RIP: Margaret Thatcher - On socialism and the misunderstanding of "income inequality" (pay attention OWS'ers)

Margaret Thatcher on Socialism

This 2-minute exchange ( and the Acton blog entry posted below ) explains why the current administration would not send a representative to her funeral. They are deathly afraid that she would expose them for the frauds they are even from the grave. It's all for the best, they are still working feverishly here at proving that their brand of "trickle-up" economics somehow works better than "trickle-down".  

Say what you will about "Reaganomics" or "trickle-down" theory, it turned around a much worse economic condition -- the one Reagan inherited from Carter, Nixon and the Great Society spend-thrift and true racist Lyndon Johnson -- than this administration inherited and it did it much faster and more convincingly. The proof is that Reagan was re-elected by a "true landslide" proportion, winning forty-nine states to his opponents one and winning by a larger margin than 51% - 49%. It was closer to 60/40. 

It also led to the eventual demise of the Soviets, the end of the Cold War ( and "duck and cover" ), the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the longest period of economic expansion that did not result result from fighting in and recovering from a World War. We got a heck of a lot more for our deficit spending back in the 80's, that's for sure. 

The "income inequality" picture has become worse under the Obama administration than under Bush according to most economists that I've read. I'm sure we can pass the blame off on somebody else or some circumstance or another -- the perma mind-set of the leftists entitlement culture, that of a victim. Wasn't me. He / she did it. The culture did it. The devil made me do it. Pass the blame and pass the buck.  

Thatcher and Reagan "got it". And that's why the leftists dislike both of them. Even after both are dead and buried. Because they left an example and a legacy that exposes their virulent B.S. for what it IS, WAS and ALWAYS WILL BE. And that's VIRULENT B.S. Keep trying to re-brand socialism and marxism. You can change the label or the pitch-man on a package of B.S. It's still B.S.

This current crop of pretenders to the throne ( Clinton, both Bushes and Obama)  have merely squandered it. As well as the "peace dividend" that they ( meaning Clinton and Daddy Bush, the original RINO ) inherited from Reagan. 

He could have at least sent Hillary and told her "that's how a 'real' woman" leads a country and had some fun with it. But noooooooo!!. Classless to the bitter end. 

RIP Margaret Thatcher. A giant among world leaders. She will go down in history as doing more for her country than this president can ever dream of having done for his. And that probably doesn't sit well with the President. So maybe it is best if he just stayed home.

The Incredibly Small and Ever-Shrinking President of the United States

He would no doubt look even smaller by comparison next to Maragaret Thatcher, even if she is dead.  

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from Acton.org blog:

What Margaret Thatcher Understood About Income Inequality

by JOE CARTER on TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

http://blog.acton.org/archives/53033-what-margaret-thatcher-understood-about-income-inequality.html

Margaret Thatcher once told an interviewer, “Of course, I am obstinate in defending our liberties and our law. That is why I carry a big handbag.” During her time as Prime Minister, Thatcher’s handbag became an iconic symbol of her ability to handle opponents. The term “handbagging” even entered the Oxford English Dictionary (the verb “to handbag” is defined as: (of a woman politician), treat (a person, idea etc) ruthlessly or insensitively) to describe her rhetorical style.

Thatcher’s handbagging usually occurred during Question Time, the hour every day when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers—including the prime minister—which they are obliged to answer. A prime example is in her last appearance as Prime Minister in the House of Commons, on November 22, 1990. Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes taunts her on the subject of income inequality.

Mr. Hughes: There is no doubt that the Prime Minister, in many ways, has achieved substantial success. There is one statistic, however, that I understand is not challenged, and that is that, during her 11 years as Prime Minister, the gap between the richest 10 per cent. and the poorest 10 per cent. in this country has widened substantially. At the end of her chapter of British politics, how can she say that she can justify the fact that many people in a constituency such as mine are relatively much poorer, much less well housed and much less well provided for than they were in 1979? Surely she accepts that that is not a record that she or any Prime Minister can be proud of.

The Prime Minister: People on all levels of income are better off than they were in 1979. The hon. Gentleman is saying that he would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That way one will never create the wealth for better social services, as we have. What a policy. Yes, he would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy.

Mr. Hughes: No.

The Prime Minister: Yes, it came out. The hon. Member did not intend it to, but it did.

As Thatcher might say, those concerned with income inequality many not intend for it to come out, but making the rich less rich is precisely what they want—indeed, it is the only thing that can solve the faux-problem of income inequality.

Consider the example given by Mr. Hughes that, “the gap between the richest 10 percent and the poorest 10 percent has widened substantially.” To simply the math, let’s say the bottom 10 percent in a country make between $0 and $10,000 a year while the richest 10 percent make an annual income of $100,000. That’s a minimum gap of $90,000 dollars.

Now imagine if the incomes doubled over a period of 10 years (and inflation stayed low). The poorest 10 percent would now make between $0 to $20,000 and the poorest would make $200,000. Everyone would appear to be better off yet income inequality also doubled. The gap is now $180,000—twice as much as it was a decade ago.

So is this a problem? It would only be a concern under three conditions: (a) if the income of the rich increased at the expense of the poor (through exploitation or injustice), (b) the increase was due to illegal activity, or (c) if you care about income inequality because you want to make the rich less rich, through confiscation or redistribution of income.

Preventing or correcting Condition B is a primary concern of the State while preventing or correcting Condition A is a primary economic concern of individual Christians. There are numerous Biblical injunctions and warnings against the injustice of allowing the rich to exploit the poor. But if that is not occurring, then Christians have no right to be concerned with how much income another person is generating. Jesus even told a parable about workers making different wages for the same work (Matthew 20:1-16). While the purpose of the parable was to teach us about the Kingdom of God rather than a managerial lesson on income parity, it does show that differences of income—even for the same work— is not inherently unfair.

Thatcher intuitively understood what her opponents were loathe to admit: They were less concerned about the plight of the poor than with the wealth of the rich. Even the liberal British expatriate Andrew Sullivan admits this was true of British liberals and socialists:

No culture I know of is more brutally unkind to its public figures, hateful toward anyone with a degree of success or money, or more willing to ascribe an individual’s achievements to something other than their own ability. The Britain I grew up with was, in this specific sense, profoundly leftist in the worst sense. It was cheap and greedy and yet hostile to anyone with initiative, self-esteem, and the ability to make money.

The clip below captures the left-liberal sentiment of the time perfectly. Yes: the British left would prefer to keep everyone poorer if it meant preventing a few getting richer. Envy, even when is it disguised as egalitarianism, is a deadly sin. It is corrosive to the soul to envy the wealth of one’s neighbor and destructive to society when we desire the State use it’s power to redistribute the wealth of citizens simply to achieve the goal of more equalized incomes. Ms. Thatcher understood that concerns about income inequality were really about envy. She knew envy was consuming her opponents across the aisle, even though they couldn’t see what was hiding in their own hearts. We need to follow her example and expose income inequality for what it is, before it consumes our own nation as it did Great Britain.

 Sounds like we could use a woman like Margaret Thatcher over here:
http://blog.acton.org/archives/52979-10-memorable-thatcher-quotes-on-economics-and-freedom.html

“I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society – from a give-it-to-me to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.” (Speech, 1984)

 “My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.” (The News of the World, 9/20/81)

 “I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.” (Women’s Own magazine, 10/31/87)

 “Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.” (This Week, 2/5/76) 

 “As Prime Minister between 1979 and 1990 I had the opportunity to put these convictions into effect in economic policy. We intended policy in the 1980s to be directed towards fundamentally different goals from those of most of the post-war ear. We believed that since jobs (in a free society) did not depend on government but upon satisfying customers, there was no point in setting targets for ‘full’ employment. Instead, government should create the right framework of sound money, low taxes, light regulation and flexible markets (including labour markets) to allow prosperity and employment to grow.”  (The Path To Power)

 “Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.” (Sunday Times, 5/1/81)

TaxProf Blog: President Obama and Tax Fairness

Presented as public service message.

from TaxProf Blog:
TaxProf Blog: President Obama and Tax Fairness:

President Obama and Tax Fairness

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  The Latest News on Tax Fairness, by Ari Fleischer:

A new CBO report shows the share of taxes paid by the top 20% has gone up over the last 30 years, while the share of taxes paid by everyone else has gone down.

If fairness in paying taxes means the amount you pay is based on the amount you make, then the only group in America paying at least a "fair share" is the top 20% -- people who make more than $74,000. For everyone else, the tax code is a bargain."

You wouldn't know this from President Obama's rhetoric, but our tax system, according to a recent report by the CBO, is incredibly progressive. Consider: The top 1% of income earners pay an average federal tax rate of 28.9%. (See the nearby table.) The average federal tax rate on the top 20% is 23.2%. The 20% of taxpayers earning between $50,100 and $73,999 pay an average 15.1%, and so on down the line. The CBO report includes payroll as well as income taxes paid.

There's also another way of looking at fairness, and that's the tax burden. Here, consider the top 20% of income earners (over $74,000). They make 50% of the nation's income but pay nearly 70% of all federal taxes.

The remaining 30% of the tax burden is borne by 80% of the taxpayers, those who make less than $74,000. In short, this group's share of taxes paid, 30%, is lower than the share of income they earn, 50%.

One reason our country is so divided is because the president keeps dividing us. If taxes need to be raised to fight a war or fund a cause, the president should ask everyone to pitch in. If the need is national, the solution should be national—and that includes all of us.

But that's not how Mr. Obama governs. We learned during the 2008 campaign that he believes in spreading the wealth around. And recently we learned he doesn't believe that successful people made it on their own. Without the government, the president tells us, job creators and entrepreneurs would not be able to make it in America.

It's really the other way around. Without job creators and the successful, the government wouldn't have any money. So next time Mr. Obama meets someone in the top 1% or even the top 20%, instead of saying they're not paying their fair share, he should simply say thank you.

'via Blog this'


from the Tax Policy Center:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/2012-candidates-tax-plans.cfm

Major Tax Proposals by President Obama and Governor Romney

View this page as a PDF                                                                                 Return to previous page

Major Federal     Tax Issues

President Barack Obama

Governor Mitt Romney

Individual Income and Payroll Tax Provisions
Expiring Tax Cuts
2001-2008 Cuts1	Extend except for high-income    households2	Extend all
2009-2010 Cuts3	Make remaining 2009 income tax cuts permanent3	Allow to expire
Tax Rates and Brackets	Allow top two tax rates to revert to pre-2001 levels: 10%   15%   25%   28% 33%4   36%   39.6%	Make 2001 rate cuts permanent and reduce all rates by 20%: 8%   12%   20%  22.4%   26.4%   28%
Tax Rates on Capital Gains and Dividends	Up to 20% tax on long-term capital gains; up to 39.6% tax on dividends	Exempt capital gains, dividends, and interest for households with AGI below $200,0005; 15% maxiumum rate for others
Taxes on Investment Income Under the Afforable Care Act 2010	Additional 3.8% tax on capital gains and dividends for high-income households6,7	Repeal8
Exemptions, Deductions, Credits, and Other Tax Preferences	Limit the value of income exclusions and itemized deductions to 28%9	Reduce or eliminate unspecified tax preferences to replace revenue lost due to rate cuts while also maintaining current progressivity of federal taxes. Romney has suggested capping itemized deductions and other tax preferences and possibly denying them entirely for high-income taxpayers.
Alternative Minimum Tax	Index all parameters	Repeal
Refundable Credits	Maintain current refundable tax credits	Allow Obama expansion of refundable credits to expire3 and consider further reductions as part of base-broadening
Other	Impose a “Buffett Rule” tax to ensure that “No household making more than $1 million [pays] a smaller share of their income in   taxes than middle-class families pay.”
Payroll Tax
Temporary Cut in FICA Tax Rate	Allow temporary cut to expire after 2012	Allow temporary cut to expire after 2012
Medicare Tax Under the Affordable Care Act of 2010	0.9% tax on earnings for high-income households6	Repeal8
Business Tax Provisions
Top Corporate Tax Rate	35%   28%10	25%
Tax Preferences	1) Increase tax incentives for domestic manufacturing 2) Reduce fossil fuel preferences 3) Impose additional fees on financial and insurance industries	1) Extend for one year of the expensing of capital expenditures and enact a temporary investment tax credit 2) Expand the R&E credit
International Taxation	Reform international tax rules to limit benefit of deferral and discourage income shifting	1) Territorial tax system 2) Immediate Repatriation holiday
Other	Revenue neutral reduction in corporate rate to 28%; unspecified base broadening10	Broaden the base (unspecified provisions) in exchange for further corporate rate reductions
Estate Tax Provisions
Estate tax	Index starting from 2009 law11	Repeal

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/upload/tax-plan-comparison-v7.pdf


From the Tax Foundation:
http://taxfoundation.org/article/quick-guide-obama-and-romney-tax-plans

Income Inequality Rose Most Under President Clinton - Investors.com

I'm not sure if this one article knocks down the bulk of the OWS'ers basic thesis and arguments one by one. So the Gini coefficient, the best measure of income inequality did worse under Republicans Reagan-Bush-Bush than it has under The Dems Clinton-Obama. If the Repubs are the party of the rich -- and that's the mantra we hear screeched the most -- then they may need to ask for a refund.

Great read. Of course, you won't see it reported by any of the MSM pundits. There, the truth hurts, even though most of us know that the truth shall set you free. They have never been know to let the facts get in the way of a good story either.

H/T to the Conservative Manifesto blog who sent me a heads up to the story. More food for thought on the Gini coefficient and income inequality from another favorite blogger 'Whiskey and Gunpowder'.

Income Inequality Rose Most Under President Clinton - Investors.com: "Income Inequality Rose Most Under President Clinton

By JOHN MERLINE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 11/03/2011 08:05 AM ET

In his weekend radio address, President Obama decried that "over the past three decades, the middle class has lost ground while the wealthiest few have become even wealthier." Although he was trying to leverage the Occupy Wall Street movement, the income gap has been a longstanding concern of his."

During the 2008 campaign, Obama said, "The project of the next president is figuring out how do you create bottom-up economic growth, as opposed to the trickle-down economic growth that George Bush has been so enamored with."

But it turns out that the rich actually got poorer under President Bush, and the income gap has been climbing under Obama.

What's more, the biggest increase in income inequality over the past three decades took place when Democrat Bill Clinton was in the White House.

The wealthiest 5% of U.S. households saw incomes fall 7% after inflation in Bush's eight years in office, according to an IBD analysis of Census Bureau data. A widely used household income inequality measure, the Gini index, was essentially flat over that span. Another inequality gauge, the Theil index, showed a decline.

In contrast, the Gini index rose — slightly — in Obama's first two years. Another Census measure of inequality shows it's climbed 5.7% since he took office.

Meanwhile, during Clinton's eight years, the wealthiest 5% of American households saw their incomes jump 45% vs. 26% under Reagan. The Gini index shot up 6.7% under Clinton, more than any other president since 1980.

To the extent that income inequality is a problem, it's not clear what can be done to resolve it. Among the contributing factors:

Economic growth. Strong economic growth, rising stock prices and household income inequality tend to go hand in hand.

Technology. Tech advances have put a premium on skilled labor, according to a Congressional Budget Office report . Because the pool of skilled workers hasn't grown as much as demand, their wages have climbed faster.

Free trade and immigration. Cheap labor abroad and an influx in low-skilled immigrants can depress wages at the bottom, according to the CBO.

Women in the workforce. As the CBO put it, "an increase in the earnings of women could boost inequality by raising the income of couples relative to that of households headed by single people."

Tax policy changes don't explain the widening income gap. The CBO found that, by one measure, "the federal tax system as a whole is about as progressive in 2007 as it was in 1979."

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From the Conservative Manifesto blog:

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Actually... the rich got poorer under Bush (and richer under both Clinton and Obama) Posted: 07 Nov 2011 08:07 AM PST In a time of rampant (not to mention criminal) Occupy mobs, this should be a bubble burster. The wealthiest 5% of U.S. households saw incomes fall 7% after inflation in Bush's eight years in office, according to an IBD analysis of Census Bureau data. A widely used household income inequality measure, the Gini index, was essentially flat over that span. Another inequality gauge, the Theil index, showed a decline. In contrast, the Gini index rose — slightly — in Obama's first two years. Another Census measure of inequality shows it's climbed 5.7% since he took office. Meanwhile, during Clinton's eight years, the wealthiest 5% of American households saw their incomes jump 45% vs. 26% under Reagan. The Gini index shot up 6.7% under Clinton, more than any other president since 1980. Of all the places the Occupy children have infested, it's a wonder 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. isn't one of them.

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From Whiskey and Gunpowder:

The Income Gap Obsession

Nov 8th, 2011 | By Jeffrey Tucker
http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/the-income-gap-obsession/

The word “equality” is being rammed down our throats every day, with special focus on the so-called “income gap.” The presumption is that we should all denounce the gap, work to eliminate it and embrace perfect equality as an ideal.

It’s true that inequality is growing, but the focus on that alone is sheer folly. Equality applies to math equations. You could also use it to describe how the law should be impartial with respect to persons — the traditional use of the term “equality” in the classical liberal literature. But that’s it. Otherwise, an obsession with this topic is very dangerous for a free society.

That’s because the people who invoke equality have no intention of creating the conditions to make it easier for the poor and for middle-income earners to grow rich. Leveling upward is never the goal. Egalitarians want to flatten incomes at the top so that the rich no longer exist. This can’t help anyone but the envious, those who get a kick out of destroying, rather than creating.

As Shikha Dalmia writes, “Income inequality tells us zilch about the only thing that really matters: Are the lives of Americans, rich, poor and in between, getting better or worse?”

Try an experiment in your mind with a society of 10 people. Five people earn $50,000 and five earn $100,000. Let’s say we flatten out the top half so that everyone earns the same. Equality! But who benefits? Absolutely no one. Society as a whole is poorer, and that is to the detriment of everyone: less capital, less wealth available for wealth-forming projects, demoralization among the smartest and most inspired and a ceiling on those who might have previously desired to move from the lower half to the upper half.

In any case, the supposed egalitarian ideal can always be achieved by driving everyone into the dirt and universalizing poverty. There is a serious problem, with an ideal that can be achieved by wrecking the lives of absolutely everyone.

In a free society, we just have to get used to the idea that some people are going to be vastly richer than other people. And those rich people do act as benefactors to the rest of us. They give more to charity. They start the new businesses that employ us. They take the risks that make capitalism dynamic and progressive. They act as society’s economic leadership team. And the individual members of that sector of society are constantly changing, and this is a good thing.

What’s more, in a free society, the rich are completely dependent on the poor and the middle class, who, in a market setting, make it possible for the capitalists of society to accumulate wealth in the first place. It is the voluntary choices of the masses that direct the use of society’s resources. The “distribution” of wealth is a result of the choices we all make in our capacity as consumers.

Yes, I’ve watched lectures by people who claim that societies with more equality are happier places. What they end up pointing to are places like Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Norway. This is just a mistake: These countries are demographically homogeneous and cannot be compared in any way to places like the U.K. or the U.S.

Consider this… Where would you rather live? Ethiopia or the Netherlands? Ethiopia has more income equality, according to the statisticians who calculate the so-called Gini coeffiicient. Another example: Tajikistan or Switzerland? The former has more equality than the latter. Another: Bangladesh or New Zealand? According to the egalitarians, we should rather live in one of the poorest places on the planet than one of the richest.

Again, the degree of equality is not in any sense related to the quality of life.

So why the hysteria right now? The real problem is more fundamental in the United States. The poor are growing and entrenching. The unemployed are staying this way. The middle class is slipping, and more substantially after the the recession statistically ended than when the statistical recession was on (and polls show that hardly anyone believes we are out of recession).

Now, this is catastrophic, not because this increases the income gap, but because it is killing the American dream. What the political left is doing is attempting to change the subject away from what matters (we are all getting poor) to what doesn’t matter (the income gap between the top and bottom). And this rhetorical shift is scary: It prepares the way for higher taxes, more redistribution, more attacks on the financially successful and more of all the policies that are causing our worst problems right now.

So why the focus on the equality? As Mises says in his great work Socialism (1922): “The principle of equality is most acclaimed by those who expect to gain more than they lose from an equal distribution of goods. Here is a fertile field for the demagogue. Whoever stirs up the resentment of the poor against the rich can count on securing a big audience.”

Americans should know better. Even when our economy was the freest in the world, we had one of the most unequal distributions of that wealth on the planet. It was during these years that the lifespans of everyone increased, when the chances of moving from poor to rich were huge, when the per capita income was growing as never before in human history. Growing inequality is likely to coincide with growing wealth (see How the West Grew Rich, the masterpiece by Nathan Rosenber).

We need to learn to admire the justly rich and strive to emulate them and their outlook on life. This is what the advice manuals of the late 19th century said. The most popular magazines of the time chronicled their lives, and they were held up as national heroes. This is a sign of a healthy society. It is because of this ethos that the poor of today live vastly better than the richest of the rich 100 years ago.

Today, on the other hand, we are told to resent the rich, attack them, hate them, expropriate them. This is the sure path to disaster. Freedom is what enables the poor to become rich. The state is the means by which everyone in society is driven into poverty. We need less state and more freedom.

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From Mish Shedlock's Economic Trend Analysis Blog:

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis:

Note that Obama projected the unemployment rate to be under 6% now according to projections of the the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The only reason the unemployment rate is not 11% (or higher) is because 4.5 million people dropped out of the labor force vs. expected demographic gains."

With all these financial issues swimming about and morphing into election / campaign issues, I'm reminded of the following two quotes from the past.

“How did you go bankrupt?"
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” -― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

This is how I'm afraid we'll go down if we do not get our fiscal house in order. Gradually and then suddenly. And the steps we are taking to FIX the crisis -- the "hair of the dog that bit you" strategy of more debt to cure a debt crisis, money printing and creation ad-nauseam, will also create an inflationary crisis (hyper-inflationary / currency crisis) that could lead to a GREAT-GREAT DEPRESSION.

And to all the OWS'ers and their supporters:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H. L. Mencken

It's not a democracy folks, it's a republic.

Pure Democracy is evil.
http://www.albatrus.org/english/goverment/democracy/pure%20democracy%20is%20evil.htm

"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few." --
George Bernard Shaw

"The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can ever help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population --- the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it's the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it's the fools that form the overwhelming majority." -- Henrik Ibsen

The Fed is never out of bullets - but can they shoot straight?

They are lining up the stars in the sky and sending out the trial balloons so they can do what they want to do, continue the same "solutions" that have not worked in the past.

From Eric De Groot's blog:
Eric De Groot: "Bullard: Fed will act if economy weakens further

QE to ∞ (infinity) = QE(1)+QE(2)+QE(3)...QE(n) as the economy weakness and social unrest organizes across the globe.

Headline: Bullard: Fed will act if economy weakens further

(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will act if the economy weakens further and has the tools to do so, a top Fed official said on Friday.

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said he expects the economy to grow modestly over the next year -- though the sluggish pace leaves it vulnerable to shocks.

"Should economic performance deteriorate, monetary policy will respond," Bullard said, according to slides of a presentation he was scheduled to make . "The Fed is not now, or ever, 'out of ammunition'."

With interest rates near zero, Bullard said, the Fed can support the economy through inflation and inflation expectations and asset purchases are a "potent tool".

More ignoring the "Rule of Holes".
More repetition of the "Definition of Insanity".

And they wonder why folks are rioting in streets. It's if these knuckle-heads want rioting in the streets and hints of Revolution.



Oh BTW. OWS is simply the leftist version of the Tea Party.

And they have the wrong address, they should occupy K Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in DC.
And wherever the Fed Building is. Put the fear of God into those idiots.
And bathe once in a while, perhaps.

And stop acting as if they speak for the ENTIRE 99%. THEY DO NOT!!!

Somewhere in the talking points, they missed the part about the 99% is made up of the approximately 50% that actually pay for all the goodies (which includes the 1% they despise) these idiots pine for and the "other 49%" percent -- the Free-Shit Army or FSA for short -- that benefits from others efforts.

So immediately, the movement needs to be re-named for accuracy.

Lets' refer to them as "The 49% - or the 49-ers" for short.

They effectively don't pay FEDERAL TAXES, but they want to put their grubby hands all over everybody else's wallets and tell THEM how THEIR money ought to be spent.

You want to complain about sales taxes you pay, march on your local government.

You want to complain about payroll taxes that allegedly fund Social Security and Medicare / Medicaid, wait until the conversation turns to how they stole the money from these supposedly dedicated funds to create illusion of the Clinton budget surplus. I've been waiting for that national conversation for a long time.

But don't complain about how FEDERAL TAXES are spent, when you don't provide any of the elbow grease or work product or income taxes to pay for the largess. Somehow, I feel like your voices shouldn't be heard from as much.

We spend too much time "greasing" the "squeaky wheels" in this country when they don't provide any of the "elbow grease" needed to keep the machine running.

Almost makes me want to provide a linkage between paying taxes and voting. Don't laugh, this is the type of "vote-buying" on the lower end of the income scale that we ignore choosing instead to focus campaign finance reform on the high-income / corporate side of the scale.

VOTE BUYING IS VOTE BUYING. I get that the corporations and the rich simply but the politician outright and leave the dirty work of buying the voter to their chosen puppet, but both ends of the problem need to be ripped out of the process.

That should be at or near both of side "To-Do List for Revolutionaries".

So step aside OWS. Shut up and let the adults handle this. And stop pretending that you have anything in common with the Tea Party. YOU DON'T!! They are the 51% that pay the bills.

You are the 49% that "dine and dash".

from the Associated Press:
Richmond tea party: Charge Occupy protesters or refund $10,000 we spent to rally in Virginia

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/850c772fd9004fc5ac0585aef836fefb/VA--Tea-Party-Occupy-Protests/

Get cleaned up and get a job. Accomplish something. Then speak.

Stop relying so much on the largess and generosity of others.

That well is going to run dry every now and again.

And if you need bail money because your peaceful "demonstrations" are so like those of the Tea Party demonstrations, I hope you have George Soros' number.

Maybe Janet Napolitano will add you to her "list". HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

To know what is wrong with the Federal Reserve, one must first understand the
nature of money. Money is like any other good in our economy that emerges from
the market to satisfy the needs and wants of consumers. Its particular
usefulness is that it helps facilitate indirect exchange, making it easier for
us to buy and sell goods because there is a common way of measuring their value.
Money is not a government phenomenon, and it need not and should not be managed
by government. When central banks like the Fed manage money they are engaging in
price fixing, which leads not to prosperity but to disaster. -- Ron Paul