njlauren
Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011
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You should go to work for Faux News, you would fit right in. As far as Ayn Rand goes, I was discussing her so called economic theories, which boiled down to the rich are all these geniuses who deserve their own little world of the elites, and everyone else mooches off of them..among other thing, of course, is that her nasty little world forgets the fact that many of the well off got there because their families were well off (hello, Paul Ryan) and that many of them get to be executives and such, not because they are geniuses or create new ideas and jobs, but quite frankly, because they are mediocre and boards figure they won't screw up. I didn't say Ayn Rand was a bible thumper, she was probably the most un Christian person you could meet, but the bible thumping losers who pass for conservatives these days worship her economic theories, the bloody dump as dirt stump boobs cheer for the very ideas that have left them economically hanging on by a thread, it is unbelievably self defeating, and worse, the religious right has created the prosperity gospel that basically is Ayn Rand with Jesus thrown into it *lol*.
As far ad the rich creating jobs, that is an utter load of bullshit, and economic data bears that out. Over the past 20 years, in large part because of huge cuts in taxes on the well off and companies, the income and wealth of the upper .5% has exploded to where it is at almost 19th century levels, as a percentage of all income and wealth that top strata controls ridiculous amounts....and guess what during that 20 year period job growth has basically gone to hell, and incomes for the 99% for the most part have shrunk....the whole idea that the rich engage in capital formation is utter bullshit, what the well off do with their wealth does not increase GDP, they use their wealth in investment gains that basically drive almost no job growth or capital formation. Investing in derivatives, hedge funds and so forth nets them huge returns, as does the stock executives get as compensation, but it does almost nothing to drive job growth. What little job growth there is comes from small businesses and start ups, which quite frankly the tax cuts and other bones thrown to the rich don't help all that much, most of that money goes to big corporations and their executives, it goes to financial firms and the like, all of whom destroy jobs more than create them.
And I am tired of the dumbshit wackjob right who somehow claim someone who criticizes the excesses of our current economy as being socialist or promoting communism, that is basically the same shit the asshole conservatives did in the 1950's in the red scare that anyone who dared think differently was red, and it is just as stupid. I hate to tell you but there is more in the world than capitalism and socialism, and pure capitalism as a rule doesn't work, it doesn't even work for capitalists, the economy is a blend of capitalism and socialism, pure capitalism says there is no regulation, which only Faux News nation thinks is a great idea, and more importantly, pure capitalism falls apart because it always end with greed destroying it.
East Germany failed because its economic system was basically a crock of shit, but once upon a time Germany's economy in the 1920's went to shit, and it was capitalist....economies fail when they don't bring economic benefits to all members of society, and they fail when the economic interests of the few are more important than the many. Communism and Socialism fail because the economic system is designed to benefit a relatively small number of party insiders, much the same way that 'pure' capitalism ends up with concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of a relative few (ie monopolies), and both in the end lead to economic collapse because neither is sustainable.
The kind of economic inequality we are seeing in this country cannot go on, the middle class is what made this country so stable, and if we keep going the route of countries like South America, it is going to cause social and economic distress not seen since the Great Depression. For all the lies conservatives try to make about the Great Depression, the reality was that in the depths of it, we came damn close to armed revolt and civil war, the images of everyone pulling together, or that people were rugged and endured, is bullshit, it was a toss up that the US could have ended up in a fascist dictatorship (if Huey Long had lived, very well may have been him), or potentially another kind of revolt. Farmers, generally the most conservative of people, were killing Sheriffs and anyone else trying to foreclose on farms and they were also responsible for the growth of groups like the KKK and Neo Nazi groups and the like, their anger was that great, in Northwest NJ, that was and still is farmland today, a lot of local farmers belonged to the German Bund that had a camp in Andover (that still exists as a town park), and there were others in Northwest NJ as well.......
As far as the Koch Brothers go, they are scumbags and far from being the Patriots they and their even bigger douchebag of an old man claim to be. Basically they are well off, and feel no gratitude for what the US has given them, not to mention that being in the energy business their company benefits a great deal from government largesse, from basically free access to public lands, to all kinds of tax breaks and subsidies that help make their business so profitable, not to mention the US military that protects the sea lanes and sources of oil overseas they sell......but basically, they are petulant children who like the little kid who refuses to share their toys, sees their wealth as earned by them alone, how their great minds and intellect and hard work got them that wealth and that they owe the country nothing, which in my book puts them down as scumbags. Put it this way, I have met a lot of small business men, people who had nothing and built businesses, and somehow they understood what the Koch brothers cannot, that this country gave them the opportunities they had, allowed to them do what they did and that they felt grateful enough to want to return things...and what do the Koch brothers return, do they fight for the common good? No, they promote a political position, that long with people like Grover Norquist and Steve Forbes, is all about themselves, their greed, their lust for money, the rest of the country be damned.
And say what you want about George Soros, but whether you like what he stands for or not, I don't see George Soros fighting for causes that personally benefit himself, the kind of liberal causes he espouses tend to be about others, the Koch Brothers and Trever Norquist care only about one thing, themselves, they are the perfect embodiment of the Ayn Rand ideal. Put it this way, George Soros like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet has argued that the rich pay too little, and unlike the Koch Brothers, all of them put their substantial money towards trying to solve problems, not line their own pockets like the Koch Brothers do. Gates and Buffet and Soros have basically given away all their wealth to non profits trying to help people, whereas the Koch Brothers are basically greed personified, and what little they give to charities tend to be self aggrandizing, things with naming rights and such.
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ORIGINAL: subrosaDom
Ayn Rand was 100% pro-abortion and an atheist. Perhaps you are confusing her with Rick Santorum.
Whom do you think creates jobs? The poor? Exactly where does the money come from that funds these companies? People who made money and who have money and who take risks to make even more money.
Why is it that antithetical philosophies in geographically identical areas result in antithetical results -- i.e., West Germany and the East Germany? Could it have been the differences in the economic systems perhaps?
As far as the Earth's being created in 6 days -- that's about the same as saying in the 1970s that the planet was facing and impending ice age and that today global warming is going to kill us all. They're both pseudo-science.
Defense spending made lower? It's already low. But if you'd like to see the "benefits" of low defense spending, I suggest you look the Britain's navy circa the late 1930s and the good that did them; or you could simply look around the world today and see how our LordGodObama is perceived by our enemies (laughable) and friends (contemptible).
The Koch Brothers? Rich, free-market guys who don't want your money or mine, unless we choose to buy their products. George Soros? Who's he? The fact that he is hypocritical, wealth-confiscating, insider-trading cheat doesn't matter since his billions support the left.
No one is going to ban same-sex marriage via the constitution any more than Lister's germ theory is going to banned. That's political talk and prattle, well unless of course the Muslim Brotherhood that Obama so loves takes a greater part in our country in which case there will be no need to ban same-sex marriage since all gays will simply be executed. Instead of easy targets such as opponents of gay marriage, I suggest leftists focus their targets on the shari'a advocates and Muslims who want to execute gays. Just a bit of a difference there and, dressed in your niqab, it will be pretty hard to stop those executions.
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ORIGINAL: njlauren
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ORIGINAL: Sanity
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ORIGINAL: njlauren
I'll take the crook any day)
Don't tell me, let me guess - you're an Obama /Reid / Pelosi person
No, I am the lesser of two evils. If choosing between a candidate telling me the rich are job creators and everyone else is a parasite, and someone who at least claims to care about anyone other than the 1%, I'll take the latter. If you ask me to choose between a candidate who understands what science is, versus a candidate who supports the idea that the earth was created in 6 days by God as science, I'll take the first one. It isn't that I am a supporter of Reid/Obama/Pelosi per se, it is that the GOP is putting up the modern day equivalents of Williams Jenning Bryan and Gomer Pyle or worse, disciples of Ayn Rand, so I hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. I never thought I would see the day that someone running for Senate in NJ could actually say things like we ought to ban same sex marriage via the constitution, or hear a serious candidate say that it is okay to cut 15 billion from food stamps but that we should increase defense spending and the size of farm subsidies, too.....if that is the best the GOP can offer me, I'll take the crook, at least with him I can figure the kind of damage he can do, put a GOP senator in with the rednecks, the bible thumpers and the Koch brothers owned ones, and God help us all.
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RE: The ignorance of liberals - 
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