Moonbat already pointed this out in comments, but do see “How Republicans Are Being Taught to Talk about Occupy Wall Street.” Of course, the head should say “how to lie about Occupy Wall Street.”
And then there are the lies people tell themselves. In “Three Inconvenient Truths About Occupy Wall Street,” Nick Schulz of the American Enterprise Institute is not really addressing OWS. He is reassuring the 1 percent that they don’t have anything to feel guilty about. See also Zandar, “Apparently The Cause Of Income Inequality Is Poor People Existing.”
On the other hand, Nicholas Kristof writes that at least one banker has admitted his (and his industry’s) guilt.
I find it fascinating that the Wall Street Journal published an op ed by Andy Stern saying that the free-market economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history. Stern says while we cling to our economic myths and fables of the past, China is building the economy of the future. But you know the only reason WSJ published that article is so they can call Stern a Communist.
Good CEOs don’t necessarily make good governors, but bad CEOs are even worse. Rick Scott of Florida has decided one way to save the state money is requiring college students born in Florida to pay out-of-state tuition unless they can document their parents are legal residents. He don’t need no steenking 14th Amendment, apparently.
Finally, don’t miss Gene Lyons, “Politics Makes People Stupid.”
I love it that Luntz is advising Republicans to tell Occupiers “I get it” even while the rest of his comments show that he doesn’t get it at all. I mean, say “I get it” and then offer “Republican solutions”? To paraphrase Ronaldus Magnus, Republicans are not the solution. Republicans are the problem.
Lyons had a few decent points. But I’d like to amend what he wrote:
Stupid people make politics.
Smart people make policies.
I really appreciate the WSJ Andy Stern article. Whatever the WSJ’s motives, Stern and any clear-eyed business leader should be able to see China’s immense advantages due to their willingness to…gasp..Plan.
A few years ago, Sara Robinson wrote Stealing Our Future: Conservatives, Foresight, and Why Nothing Works Anymore. It was about how the culture of planning arose in America, mostly in response to WW2 (a skill whose perfection reached its zenith in pulling off the D-Day invasion), and how conservatives have destroyed this. The article was sparked by the infamous tag-line to the GW Bush regime: “Nobody could’ve forseen…”.
Earlier today, I was reading a review of Why We Hate the Oil Companies, written by a former Shell CEO. Obviously, he’s pretty biased, but he drives home the point that we have done nothing for long term energy planning over the last thirty years. Anyone who’s studied this for more than a few minutes can see we’re headed for disaster in this regard, including steeply higher energy prices, not too far down the road. And this is a future that was completely unnecessary.
Because of ideological blinders and entrenched special interests, America is headed for every bit the collapse that befell the Soviet Union, we’re just approaching it from a different direction.
Just thought that the following would be of interest to the folks here:
The Other One Percent: Corporate Psychopaths and the Global Financial Crisis
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/11/other-one-percent-corporate-psychopaths.html
Schulz blames income disparities on 1) advances in technology and globalization (of which he approves), 2) immigration (claims also to favor) and 3) the breakdown of families (which he thinks is TERRIBLE); and, Schulz points out, all of these are just REALLY REALLY complex SOCIAL issues. He thus neatly concludes that changes to the economic status quo via policy change (increased taxes or job programs, for instance) would improve nothing. Thus, in the end, he hopes to convince us that failing families are throwing the rest of society off balance. And this is what passes as economic analysis.
The article by Schults was never honest, but the lie that jumped out at me was the suggestion that higher state taxes would drive business and rich people to states more reasonable . None of the OWS movements are seeking reform of STATE tax policy, so fair taxes at a federal level don’t give you the option, unless you relocate to???Europe? The US economy is huge – the threat that you can/will take your billions and play elsewhere is a joke. IF taxes are reformed along the philosophy that if you participate in the US economy, you pay your share of taxes, I’m OK with any unhappy billionaire taking his chances elsewhere with the Euro or the Yen or whatever.
The suggestion that the middle class taxpayer must shoulder the tax burden so the Non-creating billionares won’t move to some other country needs to be met with the question, “Have they any loyalty to this country, or only their money.” If they are patriots, they can pay taxes, and Warren Buffet released his tax return to illustrate how billionaires are NOT paying their share. While I’m fine about billionaire moving their asses out of this country with their money if they won’t pay taxes, moving BACK should be an expensive process. The US has an economic & judicial system that favors the rich. Too much so. If a billionaire finds out that Europe is financiall unstable and China is basically racist re who makes money in China and other international experiments fail, it should cost this SOB dearly if he returns to the US after giving us the finger for asking him to ante up.
Doug,
Great points.
And I think our rich may be in for a surprise if they DO move overseas. It’s not like they’ve got a great reputation right now.
And I agree, let ’em go. But, if they want to come back, they have to give up a significant amount of their money. 90% sounds like a nice round number. Not graduated. 90% TOTAL.
This is an incentive for them to stay and pay, just in case they go and don’t like it. It will be an incentive for the heirs, who may not want to move to a place like, say, Saudi Arabia, to talk Mommy and Daddy into paying their fair share. It’s hard to be a trust fund baby when your parents blew the trust moving to Japan, finding out the didn’t like it.
And then, there are some like Eric Prince, the head of Blackwater, now Xe, who emigrated to Saudi Arabia just ahead of the law. You don’t let Fascist scum back like this under ANY circumstances. Especially not after threatening a US Congresswoman:
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/rep-schakowsky-blackwaters-erik-prince-trie
Let him live the life of the young sailor in that great short story “The Man Without a Country,” by Edward Everett Hale, a traitor who is doomed to sail forever without hearing any news about the US, or ever touching its soil. We can’t do anything about him not hearing about the US, but we can do something about letting this War Criminal ever come back.