thebigp

Growth and Ine******y:---8H.
The economic recovery is barely worthy of the name, and there is evidence that ine******y in America a is increasing. Ignoring the first rule of statistics—correlation is not causation—progressives see this as a new reason to expand government. Reduce ine******y and the growth rate will increase. Some studies suggest that to be the case, others point out that so many factors determine an economy's growth rate that heeding the call of the redistributionist will not add much to the f**gging growth of our economy.
All of this has morphed into criticism economic model. Years ago it was Mussolini who made the trains run on time, then c*******m that would spread prosperity to the masses by sending capitalists north, then National Socialism that had the answer to a worldwide recession (rearmament). More recently we've heard hosannas to the centrally directed Chinese model, which now seems threatened by its internal contradictions.
If we are indeed engaged in a search for the economic system that looks in the mirror and declares itself the fairest of all, as President Obama believes he sees in the European democratic socialism model, it is not the incomedistribution figures that should be our guide. Most advanced economies do well by those on the top of the heap. In America some 50 million people live below the official poverty line, but that measure does not include food stamps, rent subsidies and entitlements, and other income t***sfers that supplement their wages. The typical household living at 125 percent of the official poverty line or below owns a car. lives in an air-conditioned house, has cable or satellite service, a refrigerator, a microwave, and those with children have a game system. And 84 percent have two or three color television sets according to the Energy Information Administration. The average poor American has more living spare than the average European.
William Buckley: "stop." Stop taking cash out of the paychecks of the poor and middle class to subsidize $85,000 electric cars for Hollywood celebrities; stop raising the energy bills of the poor and of struggling workers forcing them to buy wind-produced energy instead of cheaper coal- and natural-gas-based energy; stop making it difficult for poor and even not-so-poor farmers to make a living so that little fish can swim around unimpeded; stop the ' government monopoly from fleecing middle-class taxpayers to support students who don't want to repay their loans; stop taxing Joe the plumber for gasoline he buys to get to work so that richer cyclists have still more bike lanes in which to amuse themselves. There's more, but you get the idea. I hope this bit of hyperbole helps to focus the debate.
source (9/715), irwin stelzae, org for eco co=op, energy in