Robert Frank who published his book What’s the Matter with Kansas, expressed bewilderment why voters in Kansas always vote Republican even when the Republicans and many Democrats supported sending jobs overseas which changed their lives from well entrenched Middle Class citizens to ones who now depend more on the Church to sustain them.
The simultaneous cuts in taxes for the rich and the downgrading of jobs and income for those below the top one percent led to more borrowing from our federal government and our states having barely enough money to balance the state expenses. So any decrease in the economy had disastrous effects.
I could add that what Frank also did not consider is that the huge inequality in income due to policies started in the 1980s and accelerated with increasing fervor by George W. Bush.
Finally, our Constitution was designed to extend the power of the Oligarchs and designed by the Oligarchs. The difficulty of future Amendments which require the almost impossible two-third votes of both the House and Senate and two-third of the state legislatures where designed to prevent changing the Constitution of the wealthy.
Ben Franklin walked out of the Constitutional Convention after the proposal of having a senate with two to each states to give power to small states well beyond their population passed. Everyone knew this would result in a country run by the rich as we see now.
The Prime Minister system in use in almost all parts of the world gives the people much more voice for change. However, with media control as we see in Italy by the Prime Minister, we see control through the media as we have in our country giving the Oligarchs assured power forever.
Jim Kawakami, April 10, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com
John S. Hege, Letter to the Wall Street Journal: Robert Frank, in his essay "The Price of Taxing the Rich" (Review, March 26), would have you believe that it is high income tax rates that cause the wealthiest individuals to shoulder such a large part of U.S. and various state tax burdens.
I believe he has it exactly backward. Ever since Ronald Reagan began the trend of lower federal taxes on the wealthy, their salaries and bonuses have skyrocketed, while the compensation of middle- and lower-income wage earners has barely stayed even. Of course the wealthiest are paying more taxes; they've garnered all the wealth.
The cure is higher tax rates at the upper-income levels, sufficiently high to discourage multimillion-dollar salaries. It wouldn't make sense to pay an executive or top athlete a multimillion-dollar salary if Uncle Sam was going to take most of it. If paid to the lower-grade workers, they could use that money to buy cars and refrigerators, in addition to paying more in taxes. I suspect the stock markets would decline, but so would the desperate greed that has come to dominate so many lives. John S. Hege
How Do We Know What is True or Not? Andy Carvin is Trying
World's Best Twitter Account? Meet Andy Carvin, verification machine. Craig Silverman reports. http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/is_this_the_worlds_best_twitter_account.php
Mirror, mirror: Journalists are not supposed to merely reflect the public’s misconceptions back to them. They are supposed to correct those misconceptions. Somebody should tell the Daily Caller, Ben Adler says as he skewers the Caller's treatment of a poll. http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_problem_with_covering_polls.php
Justice in Supreme Court is Just Another Word for Power than Justice
Op-Ed Justice Kagan http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10sun2.html?src=me&ref=general
“When this case was argued last fall, the convolutions of the Arizona program seemed intended to mask its violation of the Constitution. The court’s ruling is another cynical sleight of hand, which will reduce access to federal courts while advancing endorsement of religion.”
How Evolution Explains Altruism, Oren Harman, April 8, 2011, NY Times, “SuperCooperators”, Martin A. Nowak, the director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard (written with Roger Highfield, editor of New Scientist magazine) is an absorbing, accessible book about the power of mathematics.
“Random mutation and natural selection have indeed been powerful motors for change in the natural world — the struggle for existence pitting the fit against the fitter in a hullabaloo of rivalry. But most of the great innovations of life on earth, Nowak argues, from genes to cells to societies, have been due to a third motor, and “master architect,” of evolution: cooperation.” … http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/books/review/book-review-supercooperators-by-martin-a-nowak.html?src=recg
Wall Street at Pinnacle of 5,000 Years of Human Exploitation Including the Founders of America, David Korten of Yes! Magazine and “When Corporations Rule the World”, 1995, Harvard Business School Prof, Ford Foundation in Third World Found Globalization Makes It Worse for Poor.
In an earlier day, our rulers were kings and emperors. Now they are corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers. Wall Street is Empire’s most recent stage. Its reign will mark the end of the tragic drama of a 5,000 year Era of Empire. …
Global expansion beyond U.S. territorial borders followed. The United States converted cooperative dictatorships into client states by giving their ruling classes a choice between aligning themselves with U.S. economic and political interests for a share in the booty or being eliminated by assassination, foreign-financed internal rebellion, or military invasion.
Following World War II, when the classic forms of colonial rule became unacceptable, international debt became a favored instrument for forcing poorer nations to open to foreign corporate ownership and control. … As powerful as Wall Street appears to be, its abuse of power has so eroded the economic, social, and environmental foundations of its own existence that its fate is sealed. We the People have a choice. We can allow Wall Street to maintain its grip until it brings down the whole of human civilization in irrevocable social and environmental collapse.
Or we can take control of our future and replace the Wall Street economy with the values and institutions of a New Economy comprised of locally owned businesses devoted to serving their communities by investing in the use of local resources to produce real goods and services responsive to local needs. … http://www.alternet.org/story/150416/wall_st._stands_at_the_pinnacle_of_5%2C000_years_of_human_exploitation?akid=6807.244053.gE7Ybo&rd=1&t=8
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