Itinerant Air-Cooled

Despite the Founding Dudes attempt to restrict government, once the virus awoke within the government structure, the political powers re-designed Government, from the inside, outward. The beast grew from within, to benefit those elements that inhabit it. So the public has no access to enact change, except thru the internal mechanism, b y which time the virus kills it, all the while bloating itself on its own agenda. The only way to bring down the beast is to retract voting completely...or perhaps the next generation will be so consumed with MineCraft that they wont be bothered to get off the couch to vote. Actual physical revolution seems highly unlikely...

Well, I never finished the damn book. It reads a lot like a text book, and trying to reference the charts and graphs on a Kindle just doesn't work. Maybe I'll try again when summer's over and I can borrow a real paper book.

And I got annoyed at some of his a priory conclusions that aren't backed up by his own data. Like in his calculations of capital, equating modern housing stock to agricultural land in the 18th century. Housing, with a home ownership rate of 65%, is nothing like the landed gentry sitting back and collecting rent from the peasants. He may be right that eventually we will have an elite that makes all its money from inherited capital, but his own data shows that the inequality of today is earnings based, not capital based. Bill Gates' and Mark Zuckerberg's kids may not have to work a day in their lives, but their own wealth was not inherited.

Revolutions come from hunger. We would all use violence after just a few days without food, like the French did. But if you are hungry in America, you'll be fed. In fact, the biggest problem of the poor is not hunger or access to health care, it is obesity. You don't have to work to have enough food to be morbidly obese. And the morbidly obese make lousy revolutionaries.

hippiewannabe wrote:Well, I never finished the damn book.
And I got annoyed at some of his a priori conclusions that aren't backed up by his own data. Like in his calculations of capital, equating modern housing stock to agricultural land in the 18th century. Housing, with a home ownership rate of 65%, is nothing like the landed gentry sitting back and collecting rent from the peasants.

Home owners aren't really home-owners in most instances now. The banks are the owners and the home-owner is the mortgage peasant, vulnerable to all kinds of predations (see recent BofA fines).

hippiewannabe wrote: He may be right that eventually we will have an elite that makes all its money from inherited capital, but his own data shows that the inequality of today is earnings based, not capital based. Bill Gates' and Mark Zuckerberg's kids may not have to work a day in their lives, but their own wealth was not inherited.

It is a closed system, that's the point. Capital gets dammed up there in family dynasties. Rockefeller and Carnegie and Dupont made their own money too, the problem of the elite hoarding and manipulating the system was true then.

hippiewannabe wrote: Revolutions come from hunger. We would all use violence after just a few days without food, like the French did. But if you are hungry in America, you'll be fed. In fact, the biggest problem of the poor is not hunger or access to health care, it is obesity. You don't have to work to have enough food to be morbidly obese. And the morbidly obese make lousy revolutionaries.

Sort of true, but look carefully at the food industry and its profits. They market distinctly different messages to the poor than the rich. Children do have raging hunger after a cheap poptart breakfast. It is real hunger, it is real malnutrition, and we pay a huge cost as a society for these poorly-fed children becoming tomorrow's unhealthy adults.
Colin

Amskeptic wrote:

hippiewannabe wrote:Well, I never finished the damn book.

Sort of true, but look carefully at the food industry and its profits. They market distinctly different messages to the poor than the rich. Children do have raging hunger after a cheap poptart breakfast. It is real hunger, it is real malnutrition, and we pay a huge cost as a society for these poorly-fed children becoming tomorrow's unhealthy adults.
Colin

And that is why the GOP is fighting Ms.Obama's "Free School Lunch" program for all kids that attend school. Wow, a free healthy lunch to fuel the brains of all those poor inner city kids is anti-American. They should eat McNuggets and starve to death....
I have a friend that raises healthy organic grass fed beef cattle (50 head a year) that is ground up into hamburger for the schools near him. The kids love it! and so do I as it really has a nice flavor vs McDonalds.

Bleyseng wrote:

Amskeptic wrote:

hippiewannabe wrote:Well, I never finished the damn book.

Sort of true, but look carefully at the food industry and its profits. They market distinctly different messages to the poor than the rich. Children do have raging hunger after a cheap poptart breakfast. It is real hunger, it is real malnutrition, and we pay a huge cost as a society for these poorly-fed children becoming tomorrow's unhealthy adults.
Colin

And that is why the GOP is fighting Ms.Obama's "Free School Lunch" program for all kids that attend school. Wow, a free healthy lunch to fuel the brains of all those poor inner city kids is anti-American. They should eat McNuggets and starve to death....
I have a friend that raises healthy organic grass fed beef cattle (50 head a year) that is ground up into hamburger for the schools near him. The kids love it! and so do I as it really has a nice flavor vs McDonalds.

That is why the GOP is fighting Ms. Obama's program? Are you sure it is that they hate children and want them to be unhealthy, and not that they want to be pragmatic and realistic, and re-evaluate the program based on results?

... Since the new guidelines went into effect during the 2012-2013 school year, more than one million students have stopped participating in the lunch program

http://online.wsj.com/articles/politica ... 1407882519

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07 ... nch-rules/

hippiewannabe wrote:

... Since the new guidelines went into effect during the 2012-2013 school year, more than one million students have stopped participating in the lunch program

Now we're saving money for better bombs . . .
Colin

(do you think any real adult is going to cave in to childrens' first reactions to change?)

Amskeptic wrote:

hippiewannabe wrote:

... Since the new guidelines went into effect during the 2012-2013 school year, more than one million students have stopped participating in the lunch program

Now we're saving money for better bombs . . .
Colin

(do you think any real adult is going to cave in to childrens' first reactions to change?)

It's a worthy cause, to be sure. But it sounds like too much, too soon. And if it's not reinforced at home, there's not much hope.

American distribution of wealth is now as unequally distributed as it was just before the Wall Street crash in 1929.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicd ... thanothers

Scary as who is going to buy "stuff" to fuel the economy. Not the Rich thats for sure and the stock market will continue to grow as long as the Fed is printing money at 0%

Bleyseng wrote:Scary as who is going to buy "stuff" to fuel the economy. Not the Rich thats for sure and the stock market will continue to grow as long as the Fed is printing money at 0%

This election punished the wrong people for this sorry lack of recovery for the workers, and for that I hate dopy-ass dumbfuck John and Jane Q Public this week.
Colin

Last week President Obama endorsed a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Tell Congress: Overturn Citizens United
http://act.credoaction.com/sign/cu_5th_ ... 910.gMvqFD

denjohn wrote:

Last week President Obama endorsed a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Tell Congress: Overturn Citizens United
http://act.credoaction.com/sign/cu_5th_ ... 910.gMvqFD

I have signed every one of those petitions. I have written Chuck Shumer and Kristen Gillibrand, I have yakked all across this country to whoever has been so unfortunate as to converse with me about the state of things.
Including the most-recent hapless new victim, the Law Firm's new office manager.

Citizens United stands alone in its proud defect of logic.
Colin