At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Abraham Lincoln
WE HAVE TWO problems before us:
These two problems cannot be separated.
This leaves the American people with two choices, but not the two you might expect:
I've set in motion a geometric inevitability. If I start chiseling there, chipping here, the whole form is compromised.
David Assael
I WAS FURIOUS YESTERDAY, when I heard the president's announcement of a compromise on the tax break for the super-wealthy.
But on mature consideration, I think I understand.
If he insists on being the broker between the parties, then he loses the right to lead one of them.
Barack Obama started out as a community organizer.
He was elected, in part, because Americans were sick and tired of the Tyranny of the Republican Party—the "I don't listen to polls, My way or the highway" attitude of the Bush administration.
We wanted a grownup, someone who could and would listen, someone who would and could compromise on occasion to get the practical work of running our country done for us.
But we also wanted change, and we meant more by that than less fighting in D.C.
You would think political leaders would talk about the nation's surging inequality and the flattening of middle-class incomes. But as the divergence in income and wealth has grown to stunning proportions, it is rare to find even a Democratic politician who dwells on it.
Robert B. Reich
THIS IS THE fourth installment in a series about the deficit, which began here, with a simple, practical, plan to deal with the deficit and create a surplus.
The last two installments have been about areas in which we've been seriously misled during the last thirty years or so.
I've listed three.
Contrary to what we've been told:
We've been fed a lot of nonsense about the economy in the last thirty years.
We have been at this juncture before. Our history swings much like a Pendulum between periods during which the benefits of economic change are concentrated in fewer hands, and periods during which the middle class shares broadly in the nation's prosperity and grows to include many of the poor—between periods during which we see ourselves as “in it together,” and periods during which we view ourselves as being pretty much on our own. Roughly speaking, the first stage of modern American capitalism (1870—1929) was one of increasing concentration of income and wealth: the second stage (1947—1975), of more broadly shared prosperity: the third stage (1980- 2o10), of increasing concentration. It is vital for our future that we commence a fourth stage, in which broad-based prosperity is again the norm.
Robert B. Reich
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capitalism (kap'·a·tal·iz·em) n. |
Capitalism (kap'·a·tal·iz·em) n. |
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1. A belief in the value of capital—the tools and resources which support human productivity: in a household, a business, or a community. 2. The practice of that belief through investment in capital. 3. An economic and political system which encourages such investments. |
1. A belief in the moral and practical superiority of very wealthy individuals and corporations. 2. The use of Capital to obtain greater Capital through financial manipulations or profit from the creative work of others. 3. A political system which encourages such practices. |
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Examples: Buying a more efficient refrigerator, a better power drill, a new computer. Building a brick patio. Purchasing new software or tools for one's business, extending the dining area at one's restaurant. Maintaining a national highway or fast rail system, maintaining a well-provisioned public health system, building schools, police and fire facilities, or public parks. |
Examples: Forcing unreasonable contracts on consumers. Undermining competitors instead of creating a better product. Endless mergers. Using encryption to lock consumers into your business. Creating worthless derivatives, then betting against them. Selling loans to people who can't afford them. Taking risks because you are too big to fail and can count on government bailouts. |
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Small-c capitalism can be practiced on all levels of a society, and government can encourage it at all levels in a variety of ways. It leads to a more productive, fairer, and more prosperous society in which the value of work is recognized and supported in all spheres. |
Capitalism benefits the financial elite and their lackeys, limiting others's ability to practice capitalism by hoarding resources. It leads to a less prosperous, less fair, and less productive society, in which work is devalued financially and spiritually, and simply endured until Friday evening. |
In 2009, more than 13,700 registered lobbyists spent a record $3.5 billion swaying government policy the special interests' way, double the amount lobbyists spent as recently as 2002.
Arianna Huffington
THIS IS THE THIRD installment in a series about the deficit, which began here, with a simple, practical, plan to deal with the deficit—and create a surplus—without cutting Social Security or Medicare or any of the government services we depend upon.
Last time, I pointed out that we have been seriously misled, over the last thirty years or so, about three things:
The first of these, freedom—or Liberty—can only be kept for the common citizen insofar as the common citizen has at least enough wealth and power to give him or her real choices, and only insofar as corporations and the wealthy do not have enough wealth or power to take those choices away.
The second thing we have been lied to about is the nature of democratic government.
