Posted on 06/06/2005 9:12:32 AM PDT by CHARLITE
The war that nobody talks about - the overwhelmingly one-sided class war - is being waged all across America. Guess who's winning.
A recent front-page article in The Los Angeles Times showed that teenagers are faring poorly in a tight job market because of the fierce competition they're getting from older workers and immigrants for entry-level positions.
On the same day, in the business section, the paper reported that the chief executives at California's largest 100 companies took home a collective $1.1 billion in 2004, an increase of nearly 20 percent over the previous year. The paper contrasted that with the 2.9 percent raise that the average California worker saw last year.
The gap between the rich and everybody else in this country is fast becoming an unbridgeable chasm. David Cay Johnston, in the latest installment of the New York Times series "Class Matters," wrote, "It's no secret that the gap between the rich and the poor has been growing, but the extent to which the richest are leaving everybody else behind is not widely known."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"This morning the liberals take (NYT's Op-Ed by Bob Herbert) on America is that it is not a fair place. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. That Bush is protecting the wealthy while blocking the fair and equitable way to even things out like the redistribution of wealth. Bob Herbertt says let's tax the wealthy and give more money to the poor. Let's raise the minimum wage so the poor will get more of the pie. Let's block the elderly and immigrants from taking jobs away from young Americans. Take your fill of this nonsense and then let's get busy."
Bush's Wealth Redistribution Plan
President Bush's proposal to privatize Social Security is the largest attempt to redistribute wealth ever conceived by man. But that plan's core principle is not taking from the rich and giving to the poor, but rather making the poor wealthy.. All this is explained in detail on my website http://www.thenewsocialsecurity.com.
Income Disparity
Over the last 20 years something new has arisen: the billionaire. Today they number in the hundreds. And yes they make more than your average Joe. But they also have built America to such an exalted economic state that we are leaving the world in the dust. Contrary to the thinking of socialists like Herbert, the wealthy have to get their money up front in order to invest it in enterprises employing people at higher salaries.
The Unemployment Myth
Socialists like Herbert rail about non-existent conditions. Faced with the reality that unemployment is down to 5.1%, Herbert completely ignores the significance of that figure, That percentage is derived by the survey of 60,000 household's in America including illegals. It doesn't discriminate. Now what a Herbert bleats is that the unemployed have stopped looking for jobs. Conservatives rail that the illegals are taking those jobs. What a bunch of nonsense. The household survey proves we are "overemployed". We don't have enough workers. The surveyors call a broad section in their survey and locate anyone not working to derive the 5.1%. At a 6% unemployment rate we are fully employed. A 5.1% rate means we will have to look farther than our border to recruit new workers. Now doesn't put a crimp in your border control mantra and make Herbert look pathetic?
The Manufacturing Myth
We are losing manufacturing jobs cry the headlines. Foreign workers are taking American jobs. Thank God for both conditions. Who needs to manufacture anything when we can get it cheaper from poorer countries and their cheaper labor? As mentioned above we don't have the labor pool anyway. More importantly, most miss the point that America is switching from an economy that makes goods to an economy that provides services. Those services will enable the world to be democratized and service jobs pay more. For most of the world living today on less than a dollar a day need our services to build their economies and standard of living. Letting them make our "goods" just reduces our living costs. Protecting jobs never works out. Supply and demand in free markets right the economic ship.
Our Hope
Our hope is that the number of billionaires multiply geometrically. They won't find the number of workers (the McDonald's is advertising for workers at $10 per hour for starters) they want so wages will go up. That more Americans will become educated to fill the many service jobs the 21st. Century will require. Contrary to Herbert's whine America is doing fine and our poor are wealthy by comparison to the rest of the world. However, we can and will do better. Privatize Social Security and watch the fireworks.
Well said. There's nothing left to say. herbert is a sick ratmedia swine - period.
The poor continue to stay poor because they continue to engage in the activity and decision making that made them poor.
And they have good education, stable families, a supportive network of friends who can provide them with employment, stock tips, and easy access to investors.
Poor people need to have better social networks and take education more seriously. I'm glad that W has emphasized the importance of education. I only wished that he had remembered this little thing called the '10th Amendment,' which means that the Feds need to stay out of education. That's a local issue!
Herbert's not a socialist; that's too easy on him. He's closer to a Communist with his (almost) Orwellian arguments!
I don't know what he is. But he never looks at America unless he's wearing his s***-colored glasses -- everything about this country looks bad to him.
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