Posted on 02/28/2016 10:38:44 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
It was only a matter of time before we had a populist backlash to 30 years of flawed globalization policies that both parties embraced.
There were, in retrospect, clear signs of what was to come--signs that if Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders did not appear on the scene, someone else like them would have. We've had decades of forewarnings as the top income earners --the "one percent"--began taking bigger shares of our economy starting in the 1980s: The anti-globalization protests of the late 1990s. The rise of Ross "NAFTA-will-suck-our-jobs-away" Perot and Pat "Pitchforks" Buchanan against the GOP establishment. The brief but intense Occupy Wall Street movement. The adoration of Elizabeth Warren. The warnings from superstar economist Thomas Piketty in recent years that the United States was suffering the worst income inequality in the developed world, worse than anything since the 1920s--and that it was not sustainable.
Above all, there was the drip-drip-drip social acid of stagnating middle-class income--interrupted by the false dawn of the mid-2000s mortgage mania, when the poor felt rich but in truth were only more indebted--and the simultaneous self-isolation of our increasingly uber-wealthy class over three long decades. All without any effective policy response from Washington to redress the widening income gap....
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Brought to you by the same people that predict their political demise twice a day.
Politico has been saying this for months. /s
The ‘populist’ premise doesn’t square with Trump. Nice try, but ... No!
Regardless of Trump’s character, his rhetoric is unadulterated Americanism. Feel free to call Trump’s supporters naive, but to Hell with those that call them populists.
ping
It was also a bit light on the Bill Clinton years when all this started fermenting.
The single biggest reason why we have Trump and Sanders is because of the development of the fast moving huge data sources of information now available giving the average Joe Blow in the street the ability to sense that the single biggest beneficiary of Big Liberal Government is in fact Big Liberal Government and its enablers.
In the end, it means blame the internet for providing us the free flow of information and the free flow of opinion. I wouldn't have it any other way and we're all going be sorry when it's gone. Legislated then adjudicated away with new hate laws and accusations of domestic extremism.
Stagnating? That's a mild way of putting it:
U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 29 Feb 2016 at 07:22:23 AM GMT is:
$19,078,852,469,461.45
The estimated population of the United States is 322,465,181 so each citizen's share of this debt is $59,165.62.
"For more than a generation, economists, trade experts and policymakers, including both Republican and Democratic presidents, have told us that we could do little about globalization and the brutal displacement of old industries and jobs, and that we might as well just get used to it. Indeed, we were told, the United States must lead this charge: Free trade in the West helped to win the Cold War, after all, and the United States emerged as the sole superpower. This self-conceit infected both political parties. It was Clinton, after all, who pushed through the North American Free Trade Agreement and “triangulated” way to agreement with then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich on a workfare replacement to the welfare system.
Most economists agree that opening up markets, especially in the aftermath of the Cold War, did produce a wealthier world overall. At the same time, however, globalization’s advocates have plainly overstated its benefits and underestimated its hazards, including social upheaval. The open trading system that Washington adopted more aggressively than any other major country—particularly, the giant economies of China, Germany and Japan—has exacerbated inequalities at home far more than the government was prepared for. And those who challenged the wisdom of the day, who pushed for “fair trade” (more tariffs, unemployment insurance and worker protections) over “free trade,” were typically branded protectionists and driven from the discussion.
Double that, only 55% pay income taxes, so each taxpayer owes a house in most parts of this country.
Ten years later we were attacked by a religion of peace according the New World Order president’s son.
“The estimated population of the United States is 322,465,181 so each citizen’s share of this debt is $59,165.62.”
Average voter:
Only $59,165? What a bargain! I will get that back and more in a year or two with my welfare checks and food stamps, my Obamacare, my free child care, my “earned” income tax credits, my SS payments, my tax refund or my free collich tuition.
The reason the politicians in Washington have us in such debt is not because they are intrinsically evil but because the American people elect them ,for the most part, to deliver largess at the expense of somebody else.
“Please, Please, don’t tax me. Tax that man behind the tree”
Our troubles come from far more than economic disparities and globalization. We have seen a breakdown in our moral values where the rational has been replaced with the insane and where decent human interaction has been replaced with rude and bullying behavior, sometimes enforced by new laws, such as the elimination of any sign of Christianity from schools while teaching about other religions. Injustices coming from our legal system and our courts are very scary. Political correctness has been a blight on society causing fears of losing our rights of freedom of speech and movement. How about the push to take the guns that most people own for self protection from thieves, killers and, increasingly, because of the fear of a tyrannical government. People are angry and scared for reasons which cannot be expressed. They are sick and tired of their guaranteed Constitutional rights being walked all over and eliminated by political parties and nothing seems to be getting better. Last but not least, they see people from other nations coming in here without restraint, using the resources that are supposed to be used for the concerns of American citizens who pay those taxes. And, how about those terrorists threats coming across that border. And, how about the gigantic drug problems we have which go across the economic spectrum? You have to wonder about some of our leaders when you see the arrogance, the recklessness, the insane policies, all of which could be coming from a restraint on the frontal lobes of the brain. When smart people see trumped-up issues like Global Warming where hints from the proponents, that any disagreement should be worthy of jail time, you know you are knocking on the door of brutal dictatorship. The liberal press which has become a campaign arm for socialism and even communism is a whole other subject in and of itself. You get my drift, though. Most of us can do nothing except to watch and worry about what lies ahead in this human caused, ignorant mess. Sorry about the length. It is hard to make a point in two lines of comment.
Look how things have turned out: kinder gentler ISIS beheading thousand heads of infidels. LOL.
If Americans HATE Trump... now they know what WE all feel about “O”
If alive today all the founding fathers would have been driven from the discussion.
>If alive today all the founding fathers would have been driven from the discussion.<
I won’t bet against you on this. No way. Just look at how Barky and his drooling sycophants rail against Antonin Scalia.
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