The wealthy in this country do not like "populists"...

[kentuck]

..or the populist message. They like the status quo. They like to increase their bottom line next year just like last year. They will do everything they can to protect their power and their wealth. The few that speak out for any type of "egalitarianism" rarely ever run for office themselves. It is blasphemy to speak of rolling back taxcuts, or taxing their off-shore accounts, or stopping them from making more and more off third-world labor. That's just the way they are. They will do anything to stop candidates like John Edwards...anything.

[Beaverhausen]

1. That's one broad brush you are painting the wealthy with

and I know a lot of people I consider wealthy who support Edwards.

[kentuck]

2. What do you consider wealthy?

Bloomberg wealthy?

[Beaverhausen]

4. Bloomberg is a billionaire, right?

I consider anyone making over $150K to be wealthy, compared to most other people. I know that isn't wealthy like Bloomberg, but it's still more than most people make. I mean, there's wealthy, then there's WEALTHY.

I just don't think you can generalize like that. I think the Kennedys, who are extremely wealthy, could support the populist position.

[caligirl]

10. then you don't live in the bay area with bay area rents,child care and

should we even get into tuition for college kids. 150,000 is not wealthy here. Its better than 77,000 which is the bare minimum required to cover transportation, rent, child care(around 800 per kid is the norm here). Go higher for this area to look at wealthy.

[Beaverhausen]

12. jesus- my point is that indeed wealthy is a relative term

to people who make way below $150K, of course anyone who makes that is wealthy. Heck, I'm wealthy compared to many people around here, and I'm nowhere near that.

And I'm in Los Angeles - not a cheap place to live by any measure.

[Two Americas]

13. very, very few

There are very few households up over $150,000 annually. Something like 90% of the households are down under $90,000 a year. The truly wealthy are making $150,000 an hour, and I think that many people have been lulled into this "middle class" idea and have no idea how many people are struggling at the bottom, how much closer they themselves are to the bottom than they are to the top, and cannot conceive of the wealth being amassed by a very few at the top.

No one is saying that wealthy people are evil. That isn't the issue. What we should be asking is can a democracy survive when 1% of the population can control it.

[Tess99]

3. And that's why Edwards' whole campaign is centered around ....

taking the power from those corporate leeches!!! At least that's what he believes now.



The whole HEART and SOUL of this man's campaign is a flip flop in itself. Here he is basically sounding like Obama in February, yet mocks him today.

http://thinkonthesethings.wordpress.com/2007/12/29/video-john-edwards-on-charlie-rose-agrees-with-obama-on-corporations-voices-should-be-heard/


If Edwards does get the nomination, their nominee would have to be Romney. Their phoniness would cancel out any attacks on authenticity and make for an even playing field in the end. And do we really want to spend the next year watching our candidate make apology after apology after apology. Apologies don't erase the record. Eventually, you just end up look foolish and unwise.

[kentuck]

5. What are you talking about ??

Edwards doesn't have to make any apologies.

[Tess99]

6. He's done plenty of apologizing this campaign. n/t

[Sadie5]

7. Tess, what is Edwards apologising for

Why would Edwards apologize for wanting better health care for the people of this country. Why would he apologize for wanting the rich to pay their fair share of taxes. How about the war in Iraq, why should he apologize for wanting an end to the killing of our kids and innocent Iraqi's. He shouldn't have apologize for calling out those who have drained our treasury dry and will continue to do so at our expense until they are either thrown out of office or put behind bars where they rightfully belong.Please tell us what there is to apologize for?

[Tess99]

8. He has apologized

for the positions he took in his former life, 3 years ago, when he was a centrist. That's what I mean when I mention the apologies. I'm good that he now considers himself a progressive, but the fact is, his rhetoric does not match his record, and he has already made some apologies for that, most notably, his IRW vote. If he's been apologizing in the primaries, I don't think it's far fetched to think he'll be apologizing in the general.

[Vickers]

9. Maybe we could stand a President with some decent manners.

As opposed to that drunken fuck-knob we have now.

[smalll]

11. "They will do anything"? They won't have to do anything at all to stop John Edwards.

No string-pulling or dirty tricks necessary: Democrats won't pick an uberphony.

[chknltl]

14. My over-simplistic view

I recently had this debate with a friend, a republican supporter and a small business owner. He felt that the minimum wage should be abolished. I claimed that this was the short sighted viewpoint of the greedy. I asked him who it was who purchased his products, was it the poor or the middle class or the wealthy. He answered that the majority of his product was sold to the middle class. He owns a furnace installation and repair company so obviously the poor can not afford his products. As there are far more folks in the middle class than there are in the wealthy class, he naturally winds up with the middle class being his primary bread and butter.

I next asked him if he paid his employees a living wage, that is a wage that would place his employees among the ranks of the middle class. "Yes" he said with smugness. I followed this up by asking him if he could, would he hire equally skilled labor at half the cost, ie: pay them half what he is currently paying his employees. "Yes of course" was his response. I asked him if these new employees would still be classified as the middle class. He admitted that they likely would not be part of the middle class but the trade-off would be that he could reinvest more $$ into his business and expand it.

I then asked him if he felt this system would be OK with all small businesses, that they too should be able to hire the best folks for the job at the lowest wages they would accept. "Yes, as long as they are Americans of course." I pointed out that there would ensue a downward spiral of wages from a system like this. He agreed and thought that this was a good idea, that all business would prosper and that would create an economic boom for America.

My next question tripped up his logic. "Under this hypothetical system where minimum wage restrictions were no longer in effect, would the middle class grow or shrink?" (The only answer is it would shrink!) He thought it through and came to that conclusion on his own. The light bulb went off over his head when I pointed out that his bread and butter, the middle class would shrink as would demand for his products. If fewer consumers could afford his products his business would not grow, it would shrink.

Taking this up a few notches:
WE THE PEOPLE, is a concept of Democracy. Business is NOT a democracy, it can exist within a Democracy but it's drives and needs, it's basic motivations are non democratic. This is why WE THE PEOPLE place restrictions on business, minimum wage being but one of many such restrictions.

Under the unrestricted "free" market system as suggested by my friend with the furnace company, his business would wither and be taken over by a mega-corporation, Exxon Mobile for instance might take an interest in it if they saw a large enough exploitable profit margin in cornering the market on all things related to oil furnaces. Perhaps a mega-natural gas company would come in and buy out his company as they steamrolled across the US soaking up all the other small heating and furnace companies. In essence the middle class would no longer have a hand in providing installation, maintenance and repair of furnaces, that would fall to the large mega-corporations.

Those large mega-corporations have the exact same view that my friend has: PROFITS are the bottom line. The needs of "WE THE PEOPLE" are none of their concern. (Or as my friend put it: "Fuck 'em if they can not pull themselves up by their bootstraps as I have"...) Those large corporations have no interest in the "Commons", that being the infrastructure which cares for the needs of "WE THE PEOPLE"
The less they pay for roads and fire departments and police services and hospitals and etc. the more their bottom line "Profits" get fed! WE THE PEOPLE are the ones who ultimately wind up paying for those services.

Large corporations have no desire to subsidise health care either. There is no PROFIT in it for them. When one of their employees enounters an economic set back such as an accident or a medical disaster, that employee is expected to resolve the issue out of his or her pocket. Expecting the corporation to do so costs $$ that if the corporation can get away without paying for it will do so.
What winds up happening is that the misfortunate employee winds up falling out of the middle class with little to no safty net. (Fuck em if they can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps as I have....." Again, corporatins are most asuradly NOT democracies and left to their own they become mini-feudal estates. For Democracy to work, WE THE PEOPLE need safety nets pure and simple!

What I am trying to point out here is that large corporations, if left to their own designs will ultimately lead to the demise of the middle class. I feel that DEMOCRACY can NOT exist without a strong middle class. In essence, those who support the Republican Party support those who would remove restrictions placed on corporations allowing those corporations to grow AT THE EXPENSE of the middle class! At the same time those large corporations will continue expecting that same middle class to pay for our own infrastructure! Anotherwords each time my friend votes Republican, he is slitting his own throat!

He admitted that his own business taxes had increased, in spite of bush's promise to lower taxes. I pointed out that bush had indeed lowered taxes...just not his nor did taxes for most of the middle class go down. Taxes for the wealthy 2% did indeed go down.

Our founding fathers were aware of the feudal systems that ran most of the civilized world at that time. George Washington had no interest in becoming America's King George the 1st! They knew that the keys to democracy lay in the hands of a strong middle class. They further knew that democracy could not survive without an enlightened electorate. They set up this country to be a Democracy. This is a system NOT designed to favor the few, it is set up to favor the many, or WE THE PEOPLE.
What the wealthy and the large corporations are looking for is a fascist system at worst and a feudal system at best.

I like to think that the future of mankind is brighter than that. I like the notions of the Star Trek universe where hunger and poverty are wiped out, where pandemics like aids are a thing of the past, where every individual citizen has equal access to the wealth of the commons. I guess that is what makes me a liberal. It is where I EXPECT humanity to go, hence my natural revulsion to the republican's insistence to march us away from that vision.

The next time a middle class businessman tells you that he is a "self made man", thank him for this. Let him know that he represents the ideal of Democracy, that he and others of his ilk are the very backbone of our country. Then let him in on to a little known secret: historically it has been the Democrats, NOT the republicans who support him. We Dems understand that aid to the middle class is paramount to recovery right now, nobody wants to further tax them. The VERY LAST thing we Dems want to do his make life hard for the Middle Class! We DO want to roll back those tax-cuts that are killing our nation though, those would be the tax cuts to the wealthy 2%. If we do that, if we apply that to our infrastructure, we could well be back on the road to recovery.

For American Democracy to survive, those fat cats who use our commons in order to line their pockets will need to pay a percentage higher than that of the middle class, NOT one which is lower. The greedy attitude of "Fuck them if they can not pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" can lead to our mutual destruction as a nation and march us right back to feudalism.

I am no student of economics or history, this view is more or less intuitive combined with basic high school history and my readings from a few progressive books. If someone reading this spots flies in my ointment or has a better argument to give my republican friend, I am all ears. I do recommend Tom Hartmann's book: "Screwed, The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class", a book I am currently reading and the inspiration for what I say here.

Sadly, like most of the "kool-aid drinkers" my friend plans on supporting Ron Paul if given the chance but will "hold his nose" and vote for any other republican if it comes to it. (With the exception of "Rotten Rudy" whom he sees as being a crook on the level of Al Capone...partially thanks to me!) I only wish I could have had a better argument for him... In spite of everything I explained to him, he feels we Dems are just "Too Weak" to run this country. Hmmm..... I wonder who told him that??!!!?

(btw: My ailing computor, recently "repaired", is on it's last legs. I am not a big fan of "hit and run" style posts but I may not get back to read or respond to any further discussions on my post or your VERY interresting topic. It is my hope, on the other hand, that my thoughts are germain to your topic kentuk, and if possible, I hope that I am not the only DUer posting their thoughts here. You hit the nail on the head about the wealthy not wanting to support Dems like Edwards....I see it as they do not support Democracy PERIOD. For this reason WE THE PEOPLE must NOT let them take this away from us. If the wealthy want to live in OUR country, if they want to share in OUR infrastructure, if they want their profits to grow in OUR system then they must be made to abide by OUR rules. If that means they will pay a higher % in taxes than we do then so be it. Nobody is stopping them from destroying somebody else's Democracy. Might I suggest they move to Iraq where they can take their profits from a neo-con set up "free market system", the very system the neo-cons would try to shove down our throats!)

rant over
c

on edit: I hope to clear up that I do not feel that ALL corporations or ALL wealthy people are greedy and against Democracy. Our very Founding Fathers were among the wealthy of their day, they understood that for the Democracy they envisioned to work they would have to take something away from all of America's "aristocracy". They knew what they suggested would not be favored by ALL of their own peers. Many of America's "upper crust" understand this, even Bill Clinton talks about this when he says folks of his economic status do not need tax cuts in order to continue to remain profitable within the system. We are besieged by greedy corpratists...they are the ones who do not want our Democracy to continue....for them it is bad for business! They will do whatever it takes to wreck the middle class thereby restricting the democratic process in order to increase their own profits and ensure the continuence of their own rule.