asset charts. They clearly show that wealth grows much faster than GDP. If you combine those two charts with the money supply chart, it is very clear that the first several decades were extracting wealth from the population, then when that extraction was not enough, massive amounts of money were being borrowed to keep wealth growing past the sustainability range. We are for outside anything Keynesian or classical economics has to teach. I did a Excel spreadsheet on the annual numbers 4th quarter numbers from 1947 to the present, which clearly shows that wealth has growth has far exceeded anything that can be accomplished with wealth whose origins come from "work". We have been misled and lied to about the economy and wealth growth, it is very clear to see when you look at the numbers. GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 Financial Assets: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TFAABSHNO M1 MOney Stock: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL
    1
  3031.  @JSkyGemini  - I tried that when I was a young man. Police found a knife on me, that had a double edge. I really did not know that possession of such an item was illegal, especially since I had purchased the knife at a local sporting goods store the previous year (the store just happened to be within line of sight where I was pulled over). Regardless of my protestations, I was convicted of possessing an illegal weapon. The reason Don Jr or even Trump and company can make such claims and not be charged with crimes has more to do with wealth class than justice.
    1
  3032. Hehe - that would be true justiceworthy of their criminal avarice.
    1
  3033. Progger_Frogger - Yes, not all expenditures are equal. What happens when the right new technology is some automation process that increases productivity, and the owner pockets to profits and lays off the workers? The owner will have grown his share of the economy exponentially, correct? What about the workers, now unemployed? They have to cut back on purchases. Bad for the economy, correct? Pretty soon no one can buy the owners products, made with that snazzy automation process. How do we fix that problem eh?
    1
  3034. Progger_Frogger - Then how about a law requiring 50% of all corporate board members to be representatives of labor.
    1
  3035. Progger_Frogger - That is why labor is on the board, they are privvy to all the accounting for the company and thus can make informed decisions with reliable information . . . on the workers behalf. Labor unions would not have the access or influence corporate board members have.
    1
  3036.  @AHSears  - That was interesting. Why did you link to a Press Trust of India | Mumbai article? That is like looking at the world through a crack in a door from a dark room, not much in the way of seeing the big picture. Funny thing is, you completely negated your own case with your final sentence. Why do you think the average Joe barely has the capacity to grow wealth? Let me show you something with more clarity. There has not been that much inflation in consumer goods over time, but there has been a flood of liquidity being pumped into the economy over the past year. The money is going from the Fed, straight to the stock market, that is where actual inflation is showing up. The Federal Reserve is now accepting corporate bonds onto their balance sheet, something it has never done before. You really should check into the phenomenon of "Zombie Corporations", the ones who can only stay in business by borrowing because the revenues they get from "customers who pay for the things they provide" is no longer enough to keep them afloat. Just take a look at the Federal Reserve balance sheet compared to the S&P 500 over the past ten years, they are for all practical purposes identical. The only reason the entire stock market had not collapsed last year, is because of the massive $3 trillion cash infusion going directly to corporations so they could buy back their own stock. This money cannot ever be repaid because corporate revenues from "customers who pay for the things they provide" simply does not exist any longer. http://www.currentmarketvaluation.com/other-models/2020-08-Fed-Balance-Sheet-vs-SP500.php
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  3037. Republicans have conned the Boomers and those who came before them into sacrificing our children and grandchildren, just so that the wealthy can sit on their piles of assets. AOC is a REAL American, unlike the traitor GOP. Anyone want to debate that? Bring it on.
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  3038. John Smith - Nice sarcasm! Really had me going there, wow! What a hoot!!! Do you do standup?
    1
  3039. No reforms or justifiable tax increases will be lasting until wealth itself is capped. The fulcrum around which all this evil rotates is Excessive Accumulated Wealth. The only purpose such excessive wealth is used for is the exertion of power, most notably to dismantle all reforms which restrain accumulated wealth. Once you have accumulated enough to maintain a luxury lifestyle for a lifetime, that is enough. It is not enough to raise taxes on the wealthy, we have been through this cycle many times already. We the People must cap wealth for everyone, it is necessary for our safety as a society.
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  3040.  @InternetMameluq  - Ahhh, sarcasm. My daughters favorite!
    1
  3041.  @InternetMameluq  - Well then, no wonder my daughter's sarcasm is so prickly. Her aim is pretty good! I have a hard time discerning between irony and sarcasm at times.
    1
  3042.  @karengrice2303  - Ditto here.
    1
  3043.  @G.Bfit.93  - A socialist system is not the only way. Think about what you are saying. We have a capitalist system, or to be more precise we have a system that runs on capital and credit. Even David Harvey, a socialist economist, admits that capitalism is too deeply entrenched to be overthrown by revolution. Since David Harvey is correct about this, our goal must be to modify or morph the capitalist system by degrees until it naturally evolves into a socialist system. You are correct, the capitalist will never allow it, so what do you do about it? Revolution has a nasty habit of escaping the control of those who start one. The French Revolutionaries had a motto, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité", in English "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". With capitalism taking the place of feudalism in France and then across the developed world, with almost another century before commercial slavery went underground (unfortunately not eliminated), we have more than adequate evidence that capitalism will not just disappear to be replaced by socialism. This does not mean that we give up on change. The French Revolutionaries did not get "Liberty, Equality, or Fraternity", the revolution escaped their control and other form of bondage took over, controlled by the wealthy. In every circumstance throughout history, the wealthy have controlled both the narrative and the governance under which we live. That is why we must stop fighting on eleven different leftist fronts and consolidate under one banner, the control of wealth (not the elimination of wealth).
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  3044.  @G.Bfit.93  - Thank you. We did enjoy the movie, or rather we would have enjoyed the movie but several weeks ago I proposed that movie night be "catching up on The Magicians on Netflix", since my daughter got us into that series. Then she finally landed the job she was after and our mid-week TV night went away. So tonight we watched the last two episodes of Season 4 and bawled our eyes out. It sucked and it was really good. So here we are in the comment section, having a dialog. Thing is, I'm not sure which direction you are going. On the one hand, you are saying there is nothing we can do (I'm paraphrasing). If we try to change things, the wealthy will just kill us. On the other hand, you seem to believe in socialism and write that private ownership needs to go. But if you don't believe anything can change, why believe in anything at all? For your information, I am a very angry old dude. In the last three years I've been learning that what I believed in my entire life has been a lie, propaganda and misdirection. You seem like a very angry young dude. As an angry old dude I have some advice, don't deal in absolutes when it comes to politics and the economy. Even though we were not given a choice because our presidential candidate was SELECTED FOR US, we still voted Trump out of office. So some things still work, even when they are corrupted. You are wrong about one thing, capitalists are not the only ones who can modify our economy through politics. They currently have the upper hand, but given that we just ejected a wanna-be fascist dictator from the presidency, we can also make other political choices that lead to economic changes. However, to do so, we cannot be fighting on fifty different fronts. There is a way for us to focus our power, but we cannot do that if we allow wealth to divide and conquer us. Notice I wrote "wealth", not republicans, democrats or corporations. It is wealth in concentrated form that does all the damage, therefor "wealth" should get our undivided attention until we bring down the ability to get political power from wealth.
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  3045.  @mysticmac5555  - Ok smart guy, just how ridiculous is it for 19% of the earnings from $90 trillion plus to be cashed out? Eh? That amount would erase all GDP gains for 2019, a year that had an excellent GDP growth of 4.1%. Seriously, where did I say that the solution was socialism? I didn't and you just "inferred" that from what I wrote. Really now, who is spreading disinformation? You are. People like yourself ridicule, because you know the system is screwed up and you need to protect yourself from people who might try to topple the system.
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  3046.  @jamesguilford6807  - It is interesting that Omar brought up Elon Musk as an example, "Why do you or I get to take any of elon musk's money?" As an example of human ingenuity, Elon Musk is everything our system wants to promote. Selling his first company for $100 million gave him the means and freedom to further his ingenuity. This is the type of capitalism I really don't have a problem with and I certainly don't want to take away from Elon the means to achieve his next goals, I'm a big SpaceX fan. However there are two issues I have with the power this gives to one person. The first is the "private equities market", where staggering amounts of wealth are gathered to "earn" more than the economy can produce, which leads to cost increased for all of us, as more "profit" has to be generated to cover the costs of "earning" returns on private equities. This has been putting the squeeze on the rest of us for decades by literally draining wealth from those without private equity portfolio's, something I view as theft. The second problem I have is with the sense of entitlement generated by extreme wealth. Elon Musk responded to criticism over Bolivia on Twitter with the following: “We will coup (coup d’état) whoever we want! Deal with it.” This behavior is simply unacceptable. The people of Bolivia have a right to profit or not, from their own natural resources. Neither a country or and individual should ever have the right or ability to overthrow a government to enable pillaging and plunder of a weaker country.
    1
  3047.  @RL-ue4dz  - If, as you say, we are going to compare the positive effects in/on society that a person has and have that be the sole criteria for judgement, the perhaps that is a meritocracy. The problem is, that is not what we have. We have a plutocracy, not a meritocracy. What we have cannot even be described as a half and half combination, since upward mobility is too limited in the majority of wage paying jobs and the barriers to entry keep a great many talented people from even attempting to try living by their own merits. When the the top five percent are able to live on capital gains alone, having nothing whatsoever to do with merit, that eliminates the possibility of having a meritocracy. Nice try, but no.
    1
  3048.  @G.Bfit.93  - You might be interested in listening to a few minutes of Renegade Inc., where Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. This is amazing honesty, and it reflects upon what you wrote about how the wealthy will kill us rather than give up their power. The particular sequence of note is from 25:26 to 27:22. I was shocked to hear an ex army colonel say this, however it seems more and more likely that what he says will happen. Check it out, the segment is about two minutes. I am in complete agreement with Colonel Wilkerson, I hope that something is worked out, but the youth of today may actually have to do what the Colonel fears. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx-c6IrB62Y
    1
  3049.  @youtubesucks1499  - I've read all three of your comments and will respond top them all here. Doctors and everyone else would be subject to an individual wealth cap, not just to fund Medicare for All. With regards to incentive, is $100 million not enough for anyone? With regards to consequences, why is shutting down your business the only recourse once you reach the wealth cap? If you have no further interest in the business once you achieve the wealth cap status, I'm sure your employees would be happy to carry on the enterprise as a co-op business, while you go live the good life. All of the points you raised are good ones, but they are also minutiae. The macro picture is much more important. At least with a business, you earn your wealth. In the bigger picture, we have an economy that is five time smaller and grows slower than the pool of financial assets feeding upon it. Financial assets to not create wealth, they extract wealth and are the real source of inflation. That is what we should all be most concerned about, not the minutiae.
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  3050.  @youtubesucks1499  - Why the declarative statements? "Now you have rations". What are you talking about? We have rations now, we have caps now, just that they apply to the poor, more than anyone else. Why are you ignoring the wealth extraction funnel, that directs wealth to people who have not worked for or earned it? What is the ring, the one ring of Sauron? The movie call The Ring? You are really short on specifics.
    1
  3051.  @youtubesucks1499  - And the ignorant will continue pushing mythical doctrines like the fantasy you just wrote. Creating wealth is a myth, the reality is legalized theft builds wealth. Investments do not build anything these days, except more ingenious ways to extract wealth from our people, the government and helpless countries abroad. The simple fact is wealth creation is all about financial assets, which as I already told you, are five times larger than our economy and grow at a faster rate than our economy. That is literally "money for nothing" for those holding those assets. It is a no win situation for everyone, yet you still believe the nonsense that you wrote. Face it, you are indoctrinated, as I was before I did the math.
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  3052. Big Red - Do you not understand the BIG LIE you are perpetuating? GDP is up because of extraction economics, wages stagnant while costs have tripled . . . that is profit for the rich taken from the rest of us. Unemployment is down only because the Liar in Chief's Department of Labor is skewing the numbers. The market is up due to stock buy-backs done on our dime through tax breaks for the wealthy, not one bit of the gains is due to productivity. Nothing you wrote constitutes "hard facts", more like convenient lies.
    1
  3053. Ariel D - That blame on the rich is well placed and exactly where it belongs. The wealthy have been buying politicians who write the laws that benefit the wealthy exclusively. Capital gains taxes and Carried Interest taxes are well below the rate paid on the same level of income earned through actual labor. These are loopholes created exclusively for the wealthy. If I or any ordinary citizen worker were to propose a new law to my Representative or Senators, it would have the same chance of passing into law as does static noise. Not so for the wealthy, who have laws passed to benefit themselves over and over again . . . as in the Republican Tax Scam Law of 2017. Meanwhile, with wages stagnant and costs to live over the past three decades tripling on the bottom end, putting together the means in which individuals can start their own businesses has gotten exponentially more difficult. Not so for the Walton family of WalMart fame, who use our taxpayer money to supplement not only the building of their stores, but also to supplement the bottom feeding wages they pay by putting their workers on food stamps and Medicare. Furthermore, they put all other local small businesses OUT OF BUSINESS by using their unfair advantage of extreme wealth. When are you people going to stop defending the indefensible double dipping that the wealthy create for themselves through the political use of their wealth? Now is the time to tax all wealth to the point where one can live a life of luxury if you have earned it, but one can use wealth to alter votes that do not belong to you. It is time for an Income CAP and a Wealth CAP TAX, enough is enough already. Tax it all so that it puts an end to the pervasive lies, liars, cheats and thieves . . . including liars such as yourself who act as Guardians of the System that gives the wealthy more than they earn or deserve.
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  3054. Big Red - Call me a fool at your own peril. Anyone who does some serious research can see for themselves that costs have tripled over the past 30 years . . . at a minimum. Housing. Childcare. Health care. College education. As for booming economy, you are either lying or ignorant. Booming for the billionaires perhaps, but not for the median wage earner. Where are you getting your information from . . . Fox News perhaps?
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  3055. When we have a New-New Deal, it will go extinct just like the Old-New deal . . . . . . unless we take the necessary step of putting a hard cap on accumulated wealth. Capitalism is here to stay, so says David Harvey who is an avowed anti-capitalist and Marxist. The only way to repair the wealth distribution manifold is to plug the open pipe that allows for unlimited wealth accumulation, capping it off at about $10 million per individual. The old way of unlimited compound interest needs to go into the trash heap, because a penny growing at 5% annual interest from the time of Christ until the year 1800 would grow to over 170 earth sized globes of solid gold. This clearly illustrates that there are hard limits to what is practical, compounded interest and unlimited wealth accumulation is simply not practical no matter what anyone says.
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  3056. You already have socialism. Just do some basic math. There is $100 trillion in privately held financial assets in the USA, getting an average return of five percent. The economy is one fifth that size growing by 2.6% annually over 30 years. The economy alone cannot pay $5 trillion for the rate of return on those financial assets, so the government pays what the economy cannot. In the percentile of net worth, the top 10% of income earners get 75% of all capital gains, so this means the wealthy get $3.75 trillion in free money yearly with a great portion of that paid by the government. The wealthy own the government and they reap the benefits, all the while filling your head with propaganda to obscure their theft. Don't believe me? Look up the total sum of privately owned financial assets for 2019, look up the rates of returns for treasury bonds and S&P 500 index funds, do some averaging and then try to figure out where the money actually comes from to pay all those capital gains from the rates of returns on financial assets. The stimulus was in the main, paid to the wealthy and the Federal Reserve is currently propping up the stock market to preserve the gains of the wealthy. We the American people have been conned and there is no other way to look at it once you run the numbers. You are correct, this is not Venezuela, it is far, far, worse.
    1
  3057.  @JTDyer21  - I see that you totally ignored the relevant issues and focused on the propaganda instead. The real problem that we have is that people like yourself are perfectly content to swallow propaganda and side with your own enemies, allowing your own self interest to be sidelined and subverted. Whats the matter, you cannot do sixth grade math and a little bit of research? The regulations protect you, but you would rather have the wealthy make their own rules which hurt both of us. Really damn smart of you.
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  3058. If the shoe was on the other foot with a democrat president, the republicans would not hesitate for one second to put forward a bill similar to Ted Lieu's proposed bill. Maybe it is too little-too late, better late than never.
    1
  3059. Summary of the Trump Presidency: "It's not my fault, it's not my fault. Save yourself, I'm not going to do my job."
    1
  3060.  @Fudge695  - They do, where have you been, under a rock? Only Fox News believers can be this ignorant. Covid-19 is five times more contagious than the flu.
    1
  3061.  @FATHA_I_AM  - What a wonderful product of republican cuts in education for the last four decades. Freaking Ignoramus.
    1
  3062. Never give up, never surrender. That is Plan B.
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  3063. We have a wealth problem. Not only are the wealth singularly unqualified to rule society, they always destroy the society they inhabit. In our case, "bought and paid for" politicians have rigged the government processes so that wealth grows at a faster rate than the economy. The effect was small in 1947 (earliest year the Federal Reserve published records for), but has grown to the point where the gains in wealth for the past two years average more than half of our entire GDP. I fear that when wealth gains eclipse our entire GDP, that all of us will be made into life long debt slaves (by all of us, I mean the bottom 99.5%).
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  3064.  @johnd6389  - Don't feel bad that you are ignorant of the facts. I was the same way until I researched the matter in depth. Before the 1980's, the first part of your statement was true about wealth being earned, sadly this is no longer the case. Stating that wealth having nothing to do with GDP is sheer ignorance.
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  3065.  @lvli044  - Just look at what Biden has said. When interviewed by Lawrence O'Donald on MSNBC, Biden was asked what he would do with a Medicare for All bill that passed both houses of Congress and made it to his desk. Biden was emphatic that he would veto the bill. In a leaked report, Biden told a room full of bankers and corporate types that "nothing would change" in a Biden administration. I don' know if you have a grasp on what that means, so here it is. The "investment" sector of the economy reached a critical mass when Obama bailed out wall Street and the banks. Our "real" economy can never grow, because every year "interest and dividends" will take a larger chunk out of the economy. Just look at a portion of "financial assets" (only a portion), $100 trillion at 5% is $5 trillion interest. That is over 1/5th (22%) of the entire GDP. Every year that bite grows. Biden will change nothing and whoever comes after Biden will change nothing. Those two terms are 80% of the time we have to deal with climate change, and by then that $100 trillion in financial assets will have grown to $150 trillion and be eating over half of GDP.
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  3066.  @iamnotafarid2531  - That is, unless they drug Biden up so he stays awake, coherent and does not lose his temper. I watched the debate between Biden and Sanders, They must have shot Biden up with some uppers and something else to dull the edginess. That night, Biden was not the same guy I see every other time he is on TV.
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  3067.  @lvli044  - Were you around for the unrest in the DNC after the 2016 election? Did you keep tabs on the debates between candidates for Chair of the DNC? What happened? During the final stretch Obama leaned hard on the DNC and got Tom Perez appointed. It was like a repeat performance watching what happened in the DNC this election cycle. Biden did not want to run, Obama and others leaned on him to run because they fear Sanders. Then Obama leaned on Klobuchar and Buttigieg to drop out with critical timing, just before the 2nd Super Tuesday vote. What I am saying here is that "we", the voters, are not choosing anyone. We are being force fed. This time around we have Sanders, but he is not going to run again. We need new leaders, not recycled leaders. Do you think the left is going to be able to fight the establishment when Biden wins? If you do, you are dreaming, which means you are asleep. With Biden in place, the establishment is going to continue force feeding us bad candidates. The only way we break this cycle is to break the DNC and the existing democratic party. Voting for Biden defeats all of us as badly as Trump winning, but at least with Trump the left will be fired up and ready for new leadership.
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  3068. Don't forget about a wealth cap for individuals and businesses, otherwise even these reforms will be eroded and eliminated.
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  3069.  @ernststravoblofeld  - Once we figure out how to grow our own food and supply our own power, that is exactly what we are going to do . . . . wander off the corporate grid. However, my goal is to eliminate oligarch's by making them ordinary like the rest of us by capping wealth. That way no one can buy votes or influence the votes of others, which means we get a real democracy.
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  3070.  @ernststravoblofeld  - It does matter if you cannot survive without the corporations.
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  3071.  @ernststravoblofeld  - Agreed. Yet because of oil, which lead to the industrial revolution, there are now so many people, most of whom depend on corporate supply chains in order to eat, work and travel. To break that dependence requires self reliance and that is in short supply.
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  3072. Marco Rubio said it was not about the donors viewpoints, the donors were buying into his viewpoints. Well now, there is a pretty shiny coat of swamp slime all over Marco Rubio tonight. I'm pretty sure he enjoys having blood on his hands, he was the one who inserted the rider that derailed the risk corridors for the ACA. Who knows how many Americans have lost their lives due to this "principled" donor bait doing what he believes in. Please Florida, get rid of this slimeball. We here in California are taking care of voting out Devon Nunes, please get rid of your own nutter.
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  3073.  James Franko  - You live in a dream world, whereas I live in California, where no one praises socialism and the roads have few potholes compared to the auto suspension killing potholes of all the red states. We also have sidewalks. So it turns out that having higher taxes is the cost of actually having working infrastructure and a decent state to live in.
    1
  3074.  @justinbrennan9819  - You are quoting directly from the Oligarch's Propaganda Handbook. People are dying to get in because U.S. corporations have turned their own country's into stinking shit holes, not because capitalism has such a great job in the USA. It's been that way over 100 years, USMC Major General Smedley Butler wrote a book about this in the 1930's, how the U.S. military subdued other countries in South America and East Asia to make them safe for American capitalist's to exploit the people and resources of those countries, and nothing has changed about that since then. Get facts, not propaganda talking points Buddy.
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  3075.  @c.m.6487  Frankly, those two comments just reveal a vast depth of ignorance. We just traveled over half the country by car, it was a relief to get back into California. The potholes alone were enough to require our car's entire front end to be rebuilt. Then there is capitalism, the one system that has caused more suffering, more debt, more poverty and more pollution than at any other time in human history. I never wrote that socialism would be better for Americans, but I damn well am writing that capitalism did not make Americans the wealthiest people in the world. Capitalism made some very few people into the wealthiest people in the world, and plunged more than half of us into abject poverty. What was that you wrote about me, that "You are objectively delusional" . . . well look into a mirror Pal, the person you see staring back at you is, how did you put it . . . . objectively delusional. You have become a very useful tool, fool, very well indoctrinated.
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  3076.  @americanwoman9880  - Yes, I agree, when you have a bunch of lazy entitled people that won't work and contribute that's where capitalism fails. Trust fund kids. Family wealth inheritance. The over $100 trillion in financial assets pulling in capital gains that hollow out our economy. Where we differ is the perception of people coming in illegally and not paying their taxes but sucking the government tit. That is a great talking point, but not at all accurate. There is no way for illegals to get anything from the government "tit", and if you tried signing up for any government program, you would know that first hand. Furthermore, illegals pay taxes, but have no rights or government representation. What you are talking about is purely propaganda, put out by the billionaires, the oligarchs, who spend billions on think tanks and indoctrination, convincing you to protect them. Nice job, you have become a tool, useful to the very people who are sucking this country dry.
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  3077.  @Gamerad360  - High taxes on the poor, to pay for welfare? You had better go back and confirm the sources of your information.
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  3078.  @c.m.6487  - OK, game on. Lets see if you can play. Lets begin with the last item in your comment, innovation. It is well established that capitalism does not come up with most innovations. Capitalism has never been the driver for innovation, but is has been excellent at the exploitation of innovation. NASA for example is government funded. And do you know why? Because Capitalists shit their pants at the the thought of the unknown. Capitalists never do anything without cost-benefit analysis (Which is analyzing the rewards and the costs of a business venture). Which they won't be able to do if they encounter something that is unprecedented, unexplored or undeveloped. These facts mean that Capitalism inherently discourages innovation, because it's way too risky for porky. The parts of the smartphone that make it smart–GPS, touchscreens, the Internet–were advanced by the Defense Department. Tesla’s batteries came out of a Department of Energy grant. Google’s search algorithm was boosted by a National Science Foundation innovation. Many new drugs have come out of NIH research, not pharma corporation research. These innovations were all funded by the government (socialism), not capitalism. This means that your final statement is grossly misaligned, it was the government in capitalist countries that came up with and paid for innovations, not the capitalists in the capitalist countries, which puts your entire thesis on really shaky footing.
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  3079.  @Gamerad360  - You are incorrect. A simple Google search shows what tax reality is in Sweeden. The first 18,000 kronor of the yearly income are not taxed. Taxable income is reduced by general deductions which means that the marginal tax in practice varies between 7% on incomes just above 18,800 kronor to 60.1% on incomes above 675,700 kronor.
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  3080.  @Gamerad360  - Did you even read the tax information on Sweden? The Social Security tax is paid by the employer, so that does not count on personal taxes. What was you point anyway? Do you even have one?
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  3081.  @heimbatman4516  - Or, if you are in the top 10% of earners, as Americans you also get a huge slice of free money, taxed at an extremely low rate or not at all.
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  3082. @Bruno Pereira - As someone who is an American, I am very interested to read your opinion on subjects related to the USA. The perspective inside the country varies widely, depending greatly on media sources for input. Your input is welcome, then discussion ensues.
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  3083.  @Gamerad360  - Ok, now your game has come into sharp focus. You are advocating for and against ideas that are not your own. Billionaires pay think tanks to come up with the rhetoric which you are parroting, it is meant to divide and conquer. SImply put, those with wealth have gamed the system to get free money from the government, and they don't want us to have any. What you are spouting, that stuff makes you into an excellent tool to use, to protect those with wealth. You really should do more research and stop being such a useful tool for wealthy people. Now you are just going to read this and get all triggered, I know. Tough luck for you, because you only understand things in terms that someone else has defined. Please grow some intelligence, or at least become more inquisitive. It is boring running across the same old indoctrination over and over, it is like my fellow Americans have never acquired critical thinking skills.
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  3084. @Bruno Pereira - Ok, I am game. However I must point out that you were going to offer your opinion, I did not expect questions. However, questions are good and I will answer the questions you posed, just not immediately. It is the end of my day and I'm going off to wind down and sleep. I promise that at some point in my morning, I will answer your questions with specifically and in detail. Good evening to you Sir.
    1
  3085.  @Gamerad360  - After your last comment, I went back and read your comments from when you first showed up. There is no context for your comments about Sweden and a welfare state. After my replies, you basically started parroting talking points that come free market and billionaire funded think tanks. I've run into enough of their work to know your writings are essentially an echo of the propaganda they put out. Therefore, if you want a discussion, put your topics into context and stop making a mess. I asked you before now, what is your point?
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  3086. @Bruno Pereira - As with others here, I went back and reviewed the comments you made to which I replied. Since it had been a week since I replied to your initial comment, I had forgotten about you, thinking that you would not reply. Looking back, you made several statements regarding Bernie, socialism and taxes. To make sure we have context, I am copying your comment here and will refer to it: "I can't wait for Bernie to be elected and destroy the country. I want to see the denialism of you socialists when the American economy collapses with tens of millions of unemployed and hungry (due to political incompetence and bad economic policies, not a pandemic lockdown). Believing that more taxes are the solution to the mismanagement of taxes already paid is insanity and masochism, but there is no point in explaining the basics of economics to you, you keep talking "Bad capitalism, wicked bourgeois elites. Good socialism, free things for the poor". The only remaining option is to let the children learn in practice not to play with fire." As to your opening comment, the country is already being destroyed, by capitalists. The economy is collapsing, tens of millions are unemployed and hungry. This is entirely due to the "political incompetence and bad economic policies" of the republicans and corporate democrats, who are capitalists. Less taxes is clearly not the solution to those problems, in fact the tax cuts of 2017 has accelerated the economic collapse. You closed with "The only remaining option is to let the children learn in practice not to play with fire." Seems that capitalism and the current right wing government have burned down the economy. Clearly, capitalism is causing problems, because under capitalism, both wealth for a minority and debt for the majority, grow faster than the economy is capable of growing. Proof is had by looking at financial assets. With over $100 trillion in financial assets gaining plus-5% annually, those assets are five times larger than the economy and growing at a faster rate. This is simply unsustainable. This is an inescapable fact of capitalism. You seem to think capitalism is the best and that socialism leads to catastrophe. There are innumerable problems with capitalism, it drains wealth from the population, it leads to monopolies, causes vast income inequalities and subjects governments to corporate capture. To keep capitalism in its current form is to guarantee that everything will be burned to the ground. This does not mean that "socialism" should take its place, what it does mean is that capitalism in its current form is toxic, therefore the form must be altered.
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  3087.  @crogers4912  - What is not hard? When people begin a comment without giving context, as in a three word sentence "Its not hard", it makes a reply "hard" to offer. Moving on, you wrote: "Let people keep more of their own money." OK, fine, you are leaving me guessing what you meant, so I am going to suppose you are referring to taxes. What you are probably not referring to is the private taxes we pay in the form of rising costs, costs that go up to fuel capital gains for financial asset holders. That private tax is one you cannot escape or repeal under the current economic model. The remainder of your comment is mirroring what so many people say, yet it is hardly an original thought. As a matter of fact, for those that repeat this talking point, it is obvious that they have given this subject little, if any thought at all. Exactly how is someone supposed to manage their own situation, when the economic situation is out of the majority of individuals control? Please answer that question. Next you say: "Either make more money to fit your lifestyle or change your lifestyle to match your income." Again, that is impossible and that saying such a thing is a favorite right wing talking point, which makes its validity dubious at best. Lifestyle is thrust upon us, not made by us, so making more money as a lifestyle choice is just an obnoxious suggestion. Costs to live keep rising, while wages remain stagnant. You should know this, except that anyone who says what you have written gets their economic information from billionaire run media establishments, which is another way of saying that you are listening to bullshit advice. C'mon man, you can do better than this.
    1
  3088.  @Gamerad360  - The USA is not Sweden. There are a whole host of problems caused by capitalism and the corporate capture of our government in the USA. I did not ask you for an example of a capitalist country that operates like Sweden, almost everyone knows about Sweden. You came out of the blue, making a statement that the poor are taxed to pay for welfare. So is everyone else in Sweden, including the wealthy. Finally, for someone with no interest in a further conversation with me, you sure went on and on, fighting a battle no one is participating in. Good luck to you Sir, you need it.
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  3089.  @Gamerad360  - One more thing . . . . the cost of college education, university education and healthcare is free at the point of service in Sweden, for all Swedish citizens and even some EU citizens. In the USA, we pay a private tax for those services. For some Covid-19 cases the private healthcare services have charged over one million dollars for treatment. The poor and middle class pay a premium private tax in the USA for services that should not cost citizens an extra dime, more than likely far exceeding those paid by the poor of Sweden. Your entire thesis falls apart under scrutiny, without any red herrings being present.
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  3090.  @Gamerad360  - Well . . . why didn't you say so??? This was actually a full explanation with context, much better than a single line of non-contextual script you began with. I'm right with you that Sweden is a good example of Capitalism working to better it's people and society. That is, I was with you until the last line, when you went and jumped into the lunatic pool. Republicans in the United States do not want a Swedish economic model, if they did, then they would have no problem putting forth such a plan to the American people. I would get into the nuts and bolts of how the Swedish economic model is also going to run aground, like what is currently happening in the United States, but you said you were finished conversing with me and I would hate to bother you too much!
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  3091.  @karlkuttup  - Old Socialist States. Those three words carry much meaning. Old socialism, old capitalism. It's all very old. Just so you know, I don't advocate for socialism. When I question capitalism, readers seem to automatically assume that I must be for socialism. I listen to some of the best Marxist professors and capitalist economist's, none has a full grasp on the macro economics, or they are not telling everything they know. Bottom line, capitalism is entrenched. There is no revolution that will overturn capitalism. However, capitalism needs safety devices or it will destroy organized human life. Also, capitalism is but a stepping stone and those who would say differently also do not have a full grasp of the macro picture.
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  3092. Bank of America has been charging $12 per month for at least a decade. The only time this is not the case when I get the odd direct deposit into my checking account.
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  3093. bonitaroache73 - Well Said . . . and, only the tip of the ice burg. My fellow Americans please read the Powell Memo written in 1971 by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. It gives line by line instructions for business and corporations to take over the American economy and political system: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/ That memo was the starting gun in the race to enrich oligarchy and hollow out the population of the USA. Everything Powell blamed on the communists, socialists and civil rights movement for the decline in the USA has come to pass . . . resulting directly from the actual Powell Memo implementation and NOT from the fears Powell expressed.
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  3094. What astonishes me is the following: The top 20% because they have wealth, have gotten $2.75 trillion in free money in 2019. That is over 13% of the entire GDP. This mode of financial capitalism is unsustainable, not only is it creating record poverty here in the USA, it is literally poisoning our life giving planet. I'm currently 58 years old, born in 1961 and I have never been able to make it out of poverty regardless of my education and skill set. This economic model must end, capitalism can continue but only if a wealth cap plugs the gusher that makes so few people well off.
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  3095. You know, the comments here are rather strange. Yes, there are more homeless people here than in any other state. Why? Because the weather is survivable all year round, it has nothing to do with political ideologies. California roads are not the best to be sure, yet as my daughter departed her state due to divorce, she noted that the roads that were not interstate highways were exceedingly bad in every state until she arrived here. I'm going to point fingers here, "you people", who write all the snide comments about "Commieforna" and the democratic politicians here, yet you are blissfully unaware that you are being manipulated. This video is manipulating you. John Stossel is not an unbiased reporter. His Fox Business show "Stossel", aired viewpoints on individual freedom, free market capitalism and small government, all very common in the American media. Yet what most people seem unaware of is these are the talking points of billionaires, whose purpose is to use propaganda in pursuit of power. The homeless issue is not a product of political positions, because it happens regardless if a democrat or republican is in power. Homelessness is a product of growing wealth, when large corporations buy up whole neighborhoods, driving up costs of home ownership for everyone and driving those less able to cope onto the streets. The wealthy cleaned up in 2020, with financial assets gaining almost ten trillion dollars. I believe the entire reason Trump never responded to the Covid pandemic is because corporations wanted to fire millions and re-hire some of the fired workers at lower wages. Stop blaming the politicians and political parties, while they are not saints, they are not the ones in the drivers seat. Use your common sense people, wealth cannot get bigger while millions lose everything, not unless something fishy is going on with our "elite" wealth holders.
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  3096.  @randygoolsby4893  - Too many people actually fall for these "divide and conquer" tactics, not even realizing that they are not the ones winning from these tactics. Strikes me that most people have never bothered to wonder why so much effort, energy and money goes into producing these "us versus them" narratives. So . . . do people enjoy being used like toilet paper? Blue or red, makes no difference, they all have the same masters, who put a lot of money and effort into confusing people. People like you Randy.
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  3097.  @johnboehmer6683  - Oh my, but where to start. Detroit was destroyed by capitalists, period. They took their factories and moved them out of the country. That was not a "liberal" decision. Frankly the entire "liberal versus conservative" narrative is just another version of "us versus them". Capitalists destroyed family farming. The same people that pretend to be on your side, are the ones destroying this nation from the inside. C'mon man, get a grip. Everything you just wrote is straight out of the "Oligarch Propaganda Handbook" and you bought it all, hook, line and sinker. Get the blinders off man, you are not helping matters with your blind obsequiousness.
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  3098. Since 1965, until 2020, our economy grew by 336 percent. During the same period of time, wealth in financial assets grew by 4599 percent. Do you think the wealthy will ever have enough? This is a mental illness folks. Individual wealth needs to be capped for the good of society, high enough for real luxury in life, but never high enough to do what the Kochs, the Mercers and the Murdocks do with their indoctrination networks and political ownership of our government.
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  3099. G Milla - If you actually have a point then . . . make it. If that was your only answer after I laid out a buffet of logic, then you must be very low I.Q.
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  3100. G Milla - How can anyone have a discussion when the first statement is "man-made climate change is a hoax"? Regardless of whether the US is a problem in this area or not, making such a claim does nothing to help solve such a problem. We all use fuel burning transportation, we gave up our car but we still take the bus to get our groceries and the stores use trucks to get supply deliveries, we use electricity also. All of us are very aware of our everyday use of carbon based fuels. You are doing nothing to help with this attitude and you are not using logical thinking even though you used those words to make your case. It took millions of years for nature to sequester the carbon from natural sources into the ground. The earth had huge volcanoes in the past that belched out carbon, one example is the Permian Period which featured massive volcanic eruptions. It is the only known mass extinction of insects . . . until the modern era. (Now insects are dying off at a rate of 2.5% per year, so in 100 years there will be no more insects, therefore no pollinators, therefor no more food). It took 500,000 years for the carbon of that era to be filtered out enough for higher life forms to once again arise on earth. In the modern age, we are taking carbon out of the ground and burning it at a rate natural systems cannot keep up with. This has been proven already through study and experiment. Facts are not erased just because you and that idiot Trump claim it is a hoax. So if AOC is doing nothing to help (which is categorically incorrect), what are you doing? Oh yeah, you claim climate change is a hoax, so you are doing nothing. That is ok, the world is full of imbeciles and you are obviously among them. We will do what we can without you. You listen to and obviously believe the propaganda spew from Fox, so of course you are an imbecile . . . in other words, a useless human.
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  3101. Riiiight "moskow" - itz- "notttt" like you were raised in a Russian troll farm, correct?
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  3102.  @joeblow8750  - How does it feel to be impervious to facts? Oh, never mind. You are also impervious to being rational. This guy is a drooling troll people, go check out his YouTube profile . . . he is a real whackjob.
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  3103.  @joeblow8750  - Oh look . . . its a pop up Moron-in-a-Box! Needs no winding folks, just make a snarky comment and there is is, right on que!
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  3104.  @joeblow8750  - What? You could not bust your way out of a soap bubble.
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  3105. When the republicans give the wealthy a tax cut to the wealthy it will crash the economy. That is exactly what the wealthy desire because it will bring the middle class closer to being the underclass, plus a economic depression will allow the wealthy to buy up real assets and means of production at bargain basement prices. The wealthy never suffer in an economic depression, for them it is a golden opportunity to solidify their hold on wealth and political power.
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  3106. All of it. They want it all. This greed has toppled every empire, they just cannot help themselves. Greed until extinction.
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  3107.  @technatezin  - True. The "elites" will continue to erode democracy until it collapses. The result will be Techno-Feudalism.
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  3108. There was a time when Ronald Reagan was a true progressive, he actually made speeches which any progressive today would recognize. Then there came a time in his successful career when he became co-opted by right wing fanaticism because of his own greed. He wondered aloud why he should continue to working, when after six months labor (if you can call acting "labor"), most of his earnings went to the government in taxes. At the time Reagan was musing about this individual income tax rates for the top income bracket were at 91% and 92%, out of sight compared to the present day. He stated that he would be better served spending the last six months of the year on his ranch riding horses. Well, riding horses is exactly what Ronald Reagan should have done. Let another actor have the chance to play that leading man role. Furthermore, the patriotic thing to do was to keep working and pay those taxes willingly to support the USA and all the USA could accomplish with those tax revenues. Instead greed overtook Ronald Reagan, greed that overwhelmed the sense of abundance he should have carried in his heart, greed that eventually corrupted and threatens now to topple this once great country. Exactly how much money does one person need? If Ronald Reagan had enough money to have a ranch and horses by working only six months out of the year, is that not enough for one person to have? This idea that our society can only function when a small segment demands more and more at the expense of the remainder of our society . . . that idea is the symptom of a terminal illness within our society. There is no reason for the wealth concentration pervasive today other than greed. Does not the Bible say something about greed and avarice? The idea of a cap on wealth and income is a healthy one for the society of today. Every person can live well enough, even a life of luxury . . . without the need to accumulate more than could ever be spent in one human lifetime. It is time for us as humanity to grow up, before the idiots of avarice poison the necessary life giving natural systems on OUR collective planet to the point where no living creatures can survive. Once a certain level of personal annual income and accumulated wealth is achieved, any surplus generated needs to be gladly handed back to the society that enabled that income and wealth to be generated in the first place. Attitudes need to change about this topic . . . immediately.
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  3109. Adam Briceland - Agreed, and please look at my comment toward imiss toronto.
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  3110. imiss toronto - Being well off is not a bad thing, but how much wealth do people actually need? Once one person surpasses earnings or wealth that puts them and their family beyond the need to work for a living, that is quite enough. It has been shown time and time again that people who pursue wealth beyond their actual needs and beyond a luxury lifestyle, those people are in pursuit of power. This has proven to be extremely bad for society and humanity at large. It is time for us as a society to put stringent limits on how much in earnings and wealth a single person or family can accumulate, because our history has shown wealth beyond that point has detrimental effects on society as a whole. Same thing for large businesses and corporations. It is against the best interests of society to let a company or corporation grow so large, that it starts to devour (as in buy up) other companies. Such behavior needs to be strictly limited or eliminated, for the common good of society. People who have talent and/or good ideas should be rewarded handsomely for their contributions to society. Those same people need to be trained that beyond their handsome rewards, their contribution to society also needs to include the excess wealth generated going back into society . . . to help fund other very smart people in bringing their contributions to society. This should be a civic duty, rather than being looked at as it is now . . . as theft of what a person has "rightfully earned". Besides, when you have so much money that it sits in investment accounts earning interest . . . can that money really be considered as something they have really and truly earned? The rate on return for billionaire investors is more than the GDP growth of entire countries. How is this helpful when those investment accounts help to periodically crash the economy?
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  3111. Now its time to go after Trump for lying to Congress, again.
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  3112. Girl Etherial - Yup, you really nailed him down. Just the sheer number of comments written since I posted mine shows this guy is not speaking for the majority and does not represent the majority experiences. Well said.
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  3113. We are too politically segregated. Well yeah, the wealthy want it that way and pay billions to think tanks and oligarch owned media to make it so. Want to solve this? Abolish individual wealth accumulation above $50 million to start then ratchet the cap down until it sits at ten million. No one will ever buy a politician of pay for lobbyists if they don't have the means.
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  3114. This racism and other-blaming was all brought to the surface and promoted by the very wealthy and industrial capitalists over 40 years ago, who needed a convenient narrative to obscure the neo-liberal agenda to create the modern Kings and Serfs society. . . which they knew would strip most Americans of their assets and wages over the past 40 years and accelerate the stripping over the next 40 years. This racism narrative is how they are hiding their action from all of us. Here is what we really need to be concerned with: The Macro Economic Scales. Right now 17 international wealth funds have $50 Trillion in their portfolio's seeking a rate of return. Even at a paltry 5% rate of return, it will only take 14.4 years to double. That is $50 trillion in "free" money gained in 15 years. Where is that going to come from? Certainly not from the legitimate "productive" economy, no . . . it will be "extracted" from all of us and from "regime change" countries. It is time for us to back public policy that puts a hard limit on wealth accumulation, because the appetite of "rate of return" investments cannot possibly be met. When you extrapolate out to 45 years, the $50 trillion of today will becomes $400 trillion. That means $350 trillion dollars gets sucked out of the planet just to pay interest. This is beyond unsustainable, it is destruction, disaster, rape, murder and plunder rolled into one ugly ball. You ever see what happens to a rooftop when too much snow accumulates on it? Collapse. The modern narrative of racism and other-baiting is meant to obscure the nature of the coming collapse. The sheer mass of that much accumulated wealth is going to collapse everything world wide . . . and we have to stop this. Time for an income and wealth cap, it is the only way we can manage this outrage.
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  3115. Here is a thought, let us have no federal taxes at all and institute a hard wealth cap for individuals and businesses. All capital gains, all earnings gains above the cap are taxed at 100%. A wealth cap would stabilize the economy and eliminate virtually all speculation fueled economic bubbles. A wealth cap would also eliminate virtually all private money in politics.
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  3116. It is 5 Trillion dollars were given to the wealthy and corporations . . . the 1.5 trillion dollar number is what the USA has to borrow to cover this grand gift to those who do not need it. The other 3.5 trillion dollars comes from budget cuts over ten years.
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  3117. Short, simple and to the point.
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  3118. I would agree with your last line except, the powers of accumulated wealth are arrayed against you. To really limit the power of corporations is to put a limit on how much wealth any one person can accumulate. We all agree that no one NEEDS billions of dollars to live. Since self control obviously goes out the window as ones wealth increases, why should we put up with individuals who wield power in our political system without being elected? We are so immature as a species, when we think that just because someone invents something special and makes millions of dollars from it, that they get to also run our lives? There are no "Gentlemen" when it comes to wealth accumulation and the power that goes with the wealth.
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  3119. To focus on the billionaires is a mistake. The entire aggregate of wealth and wealth protection should be the real focus, because growing wealth at 10% annually outstrips all production, services and government spending.
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  3120.  Harry Lorigan Jr  - Nope, that is not true. Americans attack America all the time. Donald Trump attacks Americans. Mitch McConnell attacks Americans. Conservatives attack Americans. American billionaires attack Americans. So what you are saying is they should all be killed?
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  3121.  @lucienelson  - Nicely put.
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  3122.  @EDROCKSWOO  - So you think the peaceful protests are going to change the police behavior of killing unarmed black men? Over the past 50 years, when has that worked? Answer: It has not worked. There have been peaceful protest ad nauseam over the decades but the police are still killing unarmed citizens, Just happened again. When people are routinely not listened to or getting justice, there will be a justified forceful response sooner or later. Sooner or later is now, and it is going to spread. Half of the National Guard are black and hispanic, do you really think they are going to start killing their family and friends to protect murdering cops?
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  3123. Petur Martin Johannesen - I don't think anyone who responded actually tried to answer your question, so I will give it a shot. It will have to be simplified and I will draw on modern definitions I have learned. Socialism simply defined is that the means of production within the economy are owned and operated by the workers involved in the enterprise. Production is organized from the bottom up, making each enterprise entirely democratic. That would be your "democratic socialism". "Social democracy" on the other hand is a way of organizing government. The social structure and underpinnings of the society are placed above business interests and markets. An economic floor is placed under all citizens that one cannot fall below. The well being of citizens is promoted and supported, the idea being that a healthy and well educated population is a productive population. The productive population is in the best interest of business interests and markets. "Social democracy" promotes society itself and works very well with socialism, because society itself owns the economy and the means of production.
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  3124. I KNOW NOTHING - You could not have picked a better screen name, because you truly know nothing. Thanks for the laugh however . . . . and the trip down memory lane!
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  3125. I KNOW NOTHING - Well then, you are looking in the wrong weeds given you initial comment . . . so you might want to tune your "gift"'s antenna, your signal is scrambled.
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  3126. Apparently Hannity and Fox News are carrying water for the Trump war against Venezuela, using a conspiracy with Saudi Arabia to increase oil output to drive down the price, combined with the unwarranted sanctions placed on the country by Trump. This is why Trump made his first state visit to the Kingdom of Murderers. The UN Investigator and Human Rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas, has issued his report and clearly the USA is committing Crimes Against Humanity by choking off Venezuela so that it can then be looted by the 1%.. This is all an effort by the 1% and multi-national corporations to topple the legitimately elected leadership in Venezuela so that a failing capitalism can seize and exploit that countries resources . . . because they have almost finished looting every other resource on the planet. People, if you believe this fraud Hannity, then you are simply pawns in their game who come here to get your daily dose of propaganda pacification.
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  3127. Here is something easier and more effective to manage. Put a hard cap on individual wealth. Much easier to enforce than wealth taxes and will solve a lot of structural economic problems.
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  3128. I am a loaf of bread - On the contrary, I do know that. This is something entirely predictable based just on the last 100 years of economics and politics in the USA. To suggest otherwise . . . is truly "dumb", as you put it. Meanwhile, you are still not offering up alternatives.
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  3129. Summary of the Trump Presidency: "It's not my fault, it's not my fault. Save yourself, I'm not going to do my job."
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  3130. Norm, you are a gullible idiot.
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  3131. David Laurie - Victory to what end? Your victory is the total end and annihilation of mankind.
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  3132. Thales Nemo - While I agree that the modern era of the oligarch and corporate coup d’etat started with the Powell Memo, the so called conservatives were doing everything in their power to wage war on democracy for over 100 years. Dupont and many other corporations hired General Smedley Butler to raise an army for the specific purpose to topple our democracy in 1933. General Butler brought their treason to Congress who investigated and concluded that General Butler was correct, then they buried the results of their investigation. If you try and find the Congressional record for that time, all the records are intact except for that investigation and conclusions, whose records have gone missing. It is time to decapitate all corporations plus limit wealth and income for all people, in order to remove these killers from every perch where they might threaten humanity now or in the future.
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  3133. David Laurie - "Your opinion only. ZERO basis in fact."That phrase is the calling card of the willfully propagandized, to be used when no defense is possible. Don't see much adherence to the Constitution going on in Congress or the Executive branch these days. Your victory is and will continue to be the total end and annihilation of mankind.
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  3134. I don't know if Putin wants to drop him, because tRumPutin has done a wonderful job of disrupting and dismantling the State Department and relations with most of the world. This kind of chaos is exactly what Putin desires of the USA, the vigilance of Putin's chief adversary has basically been demolished. I'd say that Putin is getting excellent value out of his "asset".
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  3135. No one died in this attack against Saudi oil refineries, because it was a SELF INFLICTED WOUND! No one goes to the expense of launching a missile attack without explosive warheads, which would have in the least . . . opened up those refinery towers like bananas, and more likely would have FLATTENED many of those tower and container structures. This attack was self inflicted by short range artillery rounds and the recovered missile parts were taken out of storage to show to a war hungry corporate media.
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  3136. You people are as dense as I once was. Both sides sold us out, and are continuing to do so. Congratulations, right now all of you are helping them to hurt us . . . wonderful to have such smart fellow Americans. Do you people know anything about our economic history?
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  3137. S Albro - You have replied to recent comments, but I see you are passing up my two questions. Why is that? I have noticed that republican defenders have a blind spot when it comes to economic policy, especially when hard questions are asked. Why is that?
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  3138. S Albro - Very lame excuses. If people don't see those two questions as relevant to every topic discussed . . . . .well then, the USA has already descended to shit-hole status. Much worse than sarcasm appears in a majority of comments.
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  3139. Idiot remark Jerry.
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  3140.  @johnhinz1173  - Yup. That is why Pelosi is protecting Trump, she benefits from this scam as do her donors.
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  3141. MAGA = Mueller Ain't Going Anywhere! Get over it republican maggots!!
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  3142. Beyond_the_Infinite - Desperation was a long time ago . . . now it is just exasperation. My worldview? How about OUR world coming to an end. Not with nukes, not by illegal immigrants, not by terrorists . . . just a silent gas. A gas that was safely contained. Look, we have all been screwed and it is too late to go back. You keep backing the backstabbers . . . and it is just exasperating. At this rate, we will not be able to save even some of us.
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  3143.  @mrhalorules999  - Your argument fell apart at "the wealthy did extremely well so did the rest of us", and with "Vote libertarian". With the latter, libertarian is just as bad, if not worse than the two party system.
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  3144.  @GeneRogers-br7jq  - Hey Gene, actually the weather portion of my comment was the smallest bit, I spent a lot more time and effort writing about how the wealthy are stealing from us and how that theft is the main cause of homelessness (and crime) in our country. Why did you not pay any attention to the main point of my comment? If I am "woke", then you must be asleep.
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  3145. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  3146. Animal Farm - Wow! you win the Straw Man Monument of the Year Award! Meanwhile, not a word on real methodologies for breaking the two party hold, or the corporate lock on both parties. No solution talk, just a bunch of hot air. Congratulations! .
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  3147. Animal Farm - If I were to place you and Hartmann side by side and compare the two . . . with my choice being who I would pay attention to, it would not be you. Hartmann is rational, providing many perspectives and even a few solutions, along with some historical context. You are just raging against the machine. What would you have us do? Questioning is simply not enough. What practical means would you employ to get us toward your proposed solutions, whenever you get around to offering something? If you cannot offer even a morsel toward some better path, you are wasting your time and everyone else who may read your rants.
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  3148. Animal Farm - Chris Hedges is an honest and experienced voice in the wilderness. Hartman is supporting the best of what he knows. Both are very good at speaking but come up short when offering the masses a simple tool they can understand and use, because both are long winded in nature. Here is something simple the masses can grasp and use to make real change in our global society. The idea from my perspective originated with Thom Hartmann and Professor Richard Wolff, but I have extrapolated further: We have a minimum wage, now it is time to put a maximum cap on individual and family accumulation of wealth. I'm not talking about taking away all of our "embarrassed millionaires" right to earn those millions . . . but come on now, be realistic! How many of us has ever seen five million in earnings over a lifetime of working? If you earn $50,000 annually . . . the most wealth you could possibly accumulate over a working life of 30 years is 1.5 million dollars and that is only if you saved every penny and paid no taxes! If the rest of you folks are like me, I have no problem capping all family wealth accumulation for a lifetime at $50 million dollars with a 95% inheritance tax to avoid dynastic wealth accumulation. That comes out roughly at $1.75 million earned after taxes annually. Virtually every single problem facing us as a human society has its roots embedded in those very few of us who are morbidly wealthy. With the exception of asteroid strikes and possibly earthquakes and volcanoes, every single problem we have stems from accumulated wealth in the hands of very few human beings. Eliminate that morbid excess that with a simple wealth and earnings cap, then most of our problems will disappear and many others will find logical solutions that were being stifled by wealthy individuals who wielded power far in excess of the ONE VOTE they are legally entitled to.
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  3149.  Kommisar   - Oh please. You idiots don't even know what Marx wrote about. Your "akin to" is just so much propaganda fueled BS.
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  3150.  @NaturalProgressGames  - Funny, how Crenshaw never addressed the cost of worthless paper the government is willing to both make and buy. Talk about insulating opinions from ACTUAL information, ha! The Federal Reserve "created" $13 trillion in 2020. You know where most of it ended up? Answer: In the stock market. The value of financial assets went from $94.2 trillion to $104 trillion, in a down economic year. That rise in value corresponds to roughly half of our real GDP. All of this money, just to make rich people happy. Crenshaw is obviously trying to distract us with all this fake concern about now costs and future costs, funny how you seem to be ok with that.
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  3151. Innocent people, especially a president of the USA, should welcome investigations that will clear their names. Only guilty people rant against investigations and call them "witch hunts" . Sure are turning up an awful lot of guilty witches!
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  3152. Matt Ball - That is an uninformed opinion, in fact you are parroting propaganda when you say democrats have no policy but socialism. Than makes you more dangerous than any democrat.
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  3153. Hard wealth cap, no one gets over $10 million in accumulated wealth. Many problems thus solved.
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  3154. Matt cash420 - Clearly there is something amiss if you truly believe this: "last time i check USA is doing just fine with capitalism...." No, the USA is not doing just fine with capitalism. However I would like some examples of what your meaning is . . . so educate me. Also . . . this dovetails with the above . . . you seem to not know very much about socialism or communism. Every example you cited were of dictatorships, and when a dictator takes over . . . the country cannot be and is no longer socialist or communist.
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  3155. Matt cash420 - If you think capitalism is so great, then you must also think the workers are doing wonderfully under capitalism, yes? Question then: WHY has the value of workers median wages been cut by over half in the past three decades under capitalism? Read the question and suss out its meaning before you answer. Charts will tell you that median wages are stagnant or have risen somewhat over three decades. So here is another question for you: Do you know HOW the value of workers median wages has been cut by over half in the past three decades? Everybody please feel free to chip in on these two questions.
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  3156. Matt cash420 - Really? this is your answer? "coolmodelguy if you think socialism is so great move to north korea... or denmark..." What a stupid f-ing moron you are. That is what all the stupid f-ing morons say when they cannot answer a simple stupid f-ing question. Its obvious we cannot trust you with the future of the USA. Thing 1) You don't know what capitalism is. Thing 2) You don't know what socialism is. Thing 3) You don't know what communism is. Thing 4) You don't know what an economy is. Thing 5) You don't know how this capitalist economy is really operating in the USA. You had better step up Pal, because you are proving to be the dumbest block of cement on this page. Now . . . how about you answer my questions.
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  3157.  @lauramorrow2708  - What would be my ideal solution? The economy is a system whose rules are set in our modern age by politics. Currently our economy is an open ended system which I compare to the first steam driven power systems, which regularly blew up (boilers) and self destructed (steam engines), with incredible loss of life and property. When pressure valves for boilers and speed governors for the engines were invented, steam engines became reliable. Basically the lesson is, no system whether natural or artificial is capable of infinite power and growth, so every system needs pressure valves and regulators. Our economy needs both a floor and a ceiling for individual wealth, meaning a UBI as a floor and a hard cap on individual wealth accumulation for a ceiling. I could elaborate on this in detail, but that is my short answer.
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  3158. public domain - Not sure how much debate is possible if we share a like mindset. So I would like to entertain you with a thought experiment my daughter and I did not too long ago. Exactly how much money does one require to live a lifetime in the utmost of luxury? Her numbers came out to be five times higher than my own, but I was happy to adopt her numbers. The parameters I set before we began was this: If you already own a 42 room mansion and you are building a new 96 room mansion . . . you have far too much money and/or wealth. Also excluded from this thought experiment was the purchase of companies, corporations and any other business medium that does not fall under the categorization of lifestyle needs and/or wants. Keeping these thoughts in mind we set to it. Housing, food, transportation, clothing, entertainment, medical coverage, education expenses, having children, energy, taxes (local, federal property and income), travel, vacations, . . . all of these areas were covered. I'd like to get another point of view on this, so I will not say yet what numbers we came up with. The point of the thought experiment was to come up with a maximum annual income and total wealth cap that will allow a person and/or family to live in the utmost luxury for a lifetime.
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  3159. Ahhh yes, to be young and so naive. Don't worry, you will learn the hard way the error of your ways.
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  3160.  @danristau3274  - You need glasses and a hearing aid.
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  3161. Enshohma - You called it correctly. Conditions are being maneuvered, the masses of people are striped of their wealth and the poor pushed into the dirt, as a result of these conditions crime goes up and a fearful population cries out for authority to handle it. Marshall Law comes shortly after that. We all know the game, as old as human history, instinctively carnivorous, cannibalistic and barbaric. The only question is, are we as a species now mature enough to change the rules of the game by bestowing human dignity instead of taking it? Our collective survival depends on the choices we make right now. Choose wisely.
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  3162. ProSocial Future - Yup, right up until automation replaces the workers completely . . . .and then the rich can sell their goods to the robots!
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  3163. Money the US has spent on the military is not wasted! It has fattened up the 1% considerably.
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  3164. Tell me something, are you as equally concerned about the millions in taxpayer money wasted on Trumps every week golf outings?
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  3165.  @GreighThunda  - Liar. Trumps spends the taxpayers money on golfing, not his own money.
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  3166. evan brown - Tinfoil hat working ok?
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  3167. And yet, Nancy Pelosi gave a standing ovation to regime change in Venezuela, after Trump lied about who is the legitimate president of that country. She is a war monger, no different than Trump himself. This is just a game to the elites, and her performance was just that, a performance. Just 20% of the world population controls 94.5% of the worlds wealth, she is Speaker of the House only because she wants to keep the game going for the wealthy elites. Just remember that when you are cheering for her, she does not stand for or represent YOU.
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  3168. Interesting how we now hear nothing about "caravans" coming up from the south, unlike last year when that was all Trump would talk about. No new border wall has been built, Mexico is not paying for the wall and we American are paying the tariff taxes brought on by Trump's trade war (trade wars are easy to win, remember that?). Are we winning yet?
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  3169.  @Redskirt  - The point is that ever since the beginning of modern agriculture in the neolithic era, some men have felt the need to accumulate as much wealth and power as possible. If humanity is to survive, then we, ordinary people, must force a change onto these men. I favor a hard cap on accumulated wealth for all individuals, $10 million and not one penny more. A similar hard cap must apply to businesses, this much: no more. If a line of business is so successful that it grows beyond a set point, then move over so someone else gets a chance to succeed.
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  3170. Matthew Anderson - The republican cuts to public education are paying of for them, that is why Fox News has the 53% market share. Americans are now for the most part . . . stupid and ignorant, which has always been the plan.
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  3171. Snaker Stran - That is an idiotic notion. This is a "wealthy run amok" problem, and it is all the U.S. courts that have been infected, including the SCOTUS. The "running their cities into the ground" phenomenon is bigger than Democratic mayors, and Trump is just the latest symptom of our degradation. The real problem goes much deeper and started well over a century ago. Capitalism is unstable, could not survive the gold standard, could not survive the post World War 2 "Bretton Woods Agreement" . . . and finally cannot survive the free floating "fiat currency" era since 1971. The media and the Fed concentrate on core inflation, yet have not accounted for the effects of stagnant wages, currency devaluation and asset inflation. The homeless are growing, because wages are far outstripped by the tripling (or more) of housing costs as the wealthy must have a way to grow their pie and increasing costs is their vehicle of choice. In 30 years the top 10% will own all wealth, what will people do then for shelter?
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  3172. In my reading of the Constitution, I cannot find a single passage that gives judges a lifetime appointment. I understand the reasoning behind lifetime appointments, yet that reasoning had backfired big time. A Constitutional Amendment to limit judicial terms is the rational course of action . . . yet incredibly difficult to pull off.
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  3173. Don't forget about a wealth cap for individuals and businesses, otherwise even these reforms will be eroded and eliminated.
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  3174. Kamala Harris gave us Steve Mnuchin the Trump sycophant as the most corrupt Secretary of the Treasury and Russia suck-up, all in exchange for a campaign contribution. Kamala Harris had Steve Mnuchin over a barrel regarding One West Bank and its illegal home foreclosures . . . then innocently claims that "her office" of California State Attorney's General declined to prosecute.
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  3175. The democratic party has selected their candidate for president . . . . and they chose Donald Trump.
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  3176. Republicans . . . projecting much? I've never seen such hypocrisy as spewed out by so called conservatives these days. Disgusting.
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  3177.  @vegasmooch  - You are not paying attention. Fully half of full time working Americans are earning less than $18,000 per year, which is impossible to live on. No one who is working for that pittance or with more than one job is lazy, you have just bought into the stupid freaking republican propaganda because you are too lazy to do actual research on this so-called "great economy". Absolutely disgusting.
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  3178.  @retsrow2899  - Most of the time, comments I am responding to have a severe lack of detail. Your comment asks why I do the same. I know I never mentioned the 1st Amendment here and I never wrote the word "trumptard", no one except you has asked for elaboration except you, so what is it specifically that you want to know?
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  3179.  @vegasmooch  - Why can't you people separate the propaganda from facts? If you are so concerned about $11.6 billion in taxpayer money, why are you not concerned with the $2.5 trillion in free money extracted from our economy every year and given to the wealthiest people on the planet? By the way, people in this country do not get $1,600 per year in food stamps. I don't know where you are getting your figures from, but I know you did not research that on your own. How long will it take you people to get actual facts to penetrate your overly thick and illiterate skulls? There is no more ladder climbing in this country, we have been hollowed out and you are too freaking stupid to know it because you live in the Fox News, idiot conservative, criminal republican thought bubble.
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  3180. PBPP - What piqued my interest is two videos: 1) All the missile parts laid out for a news conference, apparent "malfunctioning" cruise missiles that crashed in the desert. These caught my eye because I have built, flown and crashed fiberglass composite r/c aircraft and these missiles looked more like they were torn apart and smashed by hand tools rather than crashed. In addition, one of the missiles had "cobwebs" inside the open spaces between the fin and the sheet metal braces (shown in the longer video not this short clip). . . not something that would have survived flight at several hundred MPH. 2) The towers in the oil refineries were not hit by missiles. All missiles pack warheads that explode, blowing all non-armored metal structures they hit into shards. These towers were hit by short range artillery rounds, not missiles. This means the Saudis did this to themselves and all this is a set up. Even the parts shown in this video where whole panels with holes, square holes, panels that should have been greatly disfigured due to catastrophic explosive force . . . even the smallest missiles with a 50 pound warhead would do greater damage than that which was shown. This whole thing stinks of collusion between the Saudis and Trump to cause a war with Iran . . . .my fellow citizens of the USA, beware.
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  3181. "The rise to power of great wealth" It is the power of great wealth that utilizes "Divide and Conquer" in order to protect itself. Is it not past time to focus on our actual nemesis, the great wealth? That overwhelming anxiety the OP writes about is caused by "great wealth", which is, for all intents and purposes, the un-elected government that is really in control of our lives.
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  3182.  @jay90374  - What a joke. People are so stupid. There is 5 times more wealth seeking a rate of return than the size of the GDP. No generation is going to have it better than the previous because $100 trillion at 5% interest is a $5 trillion interest payment bite out of a $22 trillion economy. Get real.
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  3183. You people want real answers? Then you must first look at the real problem. We have a $22 trillion economy, but $5 trillion of that is interest payments on over $100 trillion in financial assets (the wealth of the 1% mostly). Those interest payments are the reason our housing and healthcare costs keep going up. You want real solutions? Then get it through your thick heads that a wealth cap for individuals and businesses is the only solution to most of our problems. No reform, no law can hold up when wealthy people and corporations can simply dismantle the reforms. Get real for once in your lives and stop chasing petty idealistic ideas.
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  3184. ​ @jay90374  - There is no "fuzzy logic" going on here. Here is how fuzzy the logic is. One penny at 5% compound interest for 1800 years will equal more than 150 million earth size globes of solid gold. That debt cannot ever be paid. So it is with a financialized capitalist system that says $100 trillion can get 5% interest annually off an economy that is 1/5th the size and grows by only 3% per year. Get real. If you think that is fuzzy logic, you have a circuit loose in your brain.
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  3185.  @jay90374  - You point is foolish, solves nothing.
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  3186.  @Masaru_kun  - None of your suggested ideas will take hold or survive, because those with accumulated wealth will undermine and eliminate them. Have we not learned the hardest lesson of FDR's reforms? None of them exist today, all were undermined and eliminated by the wealthy.
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  3187.  @Masaru_kun  - I agree with you about reducing corruption and getting money out of politics. Yet, how are you going to do that? The WolfPac has been trying to get a Constitutional Amendment through a Constitutional Convention for years, and is being fought successfully by wealthy interests. Those with the wealth will fight every reform, so we have to go after the tools used to dismantle reforms . . . which is wealth. Until we get that into the forefront of our thinking, we are just spinning our wheels and wasting energy. We don't have any more time for wasted energy. Look, I have thought through dozens of permutations of a wealth cap from worker co-ops to what would happen in real estate. The biggest benefiary of a wealth cap is reforms through the legislative process, but there are dozens or hundreds more. Accumulated wealth is a habit humans must break, or our species will not survive technological adolescence.
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  3188.  @Masaru_kun  - I also appreciate your thinking. Ok, let us say that we go with a Rosa Luxemberg school of thought. How are we going to get there? Already something she wrote which is included on her Wikipedia page has already come to pass: "Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule." We have voter suppression all over the country. The wealthy are behind this voter suppression. How do we fight this when already the people have gone to sleep? Even the democratic party is using voter suppression, anointing Tom Perez as Chair and literally shoving Biden down our throats. The free press has been eaten by the corporate press. The problem is, we are fighting battles on too many fronts. We must consolidate our efforts. Take the electoral platform of the Justice Democrats. End the wars, Medicare for all, $15/hr minimum wage, Green New Deal, Federal Jobs Guarantee, just the sheer number of items is dividing our resources and we are being fought every step of the way by wealthy interests. I'm not opposed to writing a whole paper in response to your comment, but I don't want to inflict that upon you quite yet. However, consider one aspect of what you wrote about how wealth is generated in a capitalist society. With a wealth cap, real estate prices would flatten. The rich individual at the cap could not live off interest, that income would exceed the cap. The only way a rich person could get interest is to have a wealth level below the cap. Oppression would drop, I could go into that aspect in considerable detail. Ownership would have to divest, ownership is wealth and you cannot go over the cap, so ownership of a large company would spread out horizontally among management and employees. A wealth cap defeats "The Powell Memo", the blueprint of wealth expansion over the past half century. If you have not read it, do so, it is short enough to read in a single sitting and should be required reading for all socialist leaning people. If you want to bring up more points, I welcome the opportunity to expand on what a wealth cap can accomplish.
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  3189.  @Masaru_kun  - OK. You think a wealth cap is "not sufficient and calling it the 'only' way forward is just silly". While every one of your proposals are excellent and must be done, however putting the cart before the horse guarantees the failure of each one of those proposals. This is the problem and fault of every progressive proposal. If we are ever going to get to a post-capitalist world, then the foundation of capitalism, compounded interest, must be dealt with. I am going to illustrate this using an excerpt from Michael Hudson's four part paper on compound interest and debt, and I will include a link to the paper below. The paper is titled: "The Mathematical Economics of Compound Rates of Interest: A Four-Thousand Year Overview Part II" Excerpt: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” In his Observations on Reversionary Payments, first published in 1769 and running through six editions by 1803, Price elaborated how the rate of multiplication would be even higher at 6 percent: “A shilling put out at 6% compound interest at our Saviour’s birth would . . . have increased to a greater sum than the whole solar system could hold, supposing it a sphere equal in diameter to the diameter of Saturn’s orbit.” http://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  3190. Our wealth building system is a con job, a hustle, a scam. The entire system is built on the foundation of "compounded interest", something the wealthy have promoted as a way every worker can grow wealth over time. By creating the "IRA' and "401k" retirement scams, they have brought American workers on board their con job, making those who do participate in these plans willing accomplices in their efforts to keep their boots on the necks of average working people. The hustle of compounded interest is well known and a proven con job for thousands of years. wealth and debt always grow faster than economies. An excerpt from one of Michael Hudson's economic papers reveals the scam: It was in reference to Britain’s war debts that one of Adam Smith’s contemporaries, the Anglican minister and actuarial mathematician Richard Price, graphically explained the seeming magic of how debts multiplied exponentially. His 1772 Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt described how “Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth at 5% compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum than would be obtained in a 150 millions of Earths, all solid gold. But if put out to simple interest, it would, in the same time, have amounted to no more than 7 shillings 4½d.” What Price failed to appreciate was that never in history has any economy been able to turn a penny or any other sum into a surplus large enough to pay creditors a solid sphere of gold reaching out to Saturn’s orbit. Economists estimate that during the two thousand years since the birth of Christ the European economy has grown at a compound annual rate of 0.2 percent, far less than the level at which interest rates have stood. https://michael-hudson.com/2001/04/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-ii/
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  3191.  @milfordcivic6755  - So true. Last time I checked, privately owned financial assets had topped $104 trillion. In order to get an average 5% rate of return on those financial assets over the past decade, the fraction of the 1%'ers in charge have drained us citizens, made zombies out of some corporations, run up the military budget and looted both the national treasury and the Federal Reserve. There is not much left for them to grab, so I think they will be cashing in those chips soon.
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  3192. The charts put out by the Federal reserve have enough data to make projections. Wealth is growing at an exponential rate, by 2035 all wealth will be owned by the top 0.001%. Accumulated wealth is a mountain growing at 5% to 7% annually. Our GDP is a molehill, growing at less than 3% annually. The math clearly shows who is going to win that race.
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