[TheRealThing]

Well, it's here again, election season. The campaign leading up to the mid-terms is already in full swing. As was the case in the last presidential election, Dems will be throwing everything imaginable against the wall to see what sticks. China has the year of the rat, the year of the monkey, the year of the pig, etc. I suppose for the US, we will see if this will be the year of the gullible. The main thrust, according to leading Dems, will be to generate even more divide in this country over what they perceive to be income inequality. In a patently obvious attempt to again (remember the false Romney smears?), take voters attention off of the incredibly replete and diverse array of scandals and congressional misstatements relative to ObamaCare and other short falls, and get them to focus on an idea that could only be intended to inspire civil unrest and resentment for the successful. I mean, the misleading 1% argument worked very well against Romney, why not see if it will fly again?

Just to think back to the presidential campaign of 2008 for a minute. In that election season, Obama promised so many people so many things even the political cartoonists were having a heyday drawing about it. Nothing much has changed since then. He's still promising the moon but, delivering something kind of cheesy. Therefore, I believe the income inequality argument is another ruse intended, like the hinted at promise of free health care, to make people believe keeping the Dems in power will result in more lavish gifts to be handed out to the public. Higher wages and better jobs all around. Of course the biggest problem with that is that we haven't seen the faintest glimmer of such a scenario in the past 5 years.

The University of California may well be among the most liberal of schools in existence. Here are some statistics generated from research done by Cal economist Emmanuel Saez. "Research by University of California economist Emmanuel Saez shows that since the Obama recovery started in June 2009, the average income of the top 1% grew 11.2% in real terms through 2011.

The bottom 99%, in contrast, saw their incomes shrink by 0.4%.

As a result, 121% of the gains in real income during Obama's recovery have gone to the top 1%. By comparison, the top 1% captured 65% of income gains during the Bush expansion of 2002-07, and 45% of the gains under Clinton's expansion in the 1990s."
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlic...s-n1763757

Let's see, the much maligned top 1 percenters captured 121% of the gains during Obama's recovery starting in 2009, compared to a piddling 65% of gains that went to the top 1% during the administration of the granddaddy, of great presidential satans, George W Bush, LOL.

I can scarcely wait to see if Republicans can fend off the coming crap tsunami or, allow themselves to be defined by the Dems yet again.

[Granny Bear]

I received this in an email from one of my friends, and it reminded me of this thread. I'd read it back in January, but this email sort of simplifies it for some of us simple minded folk!!





One Hundred ($100) Dollars

$100 Bill

It's a slow day in the small town of Pumphandle and the streets are deserted.
Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.

A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk
saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

(Stay with this..... and pay attention)

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.

The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute,
who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel Owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory,
picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything.

However, the whole town now thinks that they are out of debt and there is a false atmosphere
of optimism and glee.

And that, my friends, is how a "government stimulus package" works!

[TheRealThing]

I received this in an email from one of my friends, and it reminded me of this thread. I'd read it back in January, but this email sort of simplifies it for some of us simple minded folk!!





One Hundred ($100) Dollars

$100 Bill

It's a slow day in the small town of Pumphandle and the streets are deserted.
Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.

A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk
saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

(Stay with this..... and pay attention)

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.

The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute,
who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel Owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory,
picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything.

However, the whole town now thinks that they are out of debt and there is a false atmosphere
of optimism and glee.

[B]And that, my friends, is how a "government stimulus package" works! [/B]

Well, like Occam's razor states, "The simplest answer tends to be the best." LOL, your post is a perfect example of the 'corrected' logic, behind present stimulus spending to be sure. But, to my way of thinking it is much more than that. It's the best example I've ever seen to explain why Keynesian Economics can never work. I have analogized KE as a conveyor belt of money coming from La-La land but, likely, a better characterization would be that it's more like a lazy-Susan.

I really appreciate your putting that up Granny. So, our newly perfected definition of stimulus spending, which is based totally on the fundamentally flawed concept of Keynesian Economics, might go something like this; KE, a magic money carousel.

I love it! Additionally by way of understanding, what the president's economic advisors have been screaming about since the trillion dollar spending stimulus failed to deliver the desired results is this. Their argument is that instead of the 100 dollar bill, Obama should have plunked down Trillions of dollars in stimulus. That way I guess, it would take much longer for the last of those 100 dollar bills to make it back to the hotel owner's counter. :biggrin:

Of course, we have been speaking about the Dem's adopted and flawed understanding of money. I mean, I know we went off the gold standard and now money is based on the concept of our combined national wealth, some refer to that as being based on theory, but, two and two still equals four, right? At any rate, to prop the Dems unlikely philosophy up, it is necessary for them to ' destroy the witness', by engaging in a campaign of character assassination. Laughing at and otherwise slamming Republicans who attempt to correct them for their Keynesian lunacy, every time they take to the microphone.

[WideRight05]

One major problem I have with the "income inequality" (liberals sure love that word equality) is the fact that people are so dependent on our politicians to fix this. It's not up to the politicians - it's up to us. If I'm not making enough money, I'm not going to sit around, whine, cry, and blame George Bush over it. I'm going to find a way that I can fix that whether it be working a second job, gaining more education/experience on my job, or switching careers.

[Granny Bear]

Oh sweetie, but IF you sit around, whine, cry and blame George Bush, you will probably receive more funds than if you get a second job!! i.e. THAT'S the flaw.

After all, some politicians these days get something other than 4, when they add 2+2

[TheRealThing]

One major problem I have with the "income inequality" (liberals sure love that word equality) is the fact that people are so dependent on our politicians to fix this. It's not up to the politicians - it's up to us. If I'm not making enough money, I'm not going to sit around, whine, cry, and blame George Bush over it. I'm going to find a way that I can fix that whether it be working a second job, gaining more education/experience on my job, or switching careers.

In fact, they're totally dependent on the politicians to fix their problems. When I grew up one had only one avenue to achieve what he wanted in this world, and that was with the money he gained through employment. This idea that there is another avenue, the entitlement avenue, is a concept that has none the less, been taught to many folks throughout their entire lives.

Starting in the mid 1960's with the inception of LBJ's grand give-away scheme known as the "Great Society", and continuing on to this very day, the welfare route to success has been put forth as a viable alternative for holding down a job. Mostly by the Dems but admittedly to some lesser extent, by Republicans. Therefore, if one was born in the mid 60's, that would include everybody under 50 years old alive today, he has been taught by his government that if life has seemingly dealt him a bad financial hand, he has every right to expect the rest of us to give him money. And that goes double for minorities. The concept has solidified under the banner of "redistribution of wealth." It is taking your money and giving it to somebody who lacks the will to be self sufficient, pure and simple.

Dems do it for votes. Liberals do it to give their life meaning and for the thrill of forcing the rest of us to comply, through the recent rash of un-American legislation. There is only one way to deal with the mess we have made of the American Dream, and that is by voting the left wing extremists who push cradle to grave entitlements, out of office.

BTW, I'm proud of your work ethic Wide. :biggrin: