Tag: Income Inequality

Income Inequality and the Imperious Presidency: An Opinion From a Bitter Clinger Out Here in the “Wilderness”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Obama (King Louis) and Michelle (Marie)You have heard the story of Maria Antoinette, right?

Sometime around 1789, after being told that her French subjects had no bread, Marie-Antoinette (bride of France’s King Louis XVI) supposedly, snottily sniffed, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”—“Let them eat cake.” After that imperious and insensitive remark, the queen became a hated symbol of the decadent monarchy and threw gasoline on the fire of a revolution that would cause her to literally lose her head several years later.

After enduring 5 years of the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama and the First Wookie, err…Lady, Michelle “Mooch” Obama, my opinion is that they make Louis and Marie look like pikers.

You can’t say we weren’t warned, though.

Back in April of 2008, Democrat Presidential Candidate Barack Hussein Obama, spoke the following words during a fundraiser in Pennsylvania:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.

And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The imperious, better-than-you attitude of the First Family is the stuff legends are made of.   And. not the good kind…

Black Conservative Pundit, Mychal Massie, reported the other day,  that

Obama unfathomably sang the blues that Michelle Obama didn’t get paid for her duties “even though that’s a tough job.” But he omitted the fact that she has twenty-six attendants (i.e., staff) at an annual cost to taxpayers of $1,750,000. That includes a hair dresser and the same make-up artist Oprah uses who charges $15,000 per day for his services. Actually I’m surprised she didn’t try to put her daughters on her payroll insofar as she lied and named them as staff when she took her taxpayer-funded African safari where she ate her way through the jungle.

Then there was the DailyMail.co.uk story that revealed just how hard it is for Michelle in her life as a public servant in the role of First Lady, “Michelle Obama Accused Of Spending $10m In Public Money On Vacations.” This included “expensive massages, top shelf vodka, and five-star hotels.” The article, which was written in August 2011, reported that she had “spent $10 million of U.S. taxpayers’ money on vacations alone in the past year. Branding her ‘disgusting’ and ‘a vacation junkie’, they say the [then] 47-year-old mother-of-two has been indulging in five-star hotels, where she splashes out on expensive massages and alcohol. The ‘top source’ told the National Enquirer: ‘It’s disgusting. Michelle is taking advantage of her privileged position while the most hardworking Americans can barely afford a week or two off work.”  

The DailyMail article quoting a source specifically noted, “Michelle also enjoys drinking expensive booze during her trips. She favours martinis with top-shelf vodka and has a taste for rich sparkling wines. … The vacations are totally Michelle’s idea. She’s like a junkie. She can’t schedule enough getaways, and she lives one to the next — all the while sticking it to hardworking Americans.” There were the separate presidential jets that had them arrive 4 hours apart on the same day for their lavish Martha’s Vineyard vacation at a substantial cost to taxpayers. A vacation where she ate, drank, and spent, as Obama was reported to have read books “about porn kings and gangsters”…

Also recently, First Lady Michelle Obama continued her snobbery and her condescension of us “bitter clingers” in “Flyover Country”, during a DNCC Woman’s Luncheon at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, California.

…So make no mistake about it, it matters who we elect to represent us in Washington. It matters. And right now, we are just 17 seats away from winning back the House of Representatives — 17 seats. (Applause.) But I’m also going to be straight with you: Most districts in this country are not like San Francisco. (Laughter.) And we have a lot of tight races in other parts of California and all across the country. And every single one of these seats matters. Every single vote in the House of Representatives matters, because so many critically important issues come before our Congress.

… So we need you to dig deep. We need you to max out. And once you’ve given what you can, then we need you to go out there and volunteer. Leave San Francisco. (Laughter.) Leave this bastion. Go out into the wilderness. (Laughter.) And roll up your sleeves, because we know that those person-to-person contacts, those calls and doors knocked on, all of that can also mean the difference between victory and defeat.

I find the Obamas’ upper-crust attitude and lifestyle extremely hypocritical , considering their push against  “Income Inequality” and Obama’s inclusion of Class Warfare in every single speech he gives.

But, then again, Marxist Leaders have always preached in favor of “Spreading the Wealth Around” and led extravagant lifestyles.

Until He Comes,

KJ

SOTU 2014: Sixth Verse…Same as the First (Except With a Threat Thrown In)

On By kingsjesterIn Uncategorized4 Comments

obamaSOTY2014For those of you who were expecting the 44th President of these United States, Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) to say anything new last night, you were sorely disappointed.

Every point in Obama’s Socialist Playbook was rehashed over and over again, with a threat thrown in by the Lightbringer that, if he doesn’t get his way, by Congress passing every thing that he wants them to, he “has a pen”…meaning he will go around them and rule by diktat. That is, he will write Executive Orders, a Presidential Version of having a Temper Tantrum., i.e., lashing out, because he did not get his way.

Obama literally reiterated every single failed Political Strategy of his Administration so far, somehow thinking, if he focused attention on them, once again, they would magically be universally accepted by the American Public, while his Popularity Polls continue to reflect the harsh reality of his failed Presidency.

Proclaiming 2014 as a “Year of Action”, the Prevaricator in Chief declared that

America does not stand still…and neither will I.

Which explains why nobody has nailed him with Impeachment, yet. He’s a moving target.

Obama, as he always does, made the address about him, how wonderful he is, and what a tireless worker he has been as President.

Fore!

As President, I’m committed to making Washington work better, and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here. I believe most of you are, too. Last month, thanks to the work of Democrats and Republicans, this Congress finally produced a budget that undoes some of last year’s severe cuts to priorities like education. Nobody got everything they wanted, and we can still do more to invest in this country’s future while bringing down our deficit in a balanced way. But the budget compromise should leave us freer to focus on creating new jobs, not creating new crises.

In the coming months, let’s see where else we can make progress together. Let’s make this a year of action. That’s what most Americans want – for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations. And what I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all – the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.

Let’s face it: that belief has suffered some serious blows. Over more than three decades, even before the Great Recession hit, massive shifts in technology and global competition had eliminated a lot of good, middle-class jobs, and weakened the economic foundations that families depend on.

Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled. The cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by – let alone get ahead. And too many still aren’t working at all.

Economic Growth? Step away from the bong, Mr. President. You and the family taking a taxpayer-funded vacation every month is not “Economic Growth”. Although, the entourage you take with you, do all have to be paid.

Obama concluded his Soviet Soliloquy last night with these words:

…Our freedom, our democracy, has never been easy. Sometimes we stumble; we make mistakes; we get frustrated or discouraged. But for more than two hundred years, we have put those things aside and placed our collective shoulder to the wheel of progress – to create and build and expand the possibilities of individual achievement; to free other nations from tyranny and fear; to promote justice, and fairness, and equality under the law, so that the words set to paper by our founders are made real for every citizen. The America we want for our kids – a rising America where honest work is plentiful and communities are strong; where prosperity is widely shared and opportunity for all lets us go as far as our dreams and toil will take us – none of it is easy. But if we work together; if we summon what is best in us, with our feet planted firmly in today but our eyes cast towards tomorrow – I know it’s within our reach.

Believe it.

I purposefully underlined the key phrase in Obama’s State of the Union Address.

He views our Constitutional Republic as a “collective”, a term which leaders in Communist countries used to refer to a farm created by pooling together a number of small holdings. In other words. smaller farms were absorbed by the Central Government, forcing their owners to work together, not for their own individual achievement, but, rather, for the glory of the State.Obama, like other Marxists (Yeah, I said it.) envisions a society where “fairness and equality” means that any “individual achievement” is sublimated and absorbed in order to grow the Central Government, “for the good of the people”.

To this end, Obama has been whining about “Income Inequality” for quite a while now. Only, until recently, he called it “spreading the wealth”.

On a Sunday, in October of 2008, outside of Toledo, Ohio, Democratic Presidential Nominee Obama met a plumber named Joe Wurzelbacher. Joe, who owned his own plumbing company, dared to ask Obama about his proposed tax hikes. In fact, he told Obama that he did not want to pay higher taxes, he was already paying enough. Obama told him,

Now, I respect the disagreement. I just want you to be clear – it’s not that I want to punish your success – I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you – that they’ve got a chance at success too.”

…I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

When Obama promised to “radically change” America, this is exactly what he meant:

  • The Redistribution of Wealth
  • The Indoctrination of Our Children, starting with the conception of a National Preschool Program
  • The replacement of the Traditional Family Unit by “a new kind of family”, i.e., “marriage equality”, in which parenting duties are handled by The State.
  • The weakening of our military, through using them as lab rats in Social Engineering Experiments and restricting them in battle
  • The bypassing of our System of Checks and Balances, whereby “Supreme Power” is wielded by the Executive Branch, i.e., “Dear Leader”

Now, 5 years later, he is still trying to make his vision, reality.

By any means necessary.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Push For “Income Equality”: “From Each According to His Abilities, to Each According to His Needs”

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Obama-Shrinks-2The capitalist maintains his rights as a purchaser when he tries to make the working-day as long as possible, and to make, whenever possible, two working-days out of one. On the other hand, the peculiar nature of the commodity sold implies a limit to its consumption by the purchaser, and the laborer maintains his right as seller when he wishes to reduce the working-day to one of definite normal duration. There is here, therefore, an antinomy, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between equal rights force decides. Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working-day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working-class. – Marx, Das Kapital, an excerpt from the personal blog of Rick Bookstaber, Research Principal, Office of Financial Research, (an office created by the Dodd-Frank Law) May 7, 2012

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own. – Second Inaugural Address of Barack Hussein Obama, January 21, 2013

On December 4. 2013, before he and his family left for a $4 million dollar Holiday Vacation, paid for by the citizens of the United States of America, which First Lady Michelle Obama has yet to return from, President Barack Hussein Obama delivered a speech on “Income Inequality”  to a handpicked group from the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress. Here is an excerpt,

As values of community broke down, and competitive pressure increased, businesses lobbied Washington to weaken unions and the value of the minimum wage. As a trickle-down ideology became more prominent, taxes were slashed for the wealthiest, while investments in things that make us all richer, like schools and infrastructure, were allowed to wither. And for a certain period of time, we could ignore this weakening economic foundation, in part because more families were relying on two earners as women entered the workforce. We took on more debt financed by a juiced-up housing market. But when the music stopped, and the crisis hit, millions of families were stripped of whatever cushion they had left.

And the result is an economy that’s become profoundly unequal, and families that are more insecure. I’ll just give you a few statistics. Since 1979, when I graduated from high school, our productivity is up by more than 90 percent, but the income of the typical family has increased by less than eight percent. Since 1979, our economy has more than doubled in size, but most of that growth has flowed to a fortunate few.

The top 10 percent no longer takes in one-third of our income — it now takes half. Whereas in the past, the average CEO made about 20 to 30 times the income of the average worker, today’s CEO now makes 273 times more. And meanwhile, a family in the top 1 percent has a net worth 288 times higher than the typical family, which is a record for this country.

So the basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed. In fact, this trend towards growing inequality is not unique to America’s market economy. Across the developed world, inequality has increased. Some of you may have seen just last week, the Pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. “How can it be,” he wrote, “that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

But this increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country, and it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people. Understand we’ve never begrudged success in America. We aspire to it. We admire folks who start new businesses, create jobs, and invent the products that enrich our lives. And we expect them to be rewarded handsomely for it. In fact, we’ve often accepted more income inequality than many other nations for one big reason — because we were convinced that America is a place where even if you’re born with nothing, with a little hard work you can improve your own situation over time and build something better to leave your kids. As Lincoln once said, “While we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.”

The problem is that alongside increased inequality, we’ve seen diminished levels of upward mobility in recent years. A child born in the top 20 percent has about a 2-in-3 chance of staying at or near the top. A child born into the bottom 20 percent has a less than 1-in-20 shot at making it to the top. He’s 10 times likelier to stay where he is. In fact, statistics show not only that our levels of income inequality rank near countries like Jamaica and Argentina, but that it is harder today for a child born here in America to improve her station in life than it is for children in most of our wealthy allies — countries like Canada or Germany or France. They have greater mobility than we do, not less.

The idea that so many children are born into poverty in the wealthiest nation on Earth is heartbreaking enough. But the idea that a child may never be able to escape that poverty because she lacks a decent education or health care, or a community that views her future as their own, that should offend all of us and it should compel us to action. We are a better country than this.

Dr. Thomas Sowell, the brilliant American Economist (who just happens to be black) wrote the following profound statement in an article titled ” “Who Are the ‘1 Percent’?”, posted on nationalreview,com, on August 1, 2012

All sorts of statements are made in politics and in the media as if that top 1 percent is an enduring class of people, rather than an ever-changing collection of individuals who have a spike in their income in a particular year for one reason or another. Turnover in other income brackets is also substantial.

There is nothing mysterious about this. Most people start out at the bottom, in entry-level jobs, and their incomes rise over time as they acquire more skills and experience.

Politicians and media talking heads love to refer to people who are in the bottom 20 percent in income in a given year as “the poor.” But, following the same individuals for 10 or 15 years usually shows the great majority of those individuals moving into higher income brackets.

The number who reach the top 20 percent greatly exceeds the number still stuck in the bottom 20 percent over the years. But such mundane facts cannot compete for attention with the moral melodramas conjured up by politicians and the media when they discuss “the rich” and “the poor.”

There are people who are genuinely rich and genuinely poor, in the sense of having very high or very low incomes for most, if not all, of their lives. But “the rich” and “the poor” in this sense are unlikely to add up to even 10 percent of the population.

Ironically, those who make the most noise about income disparities or poverty contribute greatly to policies that promote both. The welfare state enables millions of people to meet their needs with little or no income-earning work on their part.

Most of the economic resources used by people in the bottom 20 percent come from sources other than their own incomes. There are veritable armies of middle-class people who make their livings transferring resources, in a variety of ways, from those who created those resources to those who live off them.

These transferrers exist in both government and private social-welfare institutions. They have every incentive to promote dependency, from which they benefit both professionally and psychically, and to imagine that they are creating social benefits.

For different reasons, both politicians and the media have incentives to spread misconceptions with statistics. So long as we keep buying it, they will keep selling it.

With his “empire” and popularity rapidly tanking, Obama and his enablers have decided to ramp up the politic rhetoric used so well and so often by followers of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky…and, not-so-coincidentally,  Community Organizers, as will:  the incendiary rhetoric of Class Warfare.

The harsh truth of the matter is the fact that America remains the Land of Opportunity…if you are willing, Pookie, to get your Cheetos-eating rear end up of the couch and work for it.

The Founding Fathers established a nation found on the principle that

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

“Income Equality” (i.e., Marxism) was never mentioned.

Until He Comes,

KJ