I have more than a few acquaintances in the federal government. This new budget will be very painful

[Stinky The Clown]

There are cuts in many areas. My contacts have pretty much all seen only those parts of the budget that affect them and their working groups. Every one of them, in disparate parts of the federal government, are saying this is the singularly most cutting budget they have seen in their entire careers.

I'm not carping. I'm not saying "I told you so". I'm not blaming Obama. Or the repubicans, for that matter.

We're fucking broke.

I believe there are trillions being hoarded by private businesses (mostly megacorps) that ought to be in the public coffers. It isn't in the public coffers because it has been stolen.

I use the word "stolen" as shorthand. It may or may not be the literal truth, but it speaks to what the big monied interests have done to our national treasure. That national treasure is what is being hoarded.

Some will say that the Fed created all that money by speeding up the printing presses at the mint. To some degree, that's true. But that argument is a sidebar.

The central issue is that our wealth - our collective wealth - has become so concentrated in a few private hands that we are left with less than we've probably ever head. Certainly we are left with less wealth than has been the case in the lifetimes of 99% of all living people.

Have a nice day.

[aquart]

1. OR we could tax the rich. And regulate vital commodities.

Not as much fun as mobs dragging the bastards out of their penthouses and throwing them out of the windows but economically way more sound.

[notesdev]

2. Actually the window thing does work better

it's a much more effective deterrent, if you regulate they just buy the regulators

At the very least it couldn't hurt to give it a try. :)

[Stinky The Clown]

10. If only the majority of homeowners (just as but one example) knew why their houses are down 30%

The houses aren't lesser houses. Their values got run up. Everyone fell all over themselves buy new house, bigger houses, investment houses, vacation houses.

They put their money on the line and obligated themselves for 3 decades of payments. And then they had the rug pull out from under them.

That 30% they don't have is still there. Its just not in their pockets anymore.

THAT should piss everyone off. What's amazing is that it doesn't.

[notesdev]

13. Actually that 30% is gone

Consumed by defaults on bad loans given to people who should never have received them. That 30% would never have been there had the market not been flooded by the cheap money of outrageously loose loan policy.

Also consumed in that same process is a good chunk of the MBS investment money and a great deal of taxpayer money that went to back federal guarantees.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. First, the realization of what's happened has to become widespread.

It has to become the conventional wisdom. It has to be spoken of first angrily and then matter-of-factly.

When it comes to be seen as an accepted fact, then solutions can be sought.

[Jakes Progress]

6. To me this is the biggest failing of the party right now.

It falls to the president and the leaders of the party to find a way to awaken the sleeping electorate. People say that no one cares or wants to think about it, but that is the job the leaders have - to make the case and make it important to people. The neocon machine has a 24/7 propaganda program. If we don't do something to show how this economic inequality is their fault and that it is really quite easily fixed, we shouldn't be in office.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. I completely agree with you.

I've long suggested we have a lack of leadership in some areas. (Or collusion, but I don't want to go there in this thread.)

At its essence, the problem isn't very complicated at all. The solutions at the detail level may be complicated, but the problem is ripe for being reduced to a sound bite.

If the problem were explained in . . . . I dunno . . . . . a 60 Minutes interview by some party leader and, in that interview, given a name - a "brand," if you will - just repeating that brand name and getting people fired up about it would help **enormously**.

**Then** we could talk about the solutions.

[Jakes Progress]

9. Acquiescing to the republican program smacks of collusion.

If you have the people's good in mind, it isn't that hard to figure out what to do. But, you are right. That may be for another thread. (Something along the lines of the new slogan: One man, one vote, one party.)

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Yep. You got it.

rec

[phantom power]

5. And it wouldn't hurt none if we ended our wars and quit lighting trillions of $$ on fire in the ME

[RC]

7. What, and deprive the MIC and their minions of those trillions?

Why do you think they start and don't stop these wars, huh?

And for the humor challenged around here - :sarcasm:

[MadHound]

11. It is time to tax the rich and cut our military drastically

Sadly, neither party has the will or spine to do this, thus the people will suffer and suffer. If this continues, a revolt will sooner or later happen.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. Yanno . . . . I used to think the notion of revolution was rhetorical.

I'm not talking about a bloody revolution. I'm talking about a loud chorus of disgust from the people. An opportunity for a truly populist leader to emerge. While I've long wanted to see that, I think the time is ripe.

But that can only happen if the shafting we've ALL gotten is spoken of and understood widely and clearly.

[tblue37]

14. The scary thing, though, is that a populist leader might be a poweri

hungry demagogue rather than a decent person looking to advance the well-being of ordinary people.