From middle class to peasant class

Let me try to answer that. I don't think it's crony capitalism to replace a human with a machine. It's something we've done since the end of the Dark Ages. Replace the manual loom with an automatic one, replace the little lady with a needle and thread with a sewing machine, and on it goes. further, there's no reason for a business to hire people that they don't actually need, and thus people don't do that unless they are forced to by someone on the outside. Which to my mind would be cronyism.

The quote comes from a science fiction novel, and it's part of a longer discourse in that novel about how governments create dependency. What they do is essentially teach you to be helpless. You teach them to require a teacher, to not be able to teach themselves. You teach them to require protectors, and laws to protect them. This one you can see in the gun debates. The tamed ones literally cannot concieve of any actions that they could take on their own other than to hunker down and hope the cops get there before they or someone else gets hurt. Or you could look at our food debates on GM -- most people who are against it could probably avoid most of it with a few simple google searches on the foods they eat, and simply not buy the GMO containing products. Instead they need a government law to make sure that they don't need to think about it. That's the essence of the Nanny State -- people see themselves as too weak to take care of themselves and thus demand that other people do it for them. They demand that their horizons be fenced and their appetites regulated (can't have those dirty words on TV), and so on because they have been carefully taught that they cannot take care of themselves. The first trick is to get people to accept a little control, and make them demand more.

 

Unfortunately for you and others you have a fantasy world view of how it all should be laid out. Your fantasy is nice, but the reality will always be something different.

First off, I never suggested the sewing machine was the cause of crony capitalism. And I do not personally have a problem with machines doing the work. I would not suggest the two are connected. However, crony capitalism in my opinion came more out of attitude than anything. People are naturally trying to seek out better more efficient ways to do things. Sometimes that efficiency takes a wrong turn if the attitude is their to match, not always benefiting the population. Fast forward to 2008 and I give you the collapse as an example. That's it in a nut shell.

The other negative unfortunately is, that is no ones fault, is that the sewing machine does have an effect on the need to hire workers. That being said, the statistics show, there are more people needing work today versus available work. Which sort of bugs me of what you say in your second paragraph. Taking in a few phrases of that paragraph; "create dependency", "to be helpless", "people see themselves as too weak to take care of themselves", "they can't teach themselves"' so on and so forth. You seem, like others on the right, to have this continuous, resonating, drum beating theme, that there is a huge population that either can't or won't fend for themselves. And no matter what, there is no other explanation for it. Actually, there are many explanations other than the Romney explanation for why there is a 47%. Whether one decides to pay attention to those other explanations is up to them. I'm not going to write a book on here about that, but I probably could, so I'll give you a few explanations. Attitudes and people in places of power is a big one, which caused our financial crisis that shed 800,000 jobs a month, our changing income disparity from 20 to 1 back in the fifties and sixties to over 240 to 1 today. That's another big one. Tax cuts for the wealthy that were supposed to create jobs, but never did. Shedding thousands upon thousands of government jobs needlessly. Not taking up a jobs bill to fix roads, bridges, and infrastructure would have created 2 million jobs. There is a long list. Why do I bring this up? Because it hits at the heart of those phrases I quoted you from. And how do you eliminate those phrases? By doing what's right. Those phrases wouldn't exist if those problems I pointed out were corrected. You want to blame the poor for their shortcomings. Their shortcomings are not dictated by them alone. They are directly dictated by the powers I mentioned. That's the ONLY way those problems of the 47% will ever be fixed. Talking about their shortcomings and relying on them to fix it themselves, is mathematically impossible. Our system is totally set up for them to fail. Therefore the system HAS to change.

 

I believe our republic could use more roads and aqueducts.

 

Small business and start-ups are the job creators these days. Why the government only pays them lip-service while sinking billions into floundering business just because they have unions is beyond me.

 

How well did that strategy work for Hostess?

 

Define "small business" for me, if you would please.

 

Well, so far as I can tell, the "plan" is to continue with business as usual, on Wall street, with Banks, and with the corporate sector. Word is though, that even though they're all "fat" like no other time in their histories, is that they're in need of "more" before they can proceed.

 

Maybe one day there will be no rich people in America. Then we will all be prosperous.

 

Small businesses are those with less than 500 million a year in gross profits

 

Or, at least more people will be able to get into heaven.

 

The North American Industry Classification System defines it based relative to the industry in which it participates, but the old rule of thumb was 500 or fewer employees and independently owned i.e. not publicly traded.

 

In answer to the thread. This is the goal of the Obama admin------trickle up poverty so the government has total control over people.

 

It can't be real times of war if our federal Congress cannot justify wartime tax rates.

 

There is no excessive regulation.

There is no excessive taxation.

There IS excessive litigation.

 

Plenty of excessive regulation and taxation. They take about 50% of every small business, kill those jobs!

 

Abolishing the corporate rich certainly would improve society a great deal, no doubt. Then, we all can be a functional society once again, and humanity can then proceed.

 

That's "small business"? REALLY? What is the word 'small' supposed to represent exactly? Half a billion in profit, and you're "small business". Here I though small was something actually small, like a 'mom and pop' operation. Silly me.

 

Maybe that's the problem then.Perhaps small business should be redefined to more accurately represent the word "small". When people think of "small" business, they are likely thinking smaller, and when right wing blowhards say "we need to help small business", they're really projecting a false image.

It's really "large business" that we're talking about, and NOT the small family owned business, is it?

 

A mom and pop shop selling their business to retire for something like 300k, is paying at least 50% that year in regulatory costs and taxes. The government workers on the other hand who built nothing, have far greater pension plans and strike when they are asked to contribute 5%.

Most small businesses pay 50% though, if you take in 40K take home, after licenses, employment taxes, income taxes and compliance costs you spent 40k for sure.

 

i never said that they were incapable of taking care of themselves, i said they've been taught to think that they cannot. A person who thinks they need a teacher is not necessarily too stupid to teach themselves a skill -- people have done so for thousands of years -- they have just been taught to think that they need someone and a college course to do so. It's the same thing with self-defense, it's not that a person could not be taught to use a weapon in self defense, it's that for whatever reason they've been taught that they are incapable. They respond to the threat by hiding under the bed because they've been taught that they cannot take positive steps to defend themselves, and thus they have to hide until the cops come. or you could go into business -- I don't think people are nearly as bad at business as they think they are. I think even you could probably start one -- the problem is that most people have been taught that you have to be an uber genius to pull that off, and they aren't one.

I won't deny that most poor people have gotten a raw deal, but there is always the issue of agency, that is the ability that all humans have to take control, at least to a degree of how you handle the problems that crop up. Sure bad stuff happens, but the things you do about it matters a great deal in what happens next. Some people never learn to grab at life, and thus they never achieve anything, even if everything goes right. Other people can have the "worst luck" and still come out on top. that's not to say that everyone will be able to become a millionaire, but it's also saying that if you never start walking, you won't get anywhere. That's something that governments and government schools are careful never to teach -- that you have control. If you thought that YOU could learn to do something, you wouldn't need a teacher or a pundit. If you thought YOU could get money, you wouldn't take welfare except as a brief stop. As long as you "need" them, they own you. That's the point of the quote -- you are being trained to be "needy" so that you can be tamed and controlled.

 

Mom and pop is small business. One half billion, is not.

 

It's none of your business,Canadian.

 

It is not unusual for people to own businesses with more than 5 employees without having publicly traded stock. There are some in my area that have hundred of employees but have an "owner"