Today's quote:
"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."
— Abraham Lincoln
He would have been excoriated in the modern day media as an elitist and racist bastard.
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Here's some interesting info I received in an email today from a reader. It SEEMS the facts are in order... if anyone disputes them please comment accordingly...
Interesting Info:
City, State, with % of People Below the Poverty Level
1. Detroit , MI 32.5%
2. Buffalo , NY 29.9%
3. Cincinnati , OH 27.8%
4. Cleveland , OH 27.0%
5. Miami , FL 26.9%
6. St.. Louis , MO 26.8%
7. El Paso , TX 26.4%
8. Milwaukee , WI 26.2%
9. Philadelphia , PA 25.1%
10. Newark , NJ 24.2%
U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, August 2007 What do the top ten cities (over 250,000) with the highest poverty rate all have in common?
Detroit , MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961;
Buffalo , NY (2nd) hasn't elected one since 1954;
Cincinnati , OH - (3rd)...since 1984;
Cleveland , OH - (4th).....since 1989;
Miami , FL - (5th) has never had a Republican mayor;
St. Louis , MO - (6th)....since 1949;
El Paso , TX - (7th) has never had a Republican mayor;
Milwaukee , WI - (8th)....since 1908;
Philadelphia , PA - (9th)...since 1952;
Newark , NJ - (10th).....since 1907.
The sad fact is that there is not shred of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats any more regarding their fiscal rectitude. Cheap energy showed up in earnest in the American economy in the second decade of the 20th Century, and our political sensibilities were destroyed (with a great deal of help from Haber-Bosch). This was no particular entity/political party's fault or genius any more than Plague showing up in a city's port during the dark ages was G-d expressing his displeasure with church attendance - its just phenomena.
Still, doing the same thing over and over and over again....
30 comments:
The Democrats have presided over the worst schools, worst crime, worst poverty, worst corruption and nastiest political machines for decades. They promise something for nothing and people continue to take the bait. Some of it is their politics, but in part it is because they have been entrenched forever. If the Republicans had been entrenched for that long they'd likely be just as rotten. Much of representative government is simply the ability to throw the bums out. When that fails to happen, things go bad.
Regards,
Coal Guy
The next TV reality show will be Tea Baggers who will have to live with desperately poor people in deep Detroit, and we'll see what happens when it is filmed (someday). :) Funny how the most ardent "pull ourself up by your own bootstraps" Republican cries for a bailout/help when he/she hits a financial wall. In the past, we could compensate for this expense with cheap energy. That option is fading ...
The free ride has extended far beyond Detroit. Every spring we interview newly graduated engineers. We get some sharp ones, but over half have spent four years learning absolutely nothing. Zilch. Not only have they indebted themselves, or their parents, they have not even bothered to crack a book, as far as I can see. Entitlement is a curse. What happens when there aren't enough productive people left to support those who aren't? I'm not talking about willingness, just the math of it. What happens?
That is a great quote. It's going on the wall.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Bur:
I think you characterization is somewhat disingenuous. The guys with the biggest bailouts were DEMOCRAT bastions. AIG, bailed out GOLDMAN, the biggest Dem contributor of all, followed closely by Citi. Who died? Bear and Lehman. They were small time contributors that got theirs in the end.
Coal Guy:
I guess you are correct about the entrenchment issue...
Still, your larger point about "something for nothing" is the real issue, IMHO.
That one NEVER works out.
Yeah, but at least we admit we're bailout addicts. :)
With respect to Coal, at some point I'm sure someone theorized that eventually a time would come when everything was so mechanized and computerized and automated that there would be fewer and fewer jobs for us human beings to do, and at what point does that start to appear, in a financial/economic/scientific sense. What happens when there is no need for more workers and what happens to those people if they can't earn a living?
Bur:
You have hit on the very essence of Deflation...
What happens, indeed.
Since the Supreme Court has said that money equals free speech, which can not be restricted in politics and since 20% of the population owns 85% of the wealth of the US and of that 1% owns 35% of the US wealth, I am not worried.
I am certain that the wealthy or their trust fund baby children will fix everything and make it all work out OK.
Voting should be determined by how much wealth one has. The founding fathers knew best. Then everything would be OK.
The wisdom of the rich should be accepted without qualification.
But maybe we should keep up this Democrat/Republican nonsense. It is a good distraction.
Democrats were the ones pushing women’s lib and part of that is baby bottles, ostensibly to allow the mothers to work. However, unlike the breast fed boy that at least has to suckle and work to get his meal, Democrats are trained from birth to lay back and let it come to them with no effort on their part, by a confluence of bottles, gravity, and feminism! Thus, in a nefarious plan to secure long term electoral gains, millions of Democrats have been trained to lay back and expect a free lunch with utterly no effort on their part.
Anon:
The Supreme Court Decision could not have come at a worse time... or a better time. Decisions like that might have a motivational effect...
To my mind, there is not a shred of difference regarding fiscal policy between the Reps and the Dems.
I merely get back to this:
The government is destroying itself. If one cares about their fellow man, one cannot wish them to become more addicted to government - which is only destined to fail them.
This is a moment to see to your own house.
I'm a liberal democrat, and I'm not getting to lay back much. :) I'm waking up at 5:30 in the freezing cold Chicago morning, to ride an el train that is also cold, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year (with the occasional sick/holiday day). And I work for the government! Please give us an example of someone who is "laying back," Dan. And don't say "welfare queens" without introducing us to an actual person, please.
I've talked about Iraq ramping up their oil production in the next few years ...
From Tom Whipple ...
"A few weeks ago there was much optimism that Iraq’s new oil production agreements would add another 8 or 9 million b/d to the world’s production within the next five years. Many of the world’s
major oil companies are committed to investing billions in Iraq’s long neglected, but easy to find and exploit, oil fields. Baghdad is supposed to become the new Saudi Arabia of the Middle East. Most of the foreign oil companies now involved in Iraq are state-owned so are less interested in making large profits than in gaining access to Iraqi oil.
The problem with these new agreements is the Kurd-Sunni-Shiite disputes which have been going on for centuries, not to mention opposition to the plan in parliament. In recent weeks, as the US has been turning over increasing security responsibility to the Iraqis, the frequency of suicide bombings has been increasing. Although some of this violence is related to the forthcoming elections, animosities run deep.
There is no reason to think that the violence will not continue after the US withdrawal which is starting this year.
The Iraqi elections, which will take place on March 7th, could be a major turning point in the history of post-invasion Iraq. In the meantime US contractors are warning that we should not expect a big increase in Iraqi oil production in the immediate future."
Hmmmm ....
Some perspective:
http://evilspeculator.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/2010-02-09_fuck.png
Bur,
I'll give you a 'welfare queen' example. I drive to work each morning past three different families I am related to. None of them work. They can but choose not to. I know of $1,200/week between the three that they are currently getting. It's a joke.
I have no issue helping those who want to work and are on temporary hard times. I don't understand supporting those who do nothing because they just don't have to.
There's your real people for you.
Bur,
I've got some, too. Not hypothetical welfare queens. They are my lazy, useless, white trash, redneck, blood relatives.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Coal Guy:
We all of them... even the rich, only theirs are called "trust fund brats", while ours are of the white trash variety... every group has theirs... some more than others.
And we ALL recognize it for what it is - except the Media and certain members of the political elite for whom admitting this would destroy their position.
"No man can understand that which his salary requires he not understand".
Hmmm, my four friends who are out of work (one is a mechanical engineer) are part of that statistic that says that the percentage of people that have been collecting unemployment for over 26 weeks has never been higher. They are looking everywhere for jobs, and not finding much on a livable wage. We are in a depression. There are no jobs to have, no driver for jobs, even if they wanted them, which they do. Not old enough for SS .. no trust funds here -- 3 of 4 are minorities. Can't squeeze blood out of turnips. :)
But, welfare queens are not the point. We have been exporting our industry for 40 years now, and been scooping up the bottom of the workforce with the welfare net. It's all been done at the expense of ever increasing debt and trade imbalances. We've reached the end of that rope.
There is overcapacity, but as you point out, Bur, that occurs every 75 years or so. Then, people figure out other productive things to do. In our present economy, replacement of dwindling fossil fuel resources seems like a growth industry to me. With the present decline in oil output across the globe, bringing Iraq on line would keep worldwide production about flat. Better than the alternative, but oil will still be expensive.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Except this time around, we have used up the cheap energy and squandered the available credit, which helped us out of the Great Depression and previous downturns. As you know, in the 1950s and 60s, credit was almost unheard of and all that wonderful cheap oil was still under the American ground. With our manufacturing and services outsourced to China and India, I'm having a hard time seeing how my younger friends (much less my niece and nephew) are gotta find a way out of this -- welfare queens they aren't, so far. :)
You guys need to define "work".
A person who runs the machine that puts plastic wrap on video games is "gainfully employed" and counted in the US GDP.
A person who uses his personal savings to buy some land and builds his own house by hand is technically not "employed". Same for buying and renovating a trashed foreclosure house for his personal/family use.
Lots of folks are "employed" doing absolutely useless work ie many lawyers and Wall St operators etc. And lots of folks who are working toward self sufficiency are looked down on as "unemployed scum".
Cash
Rules
Everything
Around
Me
I define work as bringing in cash. I've got blood in the water and I'm hustling to be off the dole soon. Six weeks and I'm going mad!
"I don't believe in hell...
I believe in unemployment but I don't believe in hell."
-Dustin Hoffman in 'Tootsie'
Bur,
I'm not talking about my family in the sense they would work if they could. They have never worked and draw money all the time. Big difference. That needs to stop.
There are quite a few of us in the US that now live partially or near completely outside of the money economy. We have paid off all our debts, own everything free and clear, and have a very low tax profiles. We have lots and lots of skills in all kinds of areas from carpentry to electrical to forest management to gardening to water systems. We drive old cars and heat with wood from our own land. We spend a lot of time at swap meets and flea markets. We drive old cars that we keep fixed ourselves. We spend a lot of time reading, hiking, gardening, and enjoying our families and pets.
The American Dream became a nightmare long ago but most people still don't get it.
Coal Guy,
WSJ is reporting peak oil,if this catches on!? Maybe we should go back to the idea of post oil remodies,like we did a few months back?
peace
I think you have to be careful about mixing up 'cause and effect'. Its like saying that breathing is fatal - it has a 100% death rate!
Obviously people who are poor will vote for the party who offer them more, just as richer, or more able and ambitious, people will vote for the low tax, low benefits party.
But the sense of entitlement is much broader; the product of a wealthy (once-wealthy?)society, so the military/industrial and aircraft manufacturers look to the Gov't for huge support, just as the bankers and AIG too wanted a bailout.
Where's the difference?
Donal,
Great observation, there is no difference. Everyone expects a break. Everyone is just like the newbie engineers I interview who think they're employable because they managed to sneak through four years of college without retaining a single fact or gaining a single skill. They've grown up with no responsibility for their own actions or anyone else's. My friend compares them to dogs. Every morning the food magically appears in the bowl. The dog has no idea where it came from or how much work it took to get it. It is just there, expected.
People think wealth in the US is in the air we breathe and the water we drink. Unending and eternal. We are individually and publicly in over our heads. Individually, we have slowed buying, and are beginning to pay down some debt. Publicly, the government is figuring all sorts of counterproductive spending schemes. They still don't get it, and won't.
Everyone now, from bottom to top thinks that government can create something from nothing, and/or they should be given something for nothing by the government, parents, future employers or SOMEBODY! The best that government can do is take from one and give to another. This, unfortunately, inflicts collateral damage both moral and economic. It doesn't matter whether its individual welfare or corporate bailouts. Mom and pop welfare is at least as damaging to their children. Every step to mitigate individual failure brings us one step closer to systemic failure. We've reached the brink.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Anon 1:53 PM,
You are the kind of guy that this country was built on, and the present administration despises. You produce no tax revenue to speak of. I'm working to join your ranks, but I'm not there yet.
Greg,
This leads me to one of your astoundingly FOS moments. You have noticed that the feminists, and the rest of the left despise corporations. Yet, a woman's loftiest achievement is a high position in the aforementioned evil organizations. It is hard to be more FOS. What is that about? Tax Revenue.
Pushing women out of the home and into the workforce circulates the money faster, creating more for the government to skim. It is no accident that the big push came simultaneously with the Great Society legislation.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Coal Guy:
FOS and BS is EVERYWHERE!
Don't get me wrong... if Goldman Sachs was looking for a new CEO or head of trading and they offered me the position... I would definitely cash the check...
At this point what GS really needs is a scapegoat. I would be leery of that check.
Those are not quotes from Abe Lincoln. The quotes were published in 1942 by William J. H. Boetcker, a Presbyterian minister.
I'd take that big fat job too. I hear you.
Funny how the feminists want to be what they claim to despise in men.
Regards,
Coal Guy
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