On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 08:29:24 -0700, Max Boot
wrote:
snip
Like most leftists, you simply assume that it's a bad thing
/per se/. Your assumption is baseless.
snip

Actually I am far more of a rational rightist.

Please excuse the long reply, but I don't think or write in
"bumper stickers."

One of your avatars asked about specific actions to correct
wealth mal-distribution / over concentration, which results
in the over-concentration of income, assets, and
political/military power into too few hands and the
resulting threat to the state/economy/society/culture.

History is the basic of my conclusion that gross income
inequality /over concentration is a toxic, and frequently
fatal, socio-economioc condition for any state/society. It
appears one of the most dangerous effects is to produce
unjustified feelings of omnipotence and infallibility in
those with excessive wealth, so they do not clearly see and
react to the threats against "their" state. When the threat
is at last perceived (generally far too late), it is almost
always attributed to an incorrect "cause." "Outside
agitators" and internal moral decay / degeneracy are greatly
favored as excuses, as this eliminates any of their
accountability, despite the fact they had greatly promoted
both by their actions.

A complete analysis of this would requires a series of
books, but one close and recent [and chilling] example is
Argentina, which through the operation of the
free-to-do-anything-you-want market, typified by the
"Washington Consensus" and "Brave New World Order" managed
to sell of almost all of the state's patrimony. This public
property had been created/accumulated over many years
through enormous effort, for example YPF (the national oil
company), Gas del Estado (the national gas company), the
national airline, the railroads, the roads, the post office,
the utility companies [telephone, water, sewer, electric],
the banknote and security printing division of the mint
[banknotes, pass ports, licenses, diplomas]. The exchange
rates were "cooked" to set 1 Argentine Peso = 1 US Dollar,
with the result that Argentine products were first priced
out of the international markets, and then the internal
industry was destroyed when it became cheaper to import than
domestically produce, e.g. it was cheaper to import pasta
from Italy than produce it domestically.

This is the direct result of an elitist and murderous
[estimated 30,000 "disappeared in a nation of 40 million in
] military regime, the PRN [Proceso de Reorganización
Nacional], followed by a weak administration which largely
continued the failing PRN policies, which was then followed
by faux Peronista regime [like our RINO republicans in
spades] that looted what was left of the country, selling it
to the highest bidder.

While a few well [internationally] connected people at the
very top, aided and abetted by the supranational
corporations including US banks, became rich beyond the
dreams of Croesus, the huge majority of Argentineans, which
up until then had the highest living standards in Latin
America, were reduced to dumpster diving and eating garbage
to avoid starvation. The babies/children, the old, and the
weak died like flies from malnutrition and untreated
disease.

IMNSHO Argentina was weeks, if not days, away from a violent
revolution on the order of the French and Russian
revolutions, where the SOP is "kill them all and let god
sort them out, when Nestor Kirchner, one of the most
remarkable leaders Latin America has yet produced, became
president and implemented not only emergency famine relief
measures but reintroduce public health measures such as the
control of leprosy [Hanson's disease], malaria, dengue
fever, and chagas, which were again becoming epidemic. The
disastrous fiscial/financial, industrial, and social
policies, introduced by the PRN military and the faux
Peronista regimes were repealed and policies such as
re-industrialization, import substitution/restriction, and
high domestic value added domestic manufacturing using
domestic resources, e.g. lithium batteries, were implemented
and enforced. Peso/Dollar parity was eliminated and
dollarization of the economy was reduced as possible [US
drug money appears to still be flooding the country], and
the supranational corporations were increasingly brought
under monitoring and control.

The result of President Kirchner's decisive actions, and
those of his successor, President Cristina Fernandez de
Kirchner, have been to largely [but not entirely] repair the
damage done to their economy/society, and the standard of
living in Argentina, including the social safety net and
health care is again among the highest in Latin America.

Unfortunately, all is not beer and skittles. Argentina
remains a very corrupt country, with a powerful and highly
vendictive elite, e.g. the Clarín media empire and the mega
farms, [exemplified by their hiring people to paint "Long
Live Cancer" as Eva Peron lay dying] and their inflation
rate remains high. However, as Dr. Kicillof, Deputy Finance
Minister observed, "we would rather have a high inflation
rate than a depression/revolution."

The default/repudiation of much of the Argentinean sovereign
debt also remains a problem, with the American based vulture
fund, e.g. EML, domiciled in tax havens such as Bermuda
[thus evading US taxes while using US courts], seem
determined to sabotage the Argentine recovery by demanding
payment in full for the bonds they hold, even though they
bought these at 10 cents on the dollar and could triple
their money by accepting the thirty cents on the dollar
offer by the Kirchner/Fernandez administrations, which seems
a fair offer as an estimated 70% of the debt was illegal
under Argentinean law and/or odious. FWIW - a full forensic
audit of the sovereign debt of Ecuador showed 70% was
fraudulent and/or odious.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...GatJpwTFgoj-Cg

On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 19:25:24 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

wrote:
snip
Like most leftists, you simply assume that it's a bad thing
/per se/. Your assumption is baseless.
snip

Actually I am far more of a rational rightist.

Please excuse the long reply, but I don't think or write in
"bumper stickers."

One of your avatars asked about specific actions to correct
wealth mal-distribution / over concentration, which results
in the over-concentration of income, assets, and
political/military power into too few hands and the
resulting threat to the state/economy/society/culture.

snip

follow up to my follow up.

Additional information on why income mal-distribution /
over-concentration and the resulting contraction of the
middle class is dangerous to a viable and growing economy,
at least in the US mega urban areas. Most likely holds true
world-wide.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/job...e-not-it/6790/

On 9/5/2013 9:20 PM, F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 19:25:24 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

wrote:
snip
Like most leftists, you simply assume that it's a bad thing
/per se/. Your assumption is baseless.
snip

Actually I am far more of a rational rightist.

Please excuse the long reply, but I don't think or write in
"bumper stickers."

One of your avatars asked about specific actions to correct
wealth mal-distribution / over concentration, which results
in the over-concentration of income, assets, and
political/military power into too few hands and the
resulting threat to the state/economy/society/culture.

snip

follow up to my follow up.

Additional information on why income mal-distribution /
over-concentration and the resulting contraction of the
middle class

Once again, you're asserting something - two things, actually - that,
instead, requires proof.

First is the claim that there's some distribution of income that "ought"
to occur, rather than the one that occurs. When you call it a
"mal-distribution", you are making a *moral* judgment about it. Your
pretense that you're making some other kind of judgment about it is
dishonest. It's a solid indication that you are looking at this as a
polemicist. In fact, that's exactly what you're doing.

The other thing you're asserting that is complete bull**** is that any
alleged "contraction" of the middle class is a *result* of this unproved
"mal-distribution."

Suppose the following. GDP increase by some amount. The top 1% capture
20% of the increase. The next 39% capture 70% of it. The bottom 60%
capture none of it. The next 20% capture 10% of it. The remaining 40%
get none of it. Income inequality has increased. Has the middle class
"contracted"? No. The middle is better off than they were before, and
a few have moved up from the bottom to the middle.

Georgie McDumpster, you're full of ****. You're participating in this
as a populist polemicist, *NOT* as a scholar or an honest analyst. It's
time - it's far *past* time - for you to admit this and come clean.

On 9/5/2013 10:08 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 9/5/2013 9:20 PM, F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 19:25:24 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

wrote:
snip
Like most leftists, you simply assume that it's a bad thing
/per se/. Your assumption is baseless.
snip

Actually I am far more of a rational rightist.

Please excuse the long reply, but I don't think or write in
"bumper stickers."

One of your avatars asked about specific actions to correct
wealth mal-distribution / over concentration, which results
in the over-concentration of income, assets, and
political/military power into too few hands and the
resulting threat to the state/economy/society/culture.

snip

follow up to my follow up.

Additional information on why income mal-distribution /
over-concentration and the resulting contraction of the
middle class

Once again, you're asserting something - two things, actually - that,
instead, requires proof.

First is the claim that there's some distribution of income that "ought"
to occur, rather than the one that occurs. When you call it a
"mal-distribution", you are making a *moral* judgment about it. Your
pretense that you're making some other kind of judgment about it is
dishonest. It's a solid indication that you are looking at this as a
polemicist. In fact, that's exactly what you're doing.

The other thing you're asserting that is complete bull**** is that any
alleged "contraction" of the middle class is a *result* of this unproved
"mal-distribution."

Suppose the following. GDP increase by some amount. The top 1% capture
20% of the increase. The next 39% capture 70% of it. The bottom 60%
capture none of it. The next 20% capture 10% of it. The remaining 40%
get none of it.

Sorry - forgot to revise some text I intended to revise. The revision
doesn't alter the intended point.

Top 1% get 20% of the increase in GDP. Next 39% get 70%. Next 20% get
10%. Bottom *40%* get none.

The correction does not change the analysis.



Income inequality has increased. Has the middle class
"contracted"? No. The middle is better off than they were before, and
a few have moved up from the bottom to the middle.

Georgie McDumpster, you're full of ****. You're participating in this
as a populist polemicist, *NOT* as a scholar or an honest analyst. It's
time - it's far *past* time - for you to admit this and come clean.

On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 22:08:14 -0700, George Plimpton
wrote:

snip
Additional information on why income mal-distribution /
over-concentration and the resulting contraction of the
middle class

Once again, you're asserting something - two things, actually - that,
instead, requires proof.
snip

There will never be "proof" in the scientific sense, because
of the impossibility of replication / verification and lack
of control groups. The best that can ever be done is
accurate and honest record keeping, if possible objective
and numeric to allow cliometric/econometric analysis to
discover correlations or the lack thereof. This is what are
called quasi-experiments. One example of this in another
field is astronomy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliometrics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econometrics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-experiment

For example, by itself the following graph "proves" nothing,
but as this pattern is repeated across time and other
economies, the inference that when the top 1% own/control
over c. 23.5% of the national wealth, it results in economic
instability, and when no more than about 10-12% of the
national wealth is owned / controlled by the 1%, the economy
is stable and expansionary, keeps growing stronger.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20...percentUSA.png
for the entire article see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_..._United_States

A complicating factor in current analysis is the
proliferation of supranational corporations and tax havens
such that the determination of both ownership/control and
"national wealth" is increasingly difficult.

You are of course free to draw your own conclusions and
form your own opinions, but as Senator Moynihan so cogently
observed "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not
to his own facts." – quoted in Robert Sobel's review of
Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies, edited by
Mark C. Carnes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Patrick_Moynihan

On 9/5/2013 11:03 PM, F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 22:08:14 -0700, George Plimpton
wrote:

snip
Additional information on why income mal-distribution /
over-concentration and the resulting contraction of the
middle class

Once again, you're asserting something - two things, actually - that,
instead, requires proof.
snip

There will never be "proof" in the scientific sense, because
of the impossibility of replication / verification and lack
of control groups.

You don't have anything even remotely approaching persuasive evidence.

George Plimpton wrote:


The other thing you're asserting that is complete bull**** is that any
alleged "contraction" of the middle class is a *result* of this unproved
"mal-distribution."


Hey moron let me splain it to you....
The contraction of the middle class "is" mal-distribution.
Without the middle class there is only the poor and the rich.

On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 23:20:01 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 19:25:24 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

wrote:
snip
Like most leftists, you simply assume that it's a bad thing
/per se/. Your assumption is baseless.
snip

Actually I am far more of a rational rightist.

Please excuse the long reply, but I don't think or write in
"bumper stickers."

One of your avatars asked about specific actions to correct
wealth mal-distribution / over concentration, which results
in the over-concentration of income, assets, and
political/military power into too few hands and the
resulting threat to the state/economy/society/culture.

snip

follow up to my follow up.

Additional information on why income mal-distribution /
over-concentration and the resulting contraction of the
middle class is dangerous to a viable and growing economy,
at least in the US mega urban areas. Most likely holds true
world-wide.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/job...e-not-it/6790/


Interesting. So big cities are bad, small cites are good.


"The socialist movement takes great pains to circulate frequently new labels for its ideally constructed state.
Each worn-out label is replaced by another which raises hopes of an ultimate solution of the insoluble basic
problem of Socialism, until it becomes obvious that nothing has been changed but the name.
The most recent slogan is "State Capitalism."[Fascism] It is not commonly realized that this covers nothing more
than what used to be called Planned Economy and State Socialism, and that State Capitalism, Planned Economy,
and State Socialism diverge only in non-essentials from the "classic" ideal of egalitarian Socialism. - Ludwig von Mises (1922)