You know, legislation involves a whole lot more than making “laws” in the sense of things you have to do or not do.
According to this article looking at data from these polls:
The problem is that inequality, like the deficit, is usually just a stand-in for whatever economic anxieties Americans have. When the economy is doing good and lifting most boats, voters don’t worry about inequality or the deficit, but when things are bad, anything that sounds like part of the problem, they want something done about it.
Then there’s the reality of inequality, which is that in order for the poor to be lifted up, it’s not just the rich that have to pay. The middle class has to pay more and sacrifice too. As long as the middle class is unwilling to pay more, nothing will be done on that front.
Not really equivalent. Inequality means actual troubles, it means neighborhoods you don’t dare walk through, etc., etc.
The seamy underbelly of the Hamptons, or the mean streets of Aspen?
Nobody has to “pay” to fix inequality. It’s not a matter of just taking from the rich and giving to the poor. It’s making sure that the poor get a share of overall growth, not just the rich.
Inequality won’t mean trouble to the oligarchy until we start kidnapping them and their children, like they do in other Third World countries.
Inequality is a really good way to reduce consumer spending, thereby causing the rich to make less money from the stuff their factories make. Which is alot like kidnapping their children.
Neither of these cases is true today. What is true is that times are good as compared to 2008, but the rich have gotten almost all of the benefit.
It is also not the case that the rich are doing a lot better, the middle class is doing a little bit better, and the poor are doing worse. Both the poor and the middle class are stagnating - in fact everyone but the top 10%.
During the bubble years inequality increased because the rich did so much better, but hardly anyone cared because nearly everyone was doing better.
As of 2014, there is no known way to insure this. The most recent time that all boats were lifted involved balanced budgets, a long period of economic growth, expansion of international trade, and welfare reform.
As for kidnapping kids, yeah, I’m sure middle class revolutionaries will get right on that. Oh wait, Thursday’s bad, the kids have soccer practice. Nope, Friday won’t do either, that’s for clubbing. Weekend? Sports! Gotta use that 60 inch LED TV to escape all your struggles.
You mean to ensure that the middle class and poor get a share of growth? Sure there is. One great way, the one we used for most of the century until about 1980, is labor unions. That’s pretty much their job - to get workers a share of the fruits of capitalism.
Labor unions only work with protectionist policies, both foreign and domestic, to ensure a captive consumer market. While this creates a stronger domestic middle class, it worsens the condition of the poor and pretty much starves the third world. It’s just not a valid policy anymore, proven by events. Labor laws are still pretty much what they were in the heyday of unions, but competitive pressures have brought them to their knees.
And that’s one of the problems with talking about inequality. Are we talking about the poor or the middle class, because the interests of the two groups do not always align. The middle class’s interests are often just as likely to align with the wealthy than with the poor. That kinda comes with the territory of being in the middle.
Politically, inequality concerns are directed towards the anxieties of the middle class. Sops to helping the poor are mainly just to make middle class voters feel good about themselves while their own unique concerns are addressed as a priority over the concerns of the poor.
Huh?
The answer is to strengthen labor unions overseas.
Okay. But right now, the middle class is lumped in with the poor, rather than the rich. And are at risk of joining them. They don’t like it.
No, those sops would like the poor to join the middle class - you know, like how we created a middle class in the first place.
What have been the primary reasons for the decline of labor unions? A) overseas competition, B) the obsolescence of their industries, C) the ability to replace human labor with automation.
Our trade deals include such things. But a third world union is just not going to capture the kinds of wages and benefits that Detroit unions do.
The middle class worries about joining the poor, but their economic reality is not the same as their perceptions. The middle class has entirely different worries and policy needs. The poor need mass transit. The middle class wants better roads and lower gas prices and ample free parking. The poor need affordable housing. The middle class wants their property values to appreciate. The poor need a better safety net(TANF, Medicaid). The middle class wants to make sure they have a sound retirement(SS, Medicare). The poor don’t have much money because they can’t get decent jobs. The middle class worries that their taxes are too high.
On these issues, the interests of the middle class align with those of the rich, not the poor. As a matter of fact, I can think of very few issues where the middle class and the poor share the same interests. Education could be one, since both groups rely heavily on public schools, but while the middle class complains, they still tend to support a system where property taxes fund schools, which makes their schools better than poor people’s schools.
That’s what we say, but you don’t get there with the middle class’s preferred policies. You need things like making public school funding all come from the same pool. You need equal policing of poor and middle class neighborhoods. You need a justice system that doesn’t doom young poor kids for life by the time they reach 21 because they made mistakes. You need higher taxes on the middle class and rich alike to pay for a better safety net. You need goods to be low cost(unions and the poor are definitely at odds on that one).
And most importantly, you have to figure out whether our priority is helping American poor people or foreign poor people. Because allowing mass immigration of poor people makes inequality worse by creating a LOT more competition for jobs at the low end of the income scale. It’s probably the biggest conflict in interests between the middle class and poor. the middle class benefits from immigration and is hurt by free trade. The poor benefit from free trade but are hurt by immigration. Meanwhile, the middle class has talked itself into believing that opposing foreigners taking their jobs in their own countries is somehow less racist then opposing foreigners taking their jobs in the US. It’s the same thing.
The numbers in that linked article, are they based on an operational Keystone pipeline v. some other path for the oil to get to market, or on an operational Keystone pipeline v. leaving the oil in the ground?
Because if it’s the second one, then using them as an argument against Keystone as a project is disingenuous. That oil isn’t staying in the ground.
The point that is missing here is that we already should be going to the point of applying the real cost of what the emissions will do to all economies. The conversation only looks like we are talking only about 2 plans, one for making Kingston and the second for not doing it and then Canada moves the oil in a different way, when there is in reality a third position: stop this idea that we can never assign the real costs of us using the atmosphere as a sewer.
As a compromise, if I was in charge, surprisingly I would go forward with the pipeline; but **only **if at the same time we remove the oil subsidies, accelerate the adoption of renewables and add the real price to our use of fossil fuels. The point here is that in the end it does not matter where the oil comes from, the thing that is needed is to start controlling the emissions and to deal with the illusion that fossil fuels are cheap to use.
So you’re plan is to curtail supply, thus forcing up prices.
Weren’t you going on about how extreme the Tea Party’s positions are? You’re touting an idea here that is so extreme you wouldn’t even see the Green party advocate it.
Read it again, I favor the pipeline on the condition that market forces also enter the picture by assigning the real cost to the use of fossil fuels, that does not mean “curtail supply”.
You did not get the memo, the idea of using taxes or cap-n-trade was considered a good one even by many Republicans in the past, until the tea party decided that it was an evil one.
Check the Frontline report “Climate of Doubt” that was linked already to on post #206.
The market is already setting prices. You want an environmental cost added to it, which would not be determined by markets, but by government regulators. If all you’re asking for is a carbon tax, that’s fine, but it’s not market pricing and it wouldn’t stop Keystone.
That’s why I was referring to you wanting to restrict supply by a) not building Keystone, and b) not having the Canadians tap the oil and send it somewhere else.
Fair enough; but ISTM that the default assumption is that the conversation IS a binary choice between Keystone v. some Trans-Canada project. If you don’t constantly bring up that there are at least three options to choose from, you and your interlocutors are going to spend a lot of time talking past one another.
Okay, that strikes me as a reasonable position to take. FTR, I didn’t read the link, but from the URL it gives the impression that it does not propose leaving the oil in the ground.