Coming soon to a theatre near you.

Hmph! Sounds like our conservatives who go around absurdly claiming that the reason Bush economics failed is because the people practicing it wasn’t conservative enough. More austerity for everybody else = less tax burden on the job creators = ponies and rainbows!

(Of course these days they are even more absurdly claiming that Obama blew up the economy before he was elected. Now that’s some failed socialist, communist Kenyan, Keynesian extemporal economics!)

failed socialist, communist Kenyan, Keynesian extemporal economics!
That’s a mouthful.

Good morning, pups. Today it’s Dowd and Friedman. MoDo has produced a thing called “Barry Trails Off…” She informs us all about the lesson she says Barack Obama never learned: leadership and salesmanship are intertwined. The Moustache of Wisdom says “It’s Not Just About Us,” and has a question: How can the U.S. impact the Middle East and all its complexities?

Here they are.

The coffee and tea are ready, and I’ve got a variety of bagels with cream cheese. My ‘puter has been acting up this morning, so I’m signing off to reboot and see if that helps. Have a great day.

“Influential group of bankers” vs 1% on austerity. My money is on the 1%, they own more politicians than the “influential group of bankers”.

When will the 1% realize they need a functioning middle class to purchase their products? They won’t survive just selling to each other.

Boxturtle (Merkel should visit Greece more often. Look at all the police she kept employed!)

When will the 1% realize they need a functioning middle class to purchase their products?

My guess is not until after the middle class is long gone and there aren’t any more artificial props left.

How can the U.S. impact the Middle East and all its complexities?

Well, we could cut off Israel’s allowance until they stop building in the West Bank. And cut off the Palestinians allowance until they stop shooting rockets. Drag ‘em both to negotiations by their wallets.

And we could stop rattling swords at Iran.

Boxturtle (I just got my presidency impeached again, didn’t I?)

Too many of the 1 percent inherited their wealth and inheriting wealth doesn’t mean you know how to earn it. Almost all of those people would be dirt poor if somebody took most of their money away and left them only with what their brighter and more admirable ancestors started with.

Yeah. Right now, it seems like the 1% spends all their time trading complicated financial instruments with each other.

Boxturtle (I guess the 1% likes zero sum games)

yep

Imagine Mitt in a service job where he has to work all day with people he can’t order around.

Boxturtle (I’m Mitt Romney and I approved this Blue Light Special!)

Probably would not make it on tips as a server.

Good Morning People.

Good News,

Well, the Nuns on a Bus are doing an encore to represent the poor with a nine city swing through Ohio.

They are tired of the no-issue negative yapping going on in the presidential campaigns.

Hmm…I’ll have to show up for one of those. Is there a schedule?

Boxturtle (Those ladies are better representatives of Christ than any Cardinal)

Love the Nuns on the Bus.

oh, and Rmoney saved the SLC Olys with a govt bailout. And Ryan’s Catholic Charities depend on federal funding. Moochers.

Or as I was telling a friend at the fancy-schmancy art museum open houSe…there aren’t enough good-hearted millionaires to go around.

Live radio report out of Madison, WI, a few minutes ago, I haven’t done a search for details.

*mutter* making me do my own searching. *mutter*

Tour schedule is here.

Boxturtle (Going to try to make Flannagan’s tonight)

{{{ Marion }}}

We should have a special meal for Thursday’s debate … roast Turkey ? *g*

I am not going to argue that many of the rich started on third base or home plate. But I also know that many of the rich work long hours trying to get richer. Do they take longer and nicer vacations? Sure they do. They don’t have to worry about where the food is coming from or if they can make their mortage. What they do, do is work long hours when they work. Some of that work is for not for profits, its in nice environments, but it is work. Don’t discount the idea that many of the 1% have concerning how many hours a week they work then they see some of the 99% complaining about having to work long hours. If you are working 60 hours a week you don’t have much empathy for someone who is not willing to work that and are asking for a hand out.

O.K. now I”m lost……did you say Obama was a Keynesian or a Kenyan?

But it surely is different to be working ’cause you choose to vs. scatching out a living, maybe with no vacation or sick days, so you lose when one takes time off. Comparison is pretty complicated; compassion is a mature trait.

The right kind of austerity

I agree with Merkel up to a point. For example, no way can Greece afford the extravagance of all those thousands of police and military providing security for her visit. Put provding her security up against the priorities Greece is being asked to sacrifice, like providing for widows and orphans and ther sick, and the Merkel visit should rate no expenditure at all, zero.

Let the mob have her. The resulting spectacle would prove useful as an education for the uncrowned heads of Europe.

I think the Bankster’s read Krugman’s book, which lays out in simple terms that even they can understand why trying to reduce the deficit and the national debt at a time when private households and firms are trying to do the same thing is criminally insane.

The question isn’t whether they work hard: no doubt they do. The question is whether that work has any real value, whether they are contributing to social output. I could work as hard as I can chipping a way at a block of marble to create a new David, but it will never be anything but a chipped block of rock. The same holds for the majority of the highly remunerated one percenters.

What they do, do is work long hours when they work.

What kind of “work” do they do when they finally sit down in their imported leather chairs after being driven to a private corner office? Do they go online and play with numbers? Do they make “important” phone calls to “important” people who are just as greedy and unaware as they? What is it they do when they turn their attention to that work which is “not for profits?” Please enlighten us.

Wasn’t there a movie that came out a couple years ago about a bunch of comedians telling a particularly dirty joke? What did they call it? “The Austerocrats!”

Cry me a river.

Yes, indeed, *some* percentage of the 1% “works hard,” but it’s totally arguable what the actual value of their “work” is. For example, CEOs across the board have had giant increases in their “salaries,” plus stock options, benefits, perks & lurks over the past 3 to 4 decades. All these rich fat-cat CEOs sit on each others’ Boards and scratch each other’s backs.

My “favorite example,” is Carly Fiorina, who basically had “golden handshake” clauses written into her contracts when she worked at both Lucent & Hewlett-Packard. I guess one can argue whether Fiorina “worked hard” or not. I had a number of friends who worked at HP when Fiorina was at the helm, and believe me, *many* of the higher level managers did not perceive that Fiorina worked hard at much except enhancing & burnishing her image.

Fiorina got a giant whopping golden handshake when she was FIRED for being incompetent from both Lucent & HP. It cost *me* a LOT of money in terms of stock price drops, so: hey cry me a river again about how “hard” Fiorina “worked” at running HP into the ground.

What true *incentive* did Fiorina have to, you know, actually make sure that she ran HP well? She had none. It was win-win for Queen Carly no matter what happened. I don’t really give a stuff whether Fiorina contributed to non-profits or not.

Then Fiorina had the urge to get on the wingnut welfare gravy train and run for Senate from CA. Fiorina spent million$$ of her ill-gotten booty attempting to get yet another 99%-funded gravy-train by becoming a Senator whereby she’d get a generous pension & platinum-plated health care benefits for life for her & her spouse.

Thankfully the good citizens of CA said NO to that b.s.

This is one example of how the 1% “works so hard.” I call bullshit. Not buying what you’re selling.

The Carly Fiorina’s of this nation have cost ME plenty, and yet there they are with their slacker hands out wanting ME to bail them out. ptoui!

When will the 1% realize they need a functioning middle class to purchase their products? They won’t survive just selling to each other.

What products?
They’re just gambling on Wall Street now.

I like the way you think…….;^)

Foolish libruls smugly tell crapitalists how to run their bidness.

The only way I’ve ever made enough to live is doing 60 hours/week.

In fact in 2010 I averaged 60 hours/week over the whole year which includes holidays etc..

That won”t happen as long as a large proportion of the electorate is Revelations dead enders.

I’ve generally worked over 40 hours per week most of my adult life, as well. Sometimes it’s just at one job, where because I’m on “salary,” the “extra” 20 hours per week is a freebie for my boss & results in no extra money for me. Basically uncompensated overtime. A big WIN for the upper level mgmt, but not so much for yours truly.

For the past 15 years, I’ve worked a second part-time job (very very low wage, but it is my choice, so not complaining, just stating a fact). This results in me working close to 60 hours per week, sometimes more. Some of the “extra” is compensated in my low-wage part-time job.

Hey: I make good money for a peon; I’ve been frugal & have saved, albeit my meagre (in comparison to the 1%, who started out on third base or home plate) savings have been robbed & plundered of late by the ever-so “hard working” 1%.

Since I happen to not have kids, I am probably “ok” for the rest of my natural life, but many of my friends are struggling. And it’s not bc they are lazy slackers.

It’s specious to say that the 1% “works so hard” that they “deserve” what they make, as well as NOT paying their fare share of taxes.

It’s simply a fairy tale being sold to the credulous masses, who have some kind of syndrome, whereby they accept that they should reflexively kowtow to their wealthy overlords just because they have more money. No thought is given to how the 1% actually came by that money, which often includes *buying off* politicians to write tax legislation that inures solely and only to the benefit of the extremely wealthy.

PLENTY of citizens work their butts off and often far more than 60 hours per week, but they just didn’t happen to have the “right connections” to set themselves in the position of ripping of the 99% in various ways to enhance themselves.

No thought is given to how the 1% actually came by that money

Well, if we had a different climate of “opinion” you’d find out they’ve had more thought about that than acknowledged.

It’s specious to say that the 1% “works so hard” that they “deserve” what they make, as well as NOT paying their fare share of taxes.

What do you think their fare share of the taxes should be? I think around 45% over 1 million. What do you think the federal budget should be as a percent of GDP?

What did Carly do to get to the point that she could negociate her golden handshakes?

Look .JP .BoA , GS ,Citi ,and the entire G-22 are a planetary scourge that provide nothing of any worth ,and when they work really hard we get sodomized even more by mass fraud ,moral hazard and austerity.These parasites keep threatening to go elsewhere if the Wall.ST. business climate doesn’t improve.Promises ,promises .The most peaceful tact would be to ensure their self-export vision ,let them take all the fiat currency ,and dance on the grave of austerity ,systemic fraud ,and most importantly ,economic treason sanctioned by corporate globalization and its neoliberal road to debt-induced feudalism.

Paul Krugman is a know-nothing fool ,as are all the economists who endorsed corporate globalization and the magic hand of the free-market fairy .We don’t even need deficits or national debt with our sovereign currency status.

This debt humbug is a self-imposed construct for northward wealth redistribution ,and to bring it all back home ,be used to leverage the theft of our hard and positional assets from the economy via austerity.

Two things are clear to me:
1) You have absolutely no idea who I am. Though you’ll probably call me a liar, there is no doubt in my mind that I have worked longer and harder than most other people in this country, including your beloved 1%. I have done things that they can’t imagine having to do for a living and in some cases had to shove them out of the way to do it. So don’t lecture me on hard work. I don’t presume to know your background but fully 90% of this country has never worked as hard on their worst day than I used to do routinely when I was younger. Yet oddly, from your perspective, it didn’t destroy my compassion for less fortunate people, rather it enhanced and expanded it.
2) You, like too many people, read what you want and expect to read. I didn’t say all rich people didn’t work. What I very clearly stated was that in my opinion, if faced with having to CREATE wealth, almost all of the people who have inherited wealth would fail at it.
You probably won’t come back to this thread and I wish I could have responded earlier but apparently unlike yourself, I have to work at work and can’t spend my time responding to absurdity on the internet. If I see you around the comments, I will refer you to this comment.

I don’t denigrate what anybody has said here. I was just pointing the perspective of the 1% right or wrong.

Here is another question do you think the Bill and Melinda Gates can do more good or can the government do more good with the money in the foundation. Should the government tax away Bill Gates money so it can spend it or allow the Gates foundation to operate “tax” free?