Hubris of the wealthy on full display here
Billionaires for taxes: The rich also cry | The Economist
http://www.Economist.com/node/21528919(Sent from Flipboard)
Ayn Rand Hates AmericaFiled under: Ayn RandHubris of the wealthy on full display hereWhich shouldn't surprise anyone But why isn't this type of thing played in the media more often, instead of allowing Boehner's claims to go unchallenged about how the rich suffer? And why do those the wealthy hold so much contempt for give so much support to them? This writer from the economist gets it: Mr Schwarzman is saying he's willing to pay higher taxes as long as the middle class does too, and as long as entitlement programmes that benefit the bottom two-thirds of the income scale, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, are cut. Amazingly, he includes in his call for "shared sacrifice" a plug for a flat tax, a measure long beloved by billionaires that would eliminate the progressivity of the tax code. Mr Schwarzman is right that tax hikes on the "wealthiest two per cent" won't be enough by themselves to fix America's fiscal problems—though the same point could be made about any individual deficit-reduction measure. And pretty much everyone recognises that Medicare and Medicaid spending ultimately has to be reined in. But the repeated focus on ensuring that a deal "falls equitably on all shoulders" is curious for a guy who elsewhere attacks a concern with social justice as "class warfare". And the thrust of the piece isn't so much that he's willing to "share the pain" of the middle class, but that the middle class should "share the pain" of Steven Schwarzman. Billionaires for taxes: The rich also cry | The Economist http://www.Economist.com/node/21528919(Sent from Flipboard) What's so bad about class warfare?
Heck, the war has been going on for decades, and the upper class has shamed the middle class into looking the other way. So I'm a class warrior. Good. Bout time our side had some voices fighting back. I feel no shame for saying Wall Street, most of the Hampton's, and almost all CEOs do not deserve what they have. Isn't that the same value judgments made on unions? From The New York Times: Republicans Call Obama’s Tax Plan ‘Class Warfare’ The response came after a White House assertion that the president will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year. http://nyti.ms/ovP70H
Privatizing is the answer...to the question: "How can we maximize corruption?"
Ayn Rand would be proud From The New York Times: Couple Accused of Stealing Millions Intended for Preschoolers’ Meals. A complaint accuses Joanna Fan and her husband, Ziming Shen, of siphoning money from accounts of the Red Apple Child Development Center. http://nyti.ms/oXYREq
Class warfare against the poor? There's an App for that. Don't buy it
Grandma Greed goes to the App store. Apple Shrugs
Interesting article about Whole Foods priming customersThis is just coincidentally about Whole Foods, as most big corporations do this. I do not shop at Whole Foods because their CEO is an Objectivist, one of Ayn Rand's cult. Remember that next time you pay inflated prices there
David Brooks sees a problem, but misses THE problem. It's Ayn Rand
In today's New York Times, David Brooks has an overall thoughtful piece, and he correctly assesses a problem in society today where too many are embracing moral relativism, leaving all ethical frameworks up to individuals; therefore standing for nothing as relative morality becomes no morality. Quoting Mr. Brooks:
“Not many of them have previously given much or any thought to many of the kinds of questions about morality that we asked,” Smith and his co-authors write. When asked about wrong or evil, they could generally agree that rape and murder are wrong. But, aside from these extreme cases, moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner. “I don’t really deal with right and wrong that often,” is how one interviewee put it. The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. “It’s personal,” the respondents typically said. “It’s up to the individual. Who am I to say?” Rejecting blind deference to authority, many of the young people have gone off to the other extreme: “I would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt. I have no other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.” Many were quick to talk about their moral feelings but hesitant to link these feelings to any broader thinking about a shared moral framework or obligation. As one put it, “I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways, so I couldn’t speak on behalf of anyone else as to what’s right and wrong.” This condition does exist, and it manifests itself with a lack of community and responsibility towards our fellow man, particularly those who struggle. Ironically, Ayn Rand and her disciples, which include the conservative movement and the Republican Party, have accelerated this moral relativism. It's ironic, because Ayn Rand insisted that she hated moral relativism, she said only the objective was real, which meant only the physical world and that derived from reason, and her cult/religion/philosophy Objectivism was based upon this. From this, she produced the axiom that the self was the highest form of life, as it was objective and real, and that serving the self was the highest good. End of story. This gospel of self serving, or selfishness, leads to individualism of the extreme kind and therefore society suffers. The whole theme of her fifty pound novel 'Atlas Shrugged' is of the individuals shunning society and leaving to be a collection of individuals. But individualism has as many faces as there are people, and if the self is the ultimate good, then everyone has the incentive to take care of their own self. Which destroys communities. Reason is based on premises, and Ayn would have had us to believe that her premises were truth, therefore there had to be no other outcome but hers. But with 300 million individuals in America acting on self interest, you are bound to get 300 million "truths", and none of them would call for sacrifice, community and cohesion necessary to strengthen society. So if you serve yourself, your moral code just gets simpler. Why care about any actions you take to pursue self interest that might affect your less fortunate neighbor? It becomes a system of moral relativism disguised as objective truth. In reality it isn't anything more than objective truths tailored for whatever whims that might motivate each individual. In our society where consumerism and status determined by wealth are deemed the governing values, the conditions that David Brooks describes are the only expected outcome. I'd say a majority of Americans haven't heard of Ayn Rand, and if they have, they don't know what her vision entails. But the leaders of industry, fundamentalist Christianity, and conservative politics are fulfilling her vision one deregulation and tax cut at a time. Pretty soon, there will be no one who would serve in the military, and frankly, no good reason to ask anyone to, if this is the world they are protecting. Brook's column linked here Koch Brothers attempt to destroy public schools. Its George Wallace all over again
If you are familiar with the Koch Brothers, it will be more of the same for you. If you aren't, you ought to be. By far most dangerous force in America that you haven't heard of. If Ayn Rand had two sons, trained them to spread her filthy worldview & made them them one of the richest families in the world, they couldn't be any more destructive than the Kochs.
These people would return to the 19th century and enslave us all who aren't silver spoon trust fund babies or CEOs. Www.KochBrothersExposed.com/education Quote of the day: If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security
"If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked." Recently retired GOP Congressional staffer named Mike Lofgren
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779 |
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