Confusion Over Free Enterprise & Private Property

A SHARP FOCUS:
The Promulgation of Theft by the 1%ers v. the Right of Preservation & Expansion of Personal Property by the Victimized 99% Long Deprived of Fair Compensation for Honest Labor

"A pickpocket is obviously a champion of private enterprise. But it would perhaps be an exaggeration to say that a pickpocket is a champion of private property. The point about Capitalism and Commercialism, as conducted of late, is that they have really preached the extension of business rather than the preservation of belongings; and have at best tried to disguise the pickpocket with some of the virtues of the pirate."

― G.K. Chesterton, in his book "The Outline of Sanity" (1927)

Original.

Ayn Rand Speaking With Precision for the 99 %

The Evil of Supplicating to Men Who Produce Nothing, in Order to Produce:

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honestly becoming a self-sacrifice - YOU MAY KNOW THAT YOUR SOCIETY IS DOOMED."
(emphasis added)

-- Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Author

Source: Atlas Shrugged, Francisco's "Money Speech"


Original.

Gingrich, Like Nixon, Hates Dirty Hippies: Yet Loves His Own ‘Free Love’ Lifestyle

If there is one thing that most social conservative Americans dislike in a candidate for president it's a sex addict.

Fred Barnes writes in this week's issue of The Weekly Standard in "The History of Newt: Are Republicans ready to look past his transgressions?":

"... Gingrich has 'told friends he's like Richard Nixon, not particularly likable and hated by the press and the left.' And here we see Gingrich taking a page from Nixon's playbook. If there was one thing Americans disliked more than the not particularly likable Nixon, it was dirty hippies."

A specific scripture verse on the moral qualifications for a early Christian deacon applies well to the office of President for the character qualifications demanded by values voters:

"[An] Elder ought to be one in whom no fault is found and is the husband of one woman, is of a vigilant mind, sober, orderly, loves strangers and is a teacher."
-- I Timothy 3:12, Aramaic Bible in Plain English

Newt must believe that if one has a new haircut, a clean odorless body, and a filthy mind, that because that person is not "dirty" then there should be an elevated acceptance of that individual on the basis that, as in the Fundamentalist apocryphal "Cleanlyness is next to godliness." The many dirty deeds of Wall Street are not expressed in their choice of personal toiletry or dress, evil is a deep dirt condition that passes the surface 'smell test' that Gingrich so snarkedly presents.

What about Newt, himself, with a stylish haircut, crisp suits, he smells good, and possesses a long history of sexual over indulgence, if not addictions to fornication and adultery, he can claim he is cleaner than those he seeks to discount who are the OWS patriots. The Newtonian dirty deeds-in pursuit of the support and acceptance of himself by the 1% - are hard to continence, even if Newt runs up his tab at Tiffney's-in an ostentatious manner.

Want to see into the twisted morals and mind of Gingrich? Read his co-authored novel, the book entitled "1945" , a 1995 alternate history novel.

"Ultimately, it's the Gingrichian way with facts, figures, and ideas that most endears him to these (rad right) voters," ogles Barnes admiringly.

If there is one thing that most Americans dislike in a candidate for president, a sex addict. Newt is a serial adulterer. He has a long early history of easy sex and lax, if not existent restrain on his libido.

But the crushing blow to Newtonian claims to be a true conservative comes in crushing form from George Will, ABC's This Week, Sunday.

Conservative scribe George Will ridiculed Newt Gingrich as a 'rental politician' on ABC's 'This Week' yesterday (11/20/11), scoffing at the idea that the Republican Party's self-described 'big ideas' candidate is employable as a historian:

"Gingrich's is an amazingly efficient candidacy, in that it embodies almost everything disagreeable about modern Washington. He's the classic rental politician. People think his problem is his colorful personal life. He's gonna hope people concentrate on that, rather than on, for example, ethanol. Al Gore has recanted ethanol. Not Newt Gingrich, who has served the ethanol lobby. Industrial policy of the sort that got us Solyndra " he's all for it. Freddie Mac, he says, hired him as a "historian." He's not a historian. Hire Sean Wilentz, hire Gordon Wood if you want a historian." 

So said Mr. Will.

"Will's undisguised scorn is a good illustration of why Gingrich, even as he makes a bid for the affections of rank-and-file anti-Romney voters, is unlikely to win over much of anti-Romney conservative upper crust. As much as there's still a demand for an impressive, thoughtful conservative in the race who can lead the party to Romney's right, most of the political elites who know Gingrich best were convinced a long time ago that he isn't that guy."

So says Alexander Burns in Politico on Nov 21, 2011.


Original.

Rothschilds as One Percenters

"The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents -- men who never think of lending a shilling to their next-door neighbors, for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest -- stand ready, at all times, to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers, who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved."

-- Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist

Source: "No Treason #6" (1870)

Original.

Revisit Occupy Detroit: the Tea Party is Different – Hank Payne’s Myopic View

This is in Response to Michigan View's Henry Payne's piece "Occupy Detroit: The Tea Party Difference" in Michigan View / Detroit News on October 14, 2011, which was reposted in the National Review on October 16, 2011.

An analysis of Hank Payne's put down of Occupy Detroit comes up short and defective; Payne's bias rules fact.

Here is a breakdown of Henry Payne, Detroit News, Friday Oct 14, 2011, and his wobbly apology for Tea Partyism over and against Occupy Wall Street protests.

HANK: "Detroit, Grand Circus Park - Desperate to show the Left's grassroots, the MSM [Main Stream Media] has taken to comparing the Occupy movement with the tea party. THERE IS NO COMPARISON."
(Emphasis Added)

ANALYSIS: Everywhere comparisons are being made; and the central role of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) fronted by the notorious KOCH BROTHER'S stick puppet, DICK MORRIS, and other backers and paid provocateurs are being outted and discussed.

HANK: "The 99 Percenters are professional protesters. There is nothing new here. Survey the Occupy Detroit crowd and for the most part it is the usual suspects: anti-war protestors, racial grievance activists, left-wing students, unionists. Activism is their avocation - only the theme changes. In 2006 they protested the Iraq War. In 2007, global warming at Live Earth. In 2010, racist cartoons in the New York Post. This spring they protested public sector union reforms in state capitals. Now they protest corporations. They are supported by the usual names: Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, Bob King, UAW, SEIU. They know how to organize - and just as importantly - the MSM sympathizes with them and covers their every move."

ANALYSIS: The Occupy Protests are moving toward a lasting movement, and a movement that will have a significant impact on not only Wall Street, but alter the political universe centered on K Street and in the smoke-filled caucuses of hamstrung politicos.

Cartoonist Hank Payne Warps and Manipulates His Carefully Chosen Materials to Put Down Occupy's Impact

ANALYSIS: Video from the Detroit News on Occupy Detroit (chosen by Payne) is replete with a black woman with classic racial features, (purposefully-the first frame of the set " placed thus, done for maximum racial impact); especially when Hank uses this kind of slanted material as a compare-and-contrast impact piece with the commentary on the Tea Party-business strip protest-at Birmingham, MI.

HANK: "By contrast, what makes the tea party such a compelling story is that it is not your standard protest. It is a true grassroots movement."

ANALYSIS: Hank must CERTAINLY know better! Across the country the Occupy activity has taken hold in the conversations of the 99%ers. They know things are not as they ought to be-not right by any standard, and they want regress of their grievances with the System.

HANK: "Indeed, as it first took shape, the MSM barely gave it a look. Compare the extensive pre-Occupy Detroit coverage in Michigan's media this week to the nearly non-existent coverage of (the larger) tea party protests in Congressional districts in the summer of 2009."

Hank Payne tries to make a logical conclusion, and fails to grasp the factual details of TP vs. Occupy Wall Street dust-up.

BIRMINGHAM TEA PARTY PROTEST

HANK: "In part this was because the liberal MSM is out of touch with the middle class, conservative voter (as the videos above show, these are two very different protestor demographics). But also it was because the tea partiers were new to the protest game. They were soccer moms, they were doctors, and they were retirees who had never protested anything before. They weren't backed by special interest groups."

ANALYSIS: This Payne assertion is patently untrue and a proven misstatement:

1.) The Koch Brothers political machine Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a group fronting special interests started by oil billionaire David Koch and Richard Fink (a member of the board of directors of Koch Industries). AFP has been accused of funding astroturfoperations but also has been fueling the "Tea Party" efforts. AFP's messages are in sync with those of other groups funded by the Koch Family Foundations and the Koch's other special interest groups, included is A.L.E.C. The American Legislative Exchange Council with upwards of 200 past and former members in the Michigan Legislature.

2.) Karl Rove operations - "Rove is the embodiment of everything the tea party resents. He supported Bush's decision to bail out the banks in 2008, a major bone of contention with deficit hawks. And it was Rove, as White House political adviser, who pushed for some of the most expensive Bush programs, like the  Medicare-prescription-drug bill, the passage of which cornered the troublesome State of Florida for Bush in 2004 but has already cost more than $1 trillion. The national debt nearly doubled under Bush, from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion. Rove knew he had to inoculate himself against tea-party insurrectionists if he was to keep his footing in the party." Source: The New York Magazine, March 2011

3.) Dick Armey's group - Freedom Works - "(L)et us be clear about one thing: The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party, but a hostile takeover of it." Source: the Wall Street Journal in 'The Tea Party Manifesto" on August 17, 2010.

4.) Central to the TP movement: endless promotion of and for the Tea Party - giving time and place and (adding promotional hype) by Rupert's FOX media empire, made/makes the Tea Party a national force.

HANK: "But suddenly faced with a power-hungry, Obamacare-forcing, Democratic Socialist Washington political class intent on poaching their liberties, they rose 'to take back America.'"

ANALYSIS: TPer's organized to defend the Corporate/Congressional/Wall Street status quo, THESE MEGA-MONIED/SPONSORED 'RABBEL' ARE DEFINITELY NOT TAKING AMERICAN FORWARD.

HANK: "They are well on their way to doing so with the tsunami election of 2010 - and now have their eyes on the ultimate prize: the presidency."

ANALYSIS: Take a sharp look at the Republican primary candidates as they go down one pin at a time " the public is not "buying" their extremism and lack of fundamental knowledge of the issues and foreign affairs, and especially their dance away from Wall Street and Financial reform and proscriptive regulations to prevent more fraud and in-your-face abuse.

HANK: "The tea party agenda, however, endangers the special interests of professional protestors. Not surprisingly, they are striking back."

ANALYSIS: Actually the strength and power of the Tea Party has dwindled and been diminished/fractured THE MORE THE 99%ERS SEE THE TEA PARTY IN CLOSE-UP THEY MORE THEY REJECT THEIR ATTITUDE, ANGER, STICK PUPPET LOGIC. The more the people at the real grassroots learn about these angry protesters; pumped by savage, cynical media, the more they distance themselves from those TP types; some of whom showed up at rallies with loaded weapons at-the-ready.

HANK: "That's the meaning of the 99 Percenters. They aren't a liberal grassroots answer to the tea party. They are the Big Government special interests that are threatened by it."

ANALYSIS: Would Hank know a "special interest" if he met one? Everyone, and imagine the size of the 99%ers numbers hundreds of millions of Americans - who are expressing: personal interest in jobs, freedom from oppressive student loans, foreclosures, anger at their inability to obtain small business loans, credit card interest at historic levels labeled "usury", and seeing the huge ($2 trillion corporate and 1%ers hold-out of capital from the marketplace) CAN BE LUMPED INTO A "SPECIAL INTEREST".

SEE ALSO: Hank Payne's Suggested Video posted on YouTube in August of 2009, with the title "Tea Party Protest Birmingham Michigan" - Introduced BTW by the former Head of the MacComb County Republican Party (circa 2004-2006) saying "... this is another legitimate 'grassroots' gathering...."


The OWS events are morphing into a significant social and political movement across America and into all parts of the world. Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" has come into its own, as a model for what must be dealt with:

"WE WANT OUR MONEY DOMINATED POLITICAL SYSTEM BACK, AND WE WANT IT NOW!"

"WE WANT SCORES OF SLEAZY FINANCIAL FRAUDS AND CRIMINALS TO GO TO JAIL!"

"WE WANT 'PLAIN ENGLISH' TO BE THE STANDARD FOR INVESTMENT INSTRUMENTS, BUSINESS PRACTICE, AND PROBITY IN FINANCE AND INVESTMENT INSTITUTIONS!"

These Occupy Wall Street (OWS) issues and many more have grabbed the attention of the general population, whom polling shows side, not with Hank Payne or the TP, but with the OWS protests. Even with the recent removal of Occupy from the Wall Street, NYC park, the polling shows that 58% of New York State supports their movement over and against the establishment. 

Occupy Wall Street proclaims today:

"We are here because we believe a better world is possible. We are willing to endure mistreatment, if by doing so WE CAN HELP RE-ENFRANCHISE THE 99% AND RECLAIM OUR DEMOCRACY FROM THE STRANGLEHOLD OF WALL STREET AND THE TOP ONE PERCENT." 
(emphasis added)

Original Part 1 and Part 2.

Worldwide Super-Rich Stash: Now $25 Trillion

Wealth X has out a New Report: There are 185,795 Individuals Worldwide Worth at Least $30 Million

Sam Pizzigati from the Institute for Policy Studies in "The Global Super-Rich Stash: Now $25 Trillion" writes:

"For the first time, thanks to Wealth-X, we can compare the barely ultra with the comfortably ultra and those super ultras who can make the comfortables seem pinched.

"Our report maps exactly where the biggest money is located," Wealth-X CEO Mykolas Rambus boasted at a Geneva news conference last week, "and just how much there is."

"The Wealth-X research answers "how many" as well. The firm counts 185,795 individuals worldwide with at least $30 million net worth. These ultra high net-worth individuals - UHNWs (Ultra High Net-Worth) - hold $25 Trillion in combined wealth."

Tax the One Percenters? Yes or No ?

"If America's ultra [wealthy] averaged returns on those (vast assets they already hold) investments not that far above 5 percent over the next ten years, they could pay the wealth tax and still end the decade with higher personal net worths than when the decade began."

So Why Not ask the ultra rich to pay their fair share?


Original.

Occupy Payne: Bloomfield Hills

Response to Henry Payne in "Occupy Michael Moore: His opulent lake estate" in the Michigan View / Detroit News on November 11, 2011.

It might have been a cold choppy day when Hank Payne risked his handy Kodak and mounted the tremulous waves of deep and miles long Torch Lake to capture an image Michael Moore's house - far North in Michigan. Payne (or surrogate) slipped in and out of the water to get one of his gottcha shots; like the one he snapped at Occupy Detroit last Saturday where Hank slipped in and out of the protest crowd to snap a photo. Hank picked the just right- the most useful poster/sign for his purpose, which he could use as a "cartoonish" depiction that would put down the Occupy movement.

So in the spirit of Payne let's take a short look at Hank's neighborhood, he lives nestled amid the Michigan cluster of 99%ers. What are the stats on his local:

From Wiki:

"Bloomfield Hills is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan, 20.2 miles northwest of downtown Detroit. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,869. Bloomfield Hills consistently ranks as one of the top five wealthiest cities in the United States with population between 2,500 to 9,999 - it currently is listed at the number four position and in 1990 it was ranked number two, and has the highest income of any city outside of California or Florida. The median income for a family is over $200,000. In 2000, 49% of residential property in Bloomfield Hills had a value of over $1,000,000."

What say Payne? Does he actually achieve the Bloomfield Hills 49% level with a home over one million dollars?

Occupy Payne? Why not? This is in concept the heart of the issue. Do the Bloomfield Hills folk have compassion and fathom the concerns and passions displayed in the Occupy Movement? Not likely.

Occupy Payne? Those who live in the heart of the 99%ers ought not throw stones or mock those who achieved/have the means such as Michael Moore has.

 MICHAEL MOORE HAS GIVEN VOICE TO THOSE WHO WANT BALANCE AND PROBITY TO WALL STREET-A FINANCIAL OFFICER HIRED TO DEAL WITH PERSONAL INVESTMENTS HAS A LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY TO ACT AS A FIDUCIARY FOR THE CLIENT.

Wiki again:

"A fiduciary duty (from Latin fiduciarius, meaning "(holding) in trust"; from fides, meaning "faith", and fiducia, meaning "trust") is a legal or ethical relationship of confidence or trust between two or more parties. One party, for example a corporate trust company or the trust department of a bank, acts in a fiduciary capacity to one, who for example has funds entrusted to it for investment. IN A FIDUCIARY RELATIONSHIP, ONE PERSON, IN A POSITION OF VULNERABILITY, JUSTIFIABLY VESTS CONFIDENCE, GOOD FAITH, RELIANCE AND TRUST IN ANOTHER WHOSE AID, ADVICE OR PROTECTION IS SOUGHT IN SOME MATTER. IN SUCH A RELATION GOOD CONSCIENCE REQUIRES THE FIDUCIARY TO ACT AT ALL TIMES FOR THE SOLE BENEFIT AND INTEREST OF THE ONE WHO TRUSTS.

A fiduciary is someone who has undertaken to act for and on behalf of another in a particular matter in circumstances which give rise to a relationship of trust and confidence. -Bristol & West Building Society v Mothew [1998] Ch 1 at 18 per Lord Millett

"A fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care at either equity or law."
(Emphasis added)

Moore is and will be a target of savage blowback, it is expected.

Footnote: Payne's cartoonish punditry and simplistic cartoons do not reach the high threshold set by others. Compared to the vastly superior material produced in the recent past, Payne falls short, even with a Princeton education, when compared with those witty and punch-packed renderings of Gary Packingham-an accomplished artist/cartoonist with a sharp pen put to the right issues and done in high style. Packingham is best known for his years of political cartooning for most Michigan newspapers.

Original.

Attention Pseudo-Christian Capitalists

Forget God' s Rules for Wealth, Forfeit Your Wealth

Having received the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai; Moses said to the gathered people:

"Obey all the laws that I am teaching you, and you will live and occupy the land which the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Do not add anything to what I command you, and do not take anything away. Obey the commands of the Lord your God that I have given you. You yourselves saw what the Lord did at Mount Peor. He destroyed everyone who worshiped Baal, there, but those of you who were faithful to the Lord your God are still alive today.

"I have taught you all the laws, as the Lord my God told me to do."

His Semitic predecessor was depicted as a man or a bull - the Wall Street Bull?) (Baal serves Mammon & Greedy Hording)

Remember Who Has Given You Ability to Produce Wealth

"You may say to yourself, 'MY POWER AND THE STRENGTH OF MY HANDS HAVE PRODUCED THIS WEALTH FOR ME.' But REMEMBER THE LORD YOUR GOD, FOR IT IS HE WHO GIVES YOU THE ABILITY TO PRODUCE WEALTH, and so confirms his covenant..."
-- Spake Moses - Deuteronomy 8:17-18

So spoke Christ Jesus:

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can not serve both God and Mammon."
-- Matthew 6:19-21 and 24

God or Mammon America...What will your choice be ?

U.S. Federal Government Created the American Middle Class – In spite of What You May Have Been Told by Free Market Advocates

The American Federal Government Invented the Middle Class: TeaPublicans now in power in DC are determined to shoot it down.

For the American Dream - directly related to the rise of the Middle Class - to work, people have to believe that it is "possible" for them to reach a higher standard of living. If they don't believe the possibility or opportunity is there to rise in society, then the Dream is dead.

Occupy Wall Street is making all of us face serious questions about the future of the Middle Class and survival of "full faith and confidence" so necessary to the value of our monetary script and a thriving marketplace.

A full chance for individuals to work toward a higher level of wealth and successful achievement has been a perennial draw for immigrants striving to come to America.

"America has been peopled by Europeans primarily because they expected in that country to make more money more easily," Herbert Croly wrote.

American Economic Paradise

"It's no accident that the United States has always been an economic paradise for the middle class -- that class was invented and reinvented by the government. Now the government needs to reinvent it again -- before it's too late."

This a part of a commentary by Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow, in the Atlantic Monthly in "Are We Still a Middle-Class Nation?"

The Economy of America Has Taken Distinct Changes in its Unfolding Stages: Agricultural, Industrial, and Service

Back to Michael Lind:

"To most of us, the transition from farmer to industrial worker to service worker -- sometimes within three generations of one family -- appears in retrospect to have been inevitable, like some geological process. Indeed, MANY CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERTARIANS SEEM TO BELIEVE THAT A MASS MIDDLE CLASS IS AN INEVITABLE BY-PRODUCT OF CAPITALISM. The truth is that each of AMERICA'S SUCCESSIVE MIDDLE CLASSES HAS BEEN ARTIFICIALLY CREATED BY GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED SOCIAL ENGINEERING -- a fact that is profoundly important for us to admit as we think about the future of middle-class America."

 The favorite mantra of so many advocates of individual freedom, the myth of the stand alone individual, and the anti-government and anti-tax rebels is based on a false premise: The Middle Class is the distinctive work of individuals who work hard, take risks, and are rugged entrepreneurs; best divorced from government intervention or help.

Lind lines it out historically:

"From 1800 to 1848 the U.S. government acquired more than two million square miles of territory, much of it arable, by purchase or negotiation (the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803; Florida from Spain in 1819; Oregon from Britain in 1846), by annexation (Texas, 1845), or by conquest (the Mexican Cession in 1848). Populists sought to ensure that this land went to small farmers rather than large landowners or speculators. THE DANGER OF EUROPEAN-STYLE FEUDALISM IN THE UNITED STATES WAS NEUTRALIZED BY THE LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785, WHICH GUARANTEED THAT THE FEDERAL DOMAIN WOULD BE BROKEN UP INTO "FEE SIMPLE" PROPERTIES, with no complex web of multiple ownership. And the Homestead Act of 1862 provided 160 acres of free public land to settlers who would live on it and improve it for at least five years. Meanwhile, the federal government subsidized continent-crossing railroads, and the Army Corps of Engineers built much of the country's rural infrastructure. This was social engineering on a colossal scale."

"The story was similar for the second American middle class, made up of prosperous urban industrial workers. FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO HERBERT HOOVER, AMERICAN POLITICS WAS DOMINATED BY A BARGAIN BETWEEN CAPITALISTS AND WORKERS; HIGH TARIFFS ON IMPORTS SERVED THE INTERESTS OF BOTH, BY PROTECTING GOODS FROM FOREIGN COMPETITION."

"In addition, the dominant industrial labor force successfully lobbied the government to protect it from competition with other groups. In the late nineteenth century Congress cut off "Oriental" immigration, and after World War I -- with the support of organized labor -- it cut large-scale European immigration. Before World War I informal discrimination prevented southern black Americans from moving to the Northeast and the Midwest to compete for industrial jobs. Finally, child-labor laws removed children from the work force, and "family wage" or "breadwinner" systems -- which paid married fathers more than unmarried, childless men -- encouraged married women to become homemakers. TODAY NOSTALGIC CONSERVATIVES ATTRIBUTE THE PROSPERITY OF THE 1920S TO FREE ENTERPRISE. IN REALITY THE MARKET WAS RIGGED."

To take a deeper look at the basis of the American middle class the writer Lind adds this explanation of the service sector's Middle Class's underlying mechanisms:

"Whereas the second American middle class was founded on high wages for workers in the industrial sector, the third American middle class was founded on the supplementation of wage income by government benefits that collectively constituted a "social wage."

"The social wage included not only private-sector benefits encouraged by the tax code, such as employer-provided health insurance, but also subsidies such as the home-mortgage-interest deduction and government entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare (which freed many middle-class families from the bankrupting burden of caring for elderly parents), the GI Bill for higher education, and student loans.

"As the Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker has pointed out, when the hidden welfare state is counted along with the visible welfare state, the United States has a system of social provision as generous as those in Western Europe -- though in this country much of that system extends only to the middle class and the professional elite.

"The social-wage system had many flaws -- for example, it failed to provide health insurance for tens of millions of Americans. Nevertheless, the third American middle class, the product of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Harry Truman's Fair Deal, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, was larger and more inclusive than the earlier two. From the 1930s to the 1970s income inequality in America shrank dramatically, producing what the economic historians Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo have called the Great Compression."
(emphasis added)

Since the 1980's the Service Era Middle Class has been undergoing drastic cuts and a ballooning gap between the now famous 1%'ers and the 99%'ers (who control a vastly unequal portion of the nation's wealth) highlights the 1%'ers who have seen their financial status go from static to negative, from employment to unemployment, from solid home equity to undermined "under water" equity-based on a tsunami of foreclosures.

The vast part of this condition rests squarely on the failed policies of Republicans under George W. Bush and a runaway economic epic including fraud, deception, and theft by Wall Streeters who saw themselves as the "SMARTEST PEOPLE IN THE ROOM." The 2008 market value plunge tallies at a staggering multi-trillion dollar loss, nearly equal to the accumulative income of the nation for one entire year!

The fact that many corporations, national and multinational, have billions in assets which are set outside the economy and banks have used only a small fraction of their government provided billions legislated to help homeowners sits idle, and big banks are severely restricting consumer credit, tells us that Occupy Wall Street is directly on target with its protesting.

We want our money back. We want felony convictions. We want a clear path to recovery.

Americans want the "do nothing," "NO" to everything, TeaPublicans out of the way of the American Dream's recovery and reinvention. Let the government continue to sponsor and provide for our Middle Class-the key to the American experience.

Original.