Wealth re-distribution in the USA [rah, rah, rah]

[Richard Fiero]

I don't believe that the Vineland crowd is to blame but rather it is 
the implicit trust in Maxwell's Demon the genie in the market and a 
misplaced faith in efficient markets guided by the invisible hand to 
portion out scarce resources when in fact resources are not scarce 
but hoarded by the selfish and privileged. Like the rest of us, the 
Vineland crowd experienced no wage increases but were offered credit 
and lots of it to take the place of pay for useful work. What useful 
work? Well, one can be a hired gun for the military since it's the 
only jobs program the US has.
Germany bears a look for its universal health care at half the cost 
of health care in the US and longer life expectancy, its almost-real 
labor unions and the fact that it is an economic powerhouse in exports.

alice wellintown wrote:
>I never thought that we would see the US downgraded from AAA. That the
>world has responded by buying up UST securities, the US 10 year
>benchmark at 2%, depite the downgrade (and Yes, I believe S&P is
>correct), suggests that the mature economies of the world, and
>particularly the US, Japan, and Germany, are not going to recover from
>the great recession any time soon. Of course there are several other
>considerations, the currencies, the price of energy (oil and
>alternatives), demographics (baby-boom retirement in the US...etc.),
>real estate portfolios, the cost of these protracted wars, the
>inflation in the BRICs, the welfare extended to Banks and Corporations
>(domestic, foreign, international) by the US Fed vs. the end of
>welfare for working people and the brutal corporate/ political
>subjugation of workers ....but I'm not going to hang that sign on Kohl
>or any other political leader. The fault belongs to the people; Shock,
>shock, but I blame the baby-boomers. I put the blame on the Vineland
>Zoyds and Brck Vonds and Frenesis.
>
>
>rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > one almost feels bad for the germans, stuck in a debt-laden morass.
> > its all helmut kohl's fault (if you've been reading transcripts in Der
> > Spiegel of his conversations with Gorbachev right before the fall of
> > the Soviet Union, you'll laugh at the stupidity of the man) pushing
> > for the euro.
> > michael lewis' recent piece on Germany, good as it is, in the latest
> > Vanity Fair with its allusions to Germans love of shit and money
> > smacks of a Pynchonian type of prejudice
> > I liked that in Germany to avoid layoffs companies jiggered with
> > employee hours so no one lost their jobs. If anything, German workers
> > complain that wages have not risen comparable to German companies
> > profits. No doubt they'll figure something out way before any
> > like-minded happens in the US or Britain.
> > But in the end Germany may have to open its wallets again to save
> > Helmut Kohl's dream. I'd be shocked if they ever agreed to a eurobond.
> > like a swimmer attaching itself to a drowning person