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In reply to the discussion: Bill Maher Asks: "When did the American dream become this pathway to indentured servitude?" [View all]DirkGently
(12,151 posts)11. One strength of this point is that it perfectly illustrates
an UPWARD conduit for "redistributing wealth," the phrase that so enrages workaday conservatives in this country.
We funnel wealth upward constantly, through big government contracts, through tax laws with loopholes available only to the rich, with job and education opportunities available only to the wealthy and connected, and nary a peep from these people.
But give a kid a hot breakfast at a public school, and suddenly it's Big Government Reaching Into My Pocket.
These huge companies with their MBA-think philosophy of ever-decreasing costs always come back to their labor force as a way to push next quarter's profit graph a little higher. It's unsustainable, and as people are now pointing out more and more, it not only stifles the economy by depressing consumer spending on the part of underpaid workers, but increases the burden on the meager social safety nets we do have by creating more and more "working poor."
It's not question of whether we should "redistribute wealth." That's what an economy and a civilization does. That's how this works. The question is where we distribute it, for what purpose, and what we as a whole society get out of it.
This is Maher at his best -- making cogent points that should be obvious, but that we don't talk about.
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Bill Maher Asks: "When did the American dream become this pathway to indentured servitude?" [View all]
kpete
Oct 2013
OP
You are almost correct. If you have a very low income, you don't even have to file.
JDPriestly
Oct 2013
#40
They want most of us to die already. Starving preferred, as a starving person
LiberalLoner
Oct 2013
#9
They're answer is already being said out there. They claim she has an "entitlement mentality"...
Spitfire of ATJ
Oct 2013
#20
Bill's great. About 6 months behind Thom Hartmann, but better late than never. nt
navarth
Oct 2013
#31
People are finally realizing that Welfare and Food Stamps are not hand outs to the poor,
tecelote
Oct 2013
#32
Hey Bill. . .it happened January 21st, 1981. Look up what happened that day!
Nanjing to Seoul
Oct 2013
#46