A kind mind is hard to find...

[Hubert Flottz]

among the entire registered membership of the republican population and their spawn. A "Compassionate Conservative" is it truth, as rare as your every day garden variety unicorn. Even the ones who wear the cross of Jesus around their necks or upon their sleeves, think they a are fooling God, when they donate their used magic underwear or a few dollars, in order to get their tax write offs. As soon as Bush gave the wealthy all those big tax breaks the wealthy almost totally stopped "donating to the poor," because they didn't need to bother with searching for every possible tax write-off, like they had before Bush put the fixes in for the well to do. Story after story about food pantries being broke abound, but it seems like the "Godly Compassionate CONservatives" are spending most of their time at the country club these days, where they never have to look poverty or misery in the face anymore.

[Octafish]

1. Are you related to John Kenneth Galbraith, Hubert Flotz?

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

[Hubert Flottz]

2. Not related to John Kenneth Galbraith, but

a student of him for now.(thanks) John Kenneth Galbraith, had a very good idea, about the need for unions/Collective Bargaining and the corporations, both, in order to have a workable and tolerable capitalist system. A system where the smiling worker bees get half the honey for their labors. My view of our current capitalist system in the US, has little to do with tolerable and very much to do with Shit Creek, for the worker bees. And we 98% bees, think that shit creek stinks intolerably lately. We little bees know how honey smells too and we aren't fooled easily anymore by the PubbyPoo Propaganda. Stagnation Nation, is the where we 98% are floating lately and the clog in the drain pipe, is spelled O-L-I-G-A-R-C-H-Y/GOP. There may even be a bit of Blue Goo, in that clog too.

[Octafish]

3. The Shocking Redistribution of Wealth in the Past Five Years

Which is old news for 98% bees who remember when Trickle Down got sold in 1981. Even my personal hero John Glenn went along with the crapola -- anything to get the economy off the dime. What Glenn and the rest of Team Blue didn't know was to whom that the shoe on the dime was attached.



The Shocking Redistribution of Wealth in the Past Five Years

by Paul Buchheit
Published on Monday, December 30, 2013 by Common Dreams

Anyone reviewing the data is likely to conclude that there must be some mistake. It doesn't seem possible that one out of twenty American families could each have made a million dollars since Obama became President, while the average American family's net worth has barely recovered. But the evidence comes from numerous reputable sources.

Some conservatives continue to claim that President Obama is unfriendly to business, but the facts show that the richest Americans and the biggest businesses have been the main - perhaps only - beneficiaries of the massive wealth gain over the past five years.

1. $5 Million to Each of the 1%, and $1 Million to Each of the Next 4%

From the end of 2008 to the middle of 2013 total U.S. wealth increased from $47 trillion to $72 trillion. About $16 trillion of that is financial gain (stocks and other financial instruments).

The richest 1% own about 38 percent of stocks, and half of non-stock financial assets. So they've gained at least $6.1 trillion (38 percent of $16 trillion). That's over $5 million for each of 1.2 million households.

The next richest 4%, based on similar calculations, gained about $5.1 trillion. That's over a million dollars for each of their 4.8 million households.

The least wealthy 90% in our country own only 11 percent of all stocks excluding pensions (which are fast disappearing). The frantic recent surge in the stock market has largely bypassed these families.

2. Evidence of Our Growing Wealth Inequality

This first fact is nearly ungraspable: In 2009 the average wealth for almost half of American families was ZERO (their debt exceeded their assets).

In 1983 the families in America's poorer half owned an average of about $15,000. But from 1983 to 1989 median wealth fell from over $70,000 to about $60,000. From 1998 to 2009, fully 80% of American families LOST wealth. They had to borrow to stay afloat.

It seems the disparity couldn't get much worse, but after the recession it did. According to a Pew Research Center study, in the first two years of recovery the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%. And then, from 2011 to 2013, the stock market grew by almost 50 percent, with again the great majority of that gain going to the richest 5%.

Today our wealth gap is worse than that of the third world. Out of all developed and undeveloped countries with at least a quarter-million adults, the U.S. has the 4th-highest degree of wealth inequality in the world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon.

3. Congress' Solution: Take from the Poor

Congress has responded by cutting unemployment benefits and food stamps, along with other 'sequester' targets like Meals on Wheels for seniors and Head Start for preschoolers. The more the super-rich make, the more they seem to believe in the cruel fantasy that the poor are to blame for their own struggles.

President Obama recently proclaimed that inequality "drives everything I do in this office." Indeed it may, but in the wrong direction.

FORUM HOSTS, PLEASE NOTE: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at [e-mail].

Original Article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/30-0

[Hubert Flottz]

4. AND why has the GOP, their friends the "Think Tanks,"

the National Chamber of Commerce, the republican's and the blue dog's, super wealthy corporate campaign donors, been so vicious in their all-out attacks/propaganda on unions, pensions and basically, the entire working middle class.

First of all, by the end of the Clinton administration the unions and working people in general, were starting to get by a lot better than they had since Reagan and Poppy Bush ran the country into massive debt. The pension money on Wall Street was something to fear among the wealthiest 5%. The reason being, that even though that wealthy 5% love nothing more in this world than their money, your money and absolute financial power. The problem with the growing pension funds, was that the unions had reached a finical level where they were accumulating enough money/stock ownership power, to demand and get seats in some powerful corporate boardrooms.

Secondly, the GOP hated the fact that most union members and the union leadership, voted democratic and campaigned and donated funds to mostly democrats.

Thirdly, the GOP/Right Wing, the assorted Chambers of Commerce and the super wealthy have hated unionism from it's very inception in America and in the rest of the world. They don't think it's fair for people who earn by the sweat of their brow to rise above servitude or the dread of living in the street. No compassion or quarter, for the loyal aged worker who is no longer able to produce, at the pace he did in the prime of his or her life.

I think this country will reach a tipping point and demand a better shake for everybody. I hope I live long enough to see it!

[Octafish]

5. Yours is a kind heart, Hubert Flottz.

It makes telling Democrats apart from others easy. Our friend Opihimoimoi spoke of it.

What's kept the People in the Dark is the Mighty Wurlitzer Machine they Bought and De-tuned to play the rightest chord possible, greed and its legal counterpart, property:

The Lewis Powell Memo - Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy

Greenpeace has the full text of the Lewis Powell Memo available for review, as well as analyses of how Lewis Powell's suggestions have impacted the realms of politics, judicial law, communications and education.

Blogpost by Charlie Cray - August 23, 2011 at 11:20
Greenpeace.org

Forty years ago today, on August 23, 1971, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., an attorney from Richmond, Virginia, drafted a confidential memorandum for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that describes a strategy for the corporate takeover of the dominant public institutions of American society.

Powell and his friend Eugene Sydnor, then-chairman of the Chamber’s education committee, believed the Chamber had to transform itself from a passive business group into a powerful political force capable of taking on what Powell described as a major ongoing “attack on the American free enterprise system.”

An astute observer of the business community and broader social trends, Powell was a former president of the American Bar Association and a board member of tobacco giant Philip Morris and other companies. In his memo, he detailed a series of possible “avenues of action” that the Chamber and the broader business community should take in response to fierce criticism in the media, campus-based protests, and new consumer and environmental laws.

SNIP...

The overall tone of Powell’s memo reflected a widespread sense of crisis among elites in the business and political communities. “No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack,” he suggested, adding that the attacks were not coming just from a few “extremists of the left,” but also – and most alarmingly -- from “perfectly respectable elements of society,” including leading intellectuals, the media, and politicians.

To meet the challenge, business leaders would have to first recognize the severity of the crisis, and begin marshalling their resources to influence prominent institutions of public opinion and political power -- especially the universities, the media and the courts. The memo emphasized the importance of education, values, and movement-building. Corporations had to reshape the political debate, organize speakers’ bureaus and keep television programs under “constant surveillance.” Most importantly, business needed to recognize that political power must be “assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination – without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/the-lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-to-/blog/36466/

It's tough to raise awareness when much of American Academia uses Texas School Books and the media only plays hymns out of Karl Rove and Roger Ailes' missives. I thought the night Barack Obama was elected President we would become that nation where everybody has a better shake.

Therein lies the dilemma. We have a nation on the edge of economic doom, people afraid to rock the boat at work where there are hundred standing in line to take the job, and a political system fueled largely by cash or its equivalents. Still waiting for change, but Goldman Sachs got here late, but they'd reserved a spot in line retroactively.

[Hubert Flottz]

6. Opihimoimoi was a wise man.

And a good friend. I learned much from him about life and politics.

Octafish, I have learned much from you also. I'm glad you are still here and that you are still a provider of so much useful information, about those who operate under the radar to undermine the lives and power of, We The People. People like Rove and Lewis Powell have no mercy, compassion or love, for a country that they have never bled or shed even an honest drop of sweat for. People like those are the P in GOP, Predators. The political jackals want to rip the guts out of the very people who made America great and who provided the power to make the USA a winner for so long. The working class American.

The Right Wing's greed, selfishness and hatred are a cancer on our "Democracy." A blood sucking thing that is about to bleed the life out of every good thing that America has ever stood for. Sad to watch the great ship of state being torpedoed by these taker class scoundrels/criminals.

Tortures, murderers, liars, cheats and crooks, who claim that "Gawd" is on their side, in all these septic underhanded endeavors of theirs. I hope there really is a "Gawd" and I hope that he or she, don't run two sets of books like the bastards on Wall Street. I hope that Saint Peter isn't a rabid Koch Roach or on the Goldman Sachs board of directors.