For Lefties too Stubborn to Quit
Like many of you I’ve been following the US Presidential Election Campaign. You’d have to wonder has the secret video from a fundraising dinner killed Romneys chances?
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So Romney doesn’t give a f. about lower income peope. What else is new?
Perhaps you and I know that, but I have a suspicion that a sizeable number of Americans don’t !! Is this a sympton of a deepening polarization in American society? Is Romney saying that nearly half of Americans either are too lazy to realise the ‘american dream’ or is it an admission by Romney that the ‘american dream’ is only for the few! either way I feel this is another marker that all is not well in the good old US of A, and there may be more trouble ahead!
p.s what was the timespan of the Roman Empire? and is it true that all great empires came crashing down mainly due to internal divisions?
Most of the people on the sharp end of things in the US generally don’t vote anyway, IIRC.
However we should keep in mind that Romney misunderstands the composition of those who receive govt. benefits. Conservative commentator, David Brooks, has a piece in today’s NYT that’s worth a read.
Well, Romney didn’t just sneer at the poor. He basically called anyone supporting Obama a moocher and that covers rather a lot of territory.
Romney is already losing this election in the swing states.This business could hurt him in the way Todd Akin did, e.g. by making explicit things the Republican Party would rather leave implicit, in this case the way the ruling classes really think of everyone else. His follow-up presser didn’t help. I would expect this to revive the matter of Romney’s tax returns. His statements are also none too flattering about those independent voters he is allegedly attempting to court. I don’t think this is the end for hm by any means since many voters won’t notice this, but he certainly didn’t need it right now. Certainly he’s doing everything in his power to make Obama look good.
It’s not even the ‘what’, but the ‘how’. Voters are looking at a campaign implosion, same as with McCain. Why would they vote for this for the Presidency for four years?
[...] this, a leaked video exposed by the American centre-left news site Mother Jones (thanks to our own Cedar Lounge Revolution for the link): Comhroinn (Share):Share on TumblrMore Pin ItDiggEmailPrintLike this:LikeBe the [...]
It’s offensive because it hits a nerve. 47% of Americans pay no income tax. Of course income tax is just one source of government revenue, and many people who don’t pay income tax this year will pay it again in the future, but the fact remains that millions of people are voting on how other people’s money will be spent.
In America in 2009, the bottom 50% of earners paid 2% of income taxes, while the top 10% paid 71% of taxes. So if you are looking for votes, you are better off appealing to the peon masses than to the people whose money you intend to spend.
You should see the size of the violin I am playing for these plutocrats…
Actually that’s not true about the 47 per cent. Many/most of those he supposedly suggested didn’t pay tax actually do.
As for the breakdown in amounts of tax… well, if you pay people peanuts…
“Well, if you earn peanuts…”
The labour market is very inefficient, but I’m sure you’d agree it’s not so inneficient that people have no control over what they earn.
Deleted by Mod
“it’s not so inneficient that people have no control over what they earn.”
Right. Like Romney just upped and decided to become a self-made multimillionaire out of the blue on his 18th birthday, but his feckless fellow citizens of the poorer classes made the decision not to do so, but instead live it large on welfare.
You’re an asshole, plain and simple (but still, ‘A Friend’, rather less of that).
Sorry, I won’t do it, its not my style, I would just like to.
The labour market is very inefficient, but I’m sure you’d agree it’s not so inneficient that people have no control over what they earn.
What an asinine comment.
I never expect civility from socialists; I am never disappointed!
It is left for me to presume that you all think humanity consists of helpless slaves.
As opposed to you who thinks it is made up of people who ‘choose’ to have low incomes or to be unemployed?
GM I find civility in short supply on the right and libertarian ends of the spectrum as well.
For example I initially wanted to pull you up in your original comment at #6 about ‘peon masses’ but then thought ‘why bother’.
You’re in no position to complain if your comments provoke an equal and opposite response (though I think A Friend’s comment went too far).
I was specifically tackling the idea that low earners are in that bracket because employers have unilaterally decided not to pay them much. There is market for labour which obeys the basic economic forces of supply of demand.
@WbS, I didn’t call anyone an a****** or issue death threats. Those are not equal and opposite responses to anything I said. But it’s your blog, I respect your private property here
And how does that in any way imply that a single individual has ‘control’ over what they earn?
You have undermined your own point.
And I’ve said that that response to you went too far, but – short of that which was entirely unacceptable – if you arrive in a coat trailing manner designed to incite a response then it is fairly predictable that a response you will get.
It is left for me to presume that you all think humanity consists of helpless slaves.
This comment perhaps even more asinine than the one that preceded it.
(However, the comments from A Friend should i nmy view have been deleted.)
@RosencrantzisDead:
I can be more clear.
On the supply side of the labour market: people choose which skills they wish to develop, how to market themselves to employers, and how to negotiate their compensation. Therefore, subject to the limits of the external economic environment and their own priorities and natural abilities, they have control over how much they earn.
I hope that makes sense now. I’m not saying that anyone can simply decide to be rich.
subject to the limits of the external economic environment and their own priorities and natural abilities
Plus of course the education they received, their health, the enormous effect of happenstance and other real-life factors such as that.
Actually, I’d propose a general rule of political science that the degree to which one is likely to believe in self-dependence and the individual’s control over one’s destiny is directly proportional to the wealth and social status of one’s parents.
@ejh
You may have a point. I’ve found that the wealthiest libertarians can be the worst advertisement for the movement. Some of them suffer from that blind spot.
Fair point ejh, you’re right and I’ll do that now. And apologies GM in that respect, I should have dealt with that earlier, but I’ve been a bit preoccupied.
GM:
You are, however, saying that people decide to be poor.
As EJH says you are ignoring the vast number of other factors that operate in the labour market and can affect people’s life choices.
@RosenCrantzisDead
Yes, some people take actions which result in them being poor, and which they would have known were likely to result in them being poor. I’m not saying this to condemn them. I’m stating what seems to me to be a fact which some other people find hard to accept.
Of course I accept the reality of external factors, upbringing, luck, etc, along with human choice.
‘welfare’, as someone pointed out here recently, is code for ‘black’ in Republican rhetoric. We can add ‘peon masses’ to that lexicon ( thanks, GM). White people pay taxes, you see, while blacks and hispanics live on handouts and don’t care about their lives.
Which is ironic, given that a majority of welfare recipients in the United States are, in fact, white.
[...] to this which IELB posted up yesterday. It’s fascinating to consider how Republicans have shied away from any mention of class in recent [...]
67% of those who ‘don’t pay federal income tax’ are workers who pay social security and medicare taxes,-and these are federal taxes based on a percentage of income. To describe these as irresponsible moochers shows Romney’s ignorance.
‘This business could hurt him in the way Todd Akin did, e.g. by making explicit things the Republican Party would rather leave implicit, in this case the way the ruling classes really think of everyone else’-Pam Dirac (above) This is a good point. And this is what has the conservatives worried about Romney. Peggy Noonan is accusing him of incompetence in today’s WSJ. But keep in mind that Republican likely voters are more likely to vote than Democratic ones.
As for the class struggle generally in the U.S.. i tend to agree with Warren Buffett, who says somewhere that ‘the class struggle is over and my class has won.’
Looks like Ayn Rand has triumphed,-in the Republican Party.
“But it also reflects the extent to which the G.O.P. has been taken over by an Ayn Rand-type vision of society, in which a handful of heroic businessmen are responsible for all economic good, while the rest of us are just along for the ride. “-Krugman
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/opinion/krugman-disdain-for-workers.html?_r=0moc.semityn.www&adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1348227327-jOGapqHpsTRGekCvn5/1vA