Jug Hussein Ears Downgrade’s new mantra is income inequality. Ironic isn’t it that the man and the party most responsible for income inequality are the ones who claim they want to fix it? Obummercare is destroying jobs so the new spin is that it’s a good thing. People shouldn’t have to work according to the Dimocrats and the LSM propaganda arm of the Dimocrat Party. Work ethic? Bah! Who needs it? Stay at home and sponge off the suckers who do work. That’s the position of Paul Krugman and the editorial board of the New York Slimes (Motto: All the news that fits our views). And now we find out that Those who strongly agreed that “the government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” gave away $140 on average to charity. Among those who strongly disagreed, the average gift was $1,637. Link from Instapundit.
The 2008 election marked the return of progressive politics in America. For the first time in 16 years, Democrats won both houses of Congress and the White House. They wasted no time in articulating a progressive agenda they claimed would offset the Great Recession and turn America toward greater fairness and compassion. Lifting up the poor, decreasing inequality, and curbing runaway income gains among the wealthiest Americans ranked high among their stated priorities.
It has been five years. How has their project turned out?
Since January 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has more than doubled. Last year brought the largest annual increase in the S&P 500 since the late 1990s. And the vast bulk of this sustained market surge has accrued to the extremely wealthy. According to New York University economist Edward Wolff, the top 10 percent of earners own 81 percent of stocks and mutual funds, 95 percent of financial securities, 92 percent of business equity, and 80 percent of non-home real estate. So it comes as little surprise that nearly all the real income growth that President Obama’s “recovery” has generated would flow to the wealthiest Americans. According to University of California, Berkeley, economist Emmanuel Saez, 95 percent of all recovery gains have accrued to the much-vilified “top 1 percent.”
Yep! I’ve done great! I’m a SRF© after all.
At the same time, the poor have become even more desperate. The number of Americans receiving aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known as food stamps) has increased by almost 50 percent since January 2009, from 32.2 million to 47.7 million. One in six citizens in the richest country in the world now rely on food aid from their government.
WTF? After five years of Obummernomics things have gotten worse? No surprise. Dimocrats love poor people. That’s why they favor policies that create so many of them.
The rich get richer because they continue to do the things that make them rich. The poor get poorer because they continue to do the things that make them poor. One of my three steps to avoiding poverty is developing a work ethic. That means starting to work at a young age doing things like cutting lawns, babysitting, raking leaves, flipping burgers, shoveling snow, all things I did, with the exception of flipping burgers, when I was a teenager. I worked three jobs when I went to college, which is one of the reasons I burned out and dropped out in my junior year. I even worked a part time job my first two years at IBM. I also delivered flowers on major holidays my first year working for IBM. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m a SRF©. When I transferred to the Field Engineering Division of IBM, I worked third shift for 5.5 years and saved and invested the additional income I got.
Of course, every time the Dimocrats raise the minimum wage, they make entry level jobs more expensive, thus reducing the jobs for unskilled labor. Have you seen the unemployment numbers for black teenagers after five years of Obungler? Obumbler has been a disaster not only for black teenagers, but for black males. You’d think he would care more about his base.
But now, to defend Obummercare, liberals are telling people they’ll be better off not working. Un-frickin’-believable! No wonder there’s income inequality and it will remain that way as long as the Dimocrats deride having a work ethic. They’re telling future SRF’s© that having a work ethic is a waste of time.
Today, a lower percentage of Americans are in the workforce—63 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—than at any time since the infamous days of Jimmy Carter.
Oblunder is the black Jimmah Carter so it’s understandable.
This has the effect of reducing the official unemployment rate, which led Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times to quip: “We are basically ‘recovering from the recession’ by reducing the share of Americans who participate in the labor force. Hurrah!”
I feel like I’m living in the world of Alice In Wonderland. All that’s missing is Thunder Rodent Thighs screaming, “Off with their heads!” That will happen after she’s elected crowned in 2016. I mean we had the first black president. Now we need the first woman president. Long live the Queen!
Anyhoo, buried down in this article is this little tidbit.
Conservatives eager to reverse these facts naturally reach for their checkbooks. As I found in my 2006 book Who Really Cares, the average conservative household contributes significantly more to charity than does the average liberal household despite earning less income. According to the 1996 General Social Survey, those who strongly agreed that “the government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” gave away $140 on average to charity. Among those who strongly disagreed, the average gift was $1,637.
I remember when Pope Albert I of the Church of AGW was running for VP his released tax forms showed that this “caring liberal” gave less money to charity than my mother. He was a millionaire. My mother was worth about $200K and had an income of around $18K. Remember, liberals are generous with other people’s money, not their money. Red states give more per capita to charity than blue states. Liberals really, really want to help the poor, but they want gummint to do it.
The reviled Chimpy McHalliburton Bushitler and his wife give a lot of money to chairity. Much more than comparable Dimocrat politicians. That’s what gummint is for.
Don’t work! Don’t worry! Be happy! The Dimocrats will keep you poor and dependent upon gummint. Just hope that enough suckers continue to work to support you and conservatives continue to give to charity. The liberals won’t.
Income equality is when I make as much as the CEO of the corporation I work for regardless of what we each do. Social justice says that’s fair, that this is the way the world should be. A rational person, on the other hand, sees this is a bunch of bullshit from a bunch of lying-ass bitches trying to justify their existence.
I would paraphrase your last line to say. “Eat, Drink, and Make Merry, for if the tax payers revolt, we die”. Why is it that our poor people drive cars and have all the modern gadgets and when they steal they don’t steal food, they steal sneakers. They have money to smoke and drink but somehow they can’t feed or shelter themselves. The Dems have caused several generations of people to devolve into lifestyles that are counter to survival if the checks stop. Without the ability to support themselves they will eat each other rather than find a job. Hell they don’t know how to stand in lines unless there is a benefit at the end of it. Funny how they don’t see having a real job as a benefit. They see criminal acts as work, and real work as a burden.
Roger – See today’s post about Lucy in Texas who is living on welfare and brags about getting to stay home and smoke weed. This is what LBJ’s Great Fucking Society has given us. The social safety net has become a hammock. People should be ashamed of being poor. People should want to get ahead.
This battle against “inequality” is a license for totalitarianism, because it can only be addressed by absolute, unchecked authority. I believe this is part of the reason for God’s Commandment about not coveting. Envy will set us on a road to evil. There’s always someone out there who has more and deserves less. I can’t defend “the rich” as necessarily having earned their share of the pie; I know plenty who have, in my opinion, gotten it by pure luck or nastiness. Ditto for “the poor”, plenty of whom deserve better. Yes, the problem is real, and the moral obligation is on our shoulders to push the world toward a better place. But enhancing the power of the state does more harm than good; the state victimizes not the worst but the weakest, and creates a new class of undeserving parasite. Yes, thou shalt not covet. I’m in good health and I’ve got a roof over my head and I know where my next meal is coming from; how many people in the world have that much? Never mind the 1% on Wall Street; everyone in America is part of the 1%. We should be grateful. But too many of us are angry, because 1) Anger is one of the snares of the human condition, and 2) Evil counselors like Obama play us like fiddles, and they guide our anger and turn brother against brother for their own evil purposes.
Our “poor” live better than the majority of people in Africa, Asia, and South America. Black people in this country should be down on their knees thanking God that their ancestors were brought here as slaves. Being “poor” in America is much better than living in Africa.
Democratic voters are suckers.
Pew studied the first two years (2009 through 2011) of the Obama recovery. Pew’s top line report breaks down the recovery between the lower 93 percent and the wealthiest 7 percent.
During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released Census Bureau data.
From 2009 to 2011, the mean wealth of the 8 million households in the more affluent group rose to an estimated $3,173,895 from an estimated $2,476,244, while the mean wealth of the 111 million households in the less affluent group fell to an estimated $133,817 from an estimated $139,896.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/04/23/a-rise-in-wealth-for-the-wealthydeclines-for-the-lower-93/#overview
Income equality basically doesn’t work as planned. When I first went to China in the late 80’s, everyone who worked in the hospital made the same wage, neurosurgeons or cleaners. However, many of the doctors had wads of US 100$ bills in their pockets. No one would be specific about this, but I did glean that something like a huge black market was flourishing, The people with the “street smarts” had overcome the system!
Many years ago, one of my friends made the observation that if everyone were given a million dollars, there would be poor people by Saturday night.
clyde – You’ve got that right. Look at the lottery winners. Many of them are broke within two years. I remember reading about this one dude who had won a few hundred thousand bucks. He bought a stock car. Why? He was a dumb redneck and he wanted one. I guess he wanted to be one of the Dukes of Hazzard. He quit his job and blew the rest of the money. He was broke within a year. Look at all the millionaire athletes who are broke a few years after they retire. Michael Vick had to declare bankruptcy right after the dog fighting scandal and after the Falcons cut him. It will happen to him again after he retires. As I say, the rich get richer because they do the things that made them rich: save, invest, and live within their means. The poor get poorer because they do the things that made them poor: drop out of school, never develop a work ethic, and have children they can’t afford to raise. I grew up poor. Now I’m rich.
My daughter sent me a link a year or so ago about a Canadian woman who won a lottery of about 10 million dollars. Her family had been on welfare and practically homeless. With the winnings they bought an enormous house (which they promptly mortgaged) (?) and several quite expensive vehicles. Of course, the parasites (read: family and friends) showed up for their share. Long story short, after two years back on welfare and homeless.
Here in Atlanta some black family won a complete home makeover for one of the national TV shows. Their house was totally rebuilt. They got the house free and clear and all taxes were paid. What did they do? They mortgaged the house to start a business. The dad quit his job to run the business. The business failed. The house was foreclosed on. They wound up worse off than when they started.