You are poor because you aren’t working hard enough

Yeah, I said it. You are poor because you aren’t working hard enough. You find yourself in poverty because you lack the work ethic of the rich and successful. You are a freeloader if you are on food stamps or unemployment insurance. Why don’t you get off your ass and find yourself a job already? I’m tired of your whining. I’m tired of my tax dollars being used to support your sorry ass. Stop being a drain on society and make something of yourself. You live in America, home of the American dream. If you aren’t wealthy, you only have yourself to blame.

• • •

Video: ‘Death Spiral Of Falling Demand’ – Venture Capitalist Nick Hanauer On Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer

Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer explains why people create the demand which then creates the jobs. He says he makes 1000 times more than the average worker but that doesn’t translate to 1000 times the consumerism of the average worker. He can’t makeup the difference. So with more wealth accumulating within a small pool of wealthy people, that means less wealth spread across the rest of the country. It means less purchasing power and less demand for products and services from tens and hundreds of millions of Americans. This is why supply side (trickle down) economics doesn’t work. We’ve tried it for 30 years. How many more years do we need to continue failed economic policy before we wake up and realize it will never work?

• • •

Supply Side (Trickle Down) Economics Doesn’t Work. Can We Move On Now?

This topic will never die on The Left Call, at least not until people stop believing the lie that is trickle down economics. This idea that we need to give rich people more money in the form of tax cuts before they will create more jobs would make for a nice laugh if it wasn’t so damaging to the country and to the prospects of income and wealth equality. And when I say equality, I don’t mean totally equal, I’m talking about getting back to something more reasonable, a time when CEOs only made 30 times the average worker instead of 300 times.

• • •

Tax Cuts, Especially For The Rich, Have No Significant Impact On Economic Growth

I have some news for Republicans and other fellow Americans who believe tax cuts for the rich will help the economy. If you think the rich are “job creators” and that their wealth will trickle down to the rest of us then you took the bait and swallowed it whole. The rich, along with their bought politicians, have you hook, line, and sinker. How much more evidence do you need that tax cuts, especially tax cuts for the rich, do not have any significant impact on economic growth? I don’t care what prominent Republican politicians and right-wing pundits are saying, it is entirely possible they are wrong. It’s also entirely possible they might not have your interests in mind when it comes to tax policy.

• • •

Video: Sen. Bernie Sanders Says U.S. Moving To Oligarchic Government

Speaking on the Senate floor on Monday, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said that the United States is moving away from democracy and toward an oligarchy. Sanders said, “the United States is departing from its democratic tradition, which has always included a strong and growing middle class, and is moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of government in which almost all wealth and power reside in the hands of the very richest people in our society, the top one percent.”

• • •

GOP Hell-Bent On Tax Favors For The Rich Financed By Cuts To The Poor

Republican lawmakers are locked into an ideology of trickle-down economics. They believe giving tax breaks to the rich will result in prosperity for everyone, or at least that’s what they tell the public. It’s sometimes hard to believe grown adults advocate such nonsense, but here we are, some 30+ years into a massive experiment of wealth redistribution to the top 1%. What do we have to show for it? The free-market advocates will say taxes are still too high, there are still too many government regulations, and if we cut both we will be on the road to prosperity. But whose prosperity? Does the rest of the country buy this nonsense? Apparently a large percentage of Americans do subscribe to this bombast. It’s the only way it’s lasted (even thrived) for so long.

• • •