Interesting People mailing list archives
re: Doubting the Fed (and the Department of Commerce)
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 06:48:25 +0900
Begin forwarded message: From: Robert Alberti <ip () sanction net> Date: February 26, 2007 5:45:26 AM JST To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] re: Doubting the Fed (and the Department of Commerce) Reply-To: alberti () sanction net On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 04:24 +0900, David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message: From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks) Date: February 26, 2007 1:22:51 AM JST To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] re: Doubting the Fed (and the Department of Commerce) Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com
Then we vote the class-warfare dems into power, they take money from people who earn it (e.g., me), and give it to people who don't (e.g., my ne'er-do-well buddy Bill back in WV).
By the way, I think the fed is a terrible thing. I just don't buy the particular class-warfare arguments used in the post to drum up support for the thesis.
Due to the manner in which these messages were quoted I'm not 100% sure who made these statements. However they inspire me to point out two things: 1) In a very enlightening and levelheaded discussion of economics, these emotionally-laden comments stuck out like a sore thumb, and they do not enhance the credibility of their author. Rather, they suggest that right-wing political correctness and ideology hold greater value with the author than a dispassionate understanding of economics and history. 2) By any measure, American families are tremendously more productive than they were thirty years ago. I say families, because most American families have moved from single-worker to two-worker families across that time, at the expense of the family system. With more workers working, and those workers producing many times more wealth-per-year than a generation ago, a lot more wealth is being created every year. But that wealth is not reaching the workers, whose standard of living has changed little from thirty years ago. Maybe we have new rapidly-depreciated toys like handheld computer games, SUV's, and Douglas Adams' digital watches. But actual concrete changes have been scarce. And some, like health care, retirement, educational and childrearing standards have declined. Meanwhile the division in wealth between the most wealthy and the average worker has grown immensely, until the top people at a given company earn more in one day than their workers earn in a year. And that's just salary: much more wealth is claimed in property or hard to track bonuses and perquisites. So... to claim that complaints by progressives - call them "dems" if you must, although many social progressives will argue that the "dems" have not done all that they ought - are "class war" is such outrageous slander and demagoguery that it must be addressed. The Reactionary Right works hard to make discussion of class issues taboo, particularly by accusing anyone who brings up class issues of "class warfare," in the same emotionally-loaded sneering tones that the author I'm addressing directs at "dems". The fact is that there has been a class war going on for the last thirty years -- and it is by the Rich and the Right, it is against the Left and the Poor, and the Rich and the Right are winning that class war, hands down. And part of the way that they are winning is by convincing their opponents - the poor, the progressive - that talking about class war is wrong, divisive, and shameful. Unfortunately for the Rich, history shows us that class wars frequently end with the Rich suffering dreadful, costly setbacks. So by continuing to greedily consume the world's wealth they are setting themselves or their progeny up for a very painful "market correction." Unfortunately for the Poor, history shows us that the Poor tend to put up with decreasing living standards for much, much longer than one would believe possible. Untold millions live and die in misery and poverty before the Poor finally move to "correct the market." Like any potential difference from physics, the greater the discrepancy, the more violent the rebalancing of forces can be. For the good of the nation and the world, then, it would make sense for us all to learn from history that allowing the pathologically wealthy to indulge their insatiable appetites indefinitely is to enable a dreadful illness. Instead, wise people ought to consider ways to bring some justice and fairness to our socioeconomic system while there is still time to take reasonable corrective action. And both sides should be able to discuss economic and class issues in a dispassionate manner, lest by failing to discuss what we are doing to each other we end up facing yet another of history's dreadful market corrections. There is a class war in America, and there has been for decades, and the poor and middle classes are losing. To pretend otherwise is madness. ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/@now Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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