🚀 go-pugleaf

Billy wrote
> brad herschel <bradherschel@gmail.com> wrote
>> chatnoir <wolfbat3...@mindspring.com> wrote

>>> http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20102289-503544.html?tag=reddit

>>> headline:

>>> Left behind in America: Who's to blame for the wealth divide?
>>> By Brian Montopoli

>>> Take a moment and think about how you feel wealth should, ideally,
>>> be spread among the American people.

>>> If you're like the average respondent in a 2010 Harvard Business
>>> School/Duke University study, your response was this: The richest
>>> top 20 percent of society, as determined by net worth, should
>>> control 32 percent of the wealth. The bottom 20 percent should
>>> control about ten percent. And the rest should be spread out among
>>> the 60 percent in the middle, with higher-earners taking a slightly
>>> larger share.

>>> It probably won't surprise you to hear that those figures don't
>>> match reality. But you might well be shocked by just how far off
>>> they are. In the study, Americans were asked how they thought
>>> wealth was actually distributed; they estimated that the top 20
>>> percent controlled about 59 percent of the nation's wealth, while
>>> the bottom controlled about three percent.

>>> That wasn't even close: In reality, the top 20 percent controlled
>>> about 84 percent of the wealth, while the bottom quintile controlled
>>> just 0.1 percent. The combined net worth of the bottom 40 percent,
>>> in fact, accounted for just 0.3 percent of the nation's wealth. (See
>>> chart below, where that bottom 40 percent doesn't even show up.) ... (cont)

>> Remove the unproductive Blacks and Hispanics from the equation.
>> Another story.

>> http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/  The Occidental Observer

> As everyone must know by now, the above is a white power, racist organ.

> <http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/9/rebuilt_ground_zero_billed_as_national>

> SCOTT PAUL: Yeah, it�s a good question. It�s the right question to
> ask, Juan. And it is a fact that German manufacturing workers are
> paid an average of $48 an hour. In the United States, the average for
> manufacturing workers is $32 an hour. Germany has a national
> healthcare system. As you know, we do not. Germany has thick
> regulation, a much more progressive tax system than the United States
> does, yet Germany thrives in manufacturing. Germany has held its
> share of manufacturing throughout the last decade, while China has
> risen, and the U.S. has dramatically declined, in fact by one-third
> just over the last decade.

But still completely dominates the entire world with military hardware,
where the first commercialisation of almost all technology happens first,
and still dominates the world with movies, TV series, music etc etc etc.

> And the reason is because Germany has an industrial policy.

Fantasy. It does well with car manufacturing, because it ended up with
some of the best cars in the world, nothing to do with industrial policy.

And has sweet fuck all to cmpare with the US in the manufacture
of military hardware, aircraft, pharmaceuticals, computer software,
movies, TV series, etc etc etc.

> Its leaders, of all the parties, believe that manufacturing
> is central to the performance of its economy,

They're wrong. Even the german economy is completely dominated
by services now, just like every other modern first world country is.

> and it actually weathered the recession a lot better than the United States has.

Yes, but it never did manage anything like the US did in
military hardware, computers, the internet, etc etc etc.

> And there�s a lesson to be learned there,

Nope.

> that there is a high road to economic development,
> where you can build your middle class,

The US did that in spades.

> have a unionized work force,

Hardly anyone is actually that stupid.

> if you�re willing to put a focus on something like industrial production

The US did that in spades, and a hell of a lot more than that too.

> rather than on oil and gas subsidies or other things that
> don�t have nearly as much benefit for the American economy.

Pity about computers and the internet alone.

The kraut banking system is primitive in comparison too.

> -----

> Death of the Liberal Class

Even sillier.

> by Chris Hedges (Oct 17, 2010)
> <http://www.amazon.com/Death-Liberal-Class-Chris-Hedges/dp/1568586442/ref
> =sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304804162&sr=1-1>
> (Available at a library near you.)

Wrong.

> Obama lies as cravenly, if not as crudely, as George W. Bush.

None of the rest of this mindless silly shit worth bothering with, all flushed where it belongs.