Reply By: Texas WahinePosted: Thursday, December 27, 2007How did babies survive before formula was invented?

Actually the infant death rate in past years was much higher. Today the cost to live and the breakdown of the family and extended families has made providing for essentials more of a problem for the poor and low middle income families! Making believe there is not a need to help some in our society is just creating another problem. To argue we should cut help to those in need to protect tax cuts for the wealthy is pure GREED!!!!!

Wrong. That is how we get pork!

For someone clamoring for a balanced budget, you sure go about it in an unusual manner. If you spend too much at Outback in a month, do you rob a bank to pay for it because your income should be what you agreed to spend that month?

So why don't we demand the people who "need" all these welfare programs go and get a better paying job or get a second job?

And since you support SCHIPS, why don't you get a second job to pay for other people's health care?

According to Gene, if it's legal, it' smoral.

Need, according to Gene, is defined as whatever Congress deems is worthy of being funded. Like most socialists, Gene feels that the state is the arbiter of right and wrong. Of course, the the same congress has also deemed that deficit spending is acceptable. Therefore, deficit spending is "needed".

?!?!?!? WTF? SHIFT wealth TO those WITH the money? How is that possible?

Just to add a little perspective- in the early 1980's the average CEO earned approximately 41 times the amount of money made by the average worker- adjusted for inflation, today the average CEO makes somewhere on the order of 400 times the amount an average worker can expect.

So, you're talking about shifting more of the wealth into a smaller, wealthier crowd. The old saying about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? But in all honesty it's not the payrolls where the transfer of wealth is hitting hardest. The real crime and ponzi scheme is the whole mortgage mess and credit problem- that's where the real shift of wealth is happening. Cheap credit and a saturation of dollars in the market to artificially further cheapen the credit is the real vehicle for this wealth transfer!! Think about it- the greatest asset that the majority of Americans (or Canadians) will ever own is their house. When the value of that plummets, or you lose your home for any number of reasons, that is an example of wealth being shifted.

Now yes I am oversimplifying quite a bit, but in essence that's what it comes down to. No, there's no monopoly man who shows up at your house to take it over, and no, the bank actually does not want to take your keys (they want to own money, not deeds)

You can be so dense, Gene. You can't shift anything to the place it already resides.

CEO salaries - obscene, perhaps, but a straw man argument having nothing to do with anything.

All this class warfare crap is so stale. There's never going to be an economic trough that doesn't affect the poor & middle class more than the wealthy, never has been. The economy inevitably cycles, as it has since the beginning & as it shall always. Good reason to get wealthy.

But if a majority of congress hasn't acted to get rid of the deficit, it must, by your definition, be "needed".

So who is the cause of these problems? Let's take your argument apart:

1) Drop in home values.  Consumers who couldn't manage their own money took advantage of generous credit terms and began buying homes they couldn't afford using adjustable rate mortgates. As ARMs tend to do, they eventually went up. As interest rates have gone up, the housing bubble began to burst which was long predicted (just like the Internet bubble did before it).  The middle class, not the lower or the upper but the middle class are the ones who drove this.

2) Our energy prices go through the roof.  As the middle class (i.e. majority of individual consumers) kept buying products that consumed a lot of energy and stopped caring if they purchased products that were manufactured in countries that are extremely energy inefficient (especially in China) the supply of energy could not keep up with demand resultin in higher energy prices.  (the main reain our energy prices are going up and will continue to go up -- we're only at the beginning of this pain -- is China's rapid industralization).

3) We continue to lose jobs overseas because of three primary reasons 1) Our manufacturing labor is too expensive and uncompetitive. 2) We are not producing enough high tech talent domestically for large corporations to be able to staff their technical needs in an affordable way and 3) Because American consumers have no loyalty to American-made products and hence, issues 1 and 2 become absolutely problematic.

So yes, middle class Families are having some challenges (it's a far cry from "real trouble" given the strong economy and low unemployment we have).  But they are challenges of our own making.

Americans shop on price. And they often shop on price alone. And that has many unintended consequences.

3) We continue to lose jobs overseas because of three primary reasons 1) Our manufacturing labor is too expensive and uncompetitive. 2) We are not producing enough high tech talent domestically for large corporations to be able to staff their technical needs in an affordable way and 3) Because American consumers have no loyalty to American-made products and hence, issues 1 and 2 become absolutely problematic.

No it is because countries like China use what amounts to slave labor and pay NOTHING for that labor. They exploit women and children and ignore the most basic safety needs. They take the property rights of others manipulate their currency values and use dangerous cheep materials to make their products. Our government allows then to destroy both the health and safety of our consumers and the jobs of our workers. Then People like Bush tell us how great the free trade policies are working. When all the jobs that are left in America pay $10 per hour we will see just how great the trade policies are to our once prosperous nation! Bush is like Nero – As America Burns Bush tells how great we are doing!

brad did not state why their labor costs were lower. he just stated that they were lower.

Certainly.  However, there just aren't enough of them damn rich people to make much difference.

By contrast, there's LOTS of middle class people.  They use the vast majority of the energy in this country because there's so many middle class.

Define "in trouble"? Can't go to Starbucks twice a day? Can't easily afford a third car? Have to put off that 52 inch HD TV? What trouble do you think that the American middle class is in?  Perhaps you can cite some genuine evidence even.  A samll number of numbskulls who over bought on houses possibly having to move into an apartment is not represenative of the middle class.