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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (319678)	1/9/2007 3:24:38 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1573411

Actually the stability of the US as a democracy depends on reasonably equal distribution of wealth just as it depends on reasonably equal distribution of votes. How people can think that wealth can be vastly unequal and voting can remain equal is beyond me. Democracy = economic equality mostly in the form of a very large middle class. The evil greed meisters of the rightwing have floated this myth that the USA is about everyone becoming Bill Gates which is patently absurd and as realistic as the coming of the toothfairy. They're really good at perpetuating this myth into the minds of idiots many of whom we see on this thread. The reality is that the system codifies the concentration of wealth so much that the vast majority of Americans are experiencing longer hours, higher 'productivity' (aka lower wages) and, worst of all, much greater risk. It's STUPID. Americans are STUPID. It's past time for Americans to stop being STUPID and start working for the self-interest of democracy which, amazingly enough, is our own self-interest. Another decade of the Bushites, another repeat of 2000-06 may bring down our democracy or make it into even more of a sham than it is. It's absurd that we're slated to spend $1 billion on just the next Presidential election, Congressional incumbents have a 96% chance of keeping their seats and Senators have to raise some $10K/day as soon as they take office in order to keep said office. It's ridiculous and yet rightwing middle and lower classes keep worrying about Islamo-fascists instead of the real fascists. It's funny how rightwingers lament the 1950s and blame the demise of the leave-it-to-beaver world on 'liberals' and 'immigrants' and 'minorities' but, in reality, the culprits are the ECONOMICS and the rise of GREED. Reagan, the worst president in US history after Bush&Bush, started the ball rolling and the stupidity of the American public let it keep going. economist.com The conventional tale is that the changes of the past few years are simply more steps along paths that began to diverge for rich and poor in the Reagan era. During the 1950s and 1960s, the halcyon days for America's middle class, productivity boomed and its benefits were broadly shared. The gap between the lowest and highest earners narrowed. After the 1973 oil shocks, productivity growth suddenly slowed. A few years later, at the start of the 1980s, the gap between rich and poor began to widen.

To: TimF who wrote (319678)	1/10/2007 1:42:27 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573411

South America? - Not many South American countries have been very strong on the idea of a free market. Instead you get either socialists, or "right wing" dictators who run the country for their own benefit and that of their close friends. Chile under Pinochet was fairly free market, and its economy did fairly well. Unfortunately it was also an abusive military dictatorship. Not as abusive as a number of socialist dictatorships that don't seem to draw nearly as much condemnation from the left in America, but still it had a very poor human rights record. But that record was hardly a failure of capitalism. Brazil has its own form of socialism and is also doing very well economically. In fact, its a member of BRIC. Chile is also more socialistic than in the past and its economy is doing well. In fact, there are a number of successful nations in the world that combine socialism with capitalism.