Lyndon Johnson was adamant. The Great
Society would cure poverty. In a 1964 campaign stop in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania he said this:
So here we are 2015 with 45 million collecting food assistance, the poor remain poor only more of them. Millions on medicaid. Millions remain long term unemployed. I won't mention the 11-30 million illegals doing the work Americans could easily do.
How's that working for you kids?
So here’s the Great Society. It’s the time — and it’s going to be soon — when nobody in this country is poor. It’s the time — and there’s no point in in waiting — when every boy or girl can have all the education that boy or girl can put to good use. It’s the time when there is a job for everybody who wants to work. It’s the time when every slum is gone from every city in America, and America is beautiful. It’s the time when man gains full domination under God over his own destiny. It’s the time of peace on earth and goodwill among men.Then there was this from Barack Obama when accepting his presidential nomination in 2008:
I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.Note: There was no blaming of Fox News in that Obama speech.
So here we are 2015 with 45 million collecting food assistance, the poor remain poor only more of them. Millions on medicaid. Millions remain long term unemployed. I won't mention the 11-30 million illegals doing the work Americans could easily do.
How's that working for you kids?
“Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society effort was built on an invigorating, exciting, but nonetheless erroneous, idea that government sharing can end poverty and urban squalor by taxing away resources from the ‘haves’ and giving them to the ‘have nots,’” wrote then-Republican Congressman Jack Kemp in 1979 in his classic book An American Renaissance. Say again, that was 1979.
ReplyDeleteJack Kemp was right. LBJ — and Barack Obama — were wrong. While LBJ isn’t around to admit his failures, President Obama is not only here he has found a convenient scapegoat for his own failures: Fox News.
But if you need any further evidence of the LBJ/Obama failures — the failures of liberalism — just listen to the liberal Baltimore Councilman Mosby who insists without putting it this way that after all those LBJ Great Society trillions — $22 trillion to be specific — and that Barack Obama “stimulus” of some $1.8 billion for Baltimore specifically that Baltimore is brimming with “abject poverty” and the “failures of the public education” system of the city.
"“I know you don’t want to hear this from me, but the wealthy are getting wealthier, and again, the belly of America is getting hurt,” he said. “Look, I’m a hard-core capitalist. But let’s be fair — capitalism only works if it starts at the top and filters down. If it doesn’t get down, we’re going to lose.”
DeleteThat was said by none other than Dick Fuld. In all honesty Lou, I wish that people who are so freaking, seethingly bitter and cynical about social programs would explain an alternative. Dick Fuld is not saying anything new here. Hell, S&P admitted as much in their report they put out years several years ago now. Regardless of whether people want to vilify the supper rich (which is your interpretation of what people like me are saying) or whether we want to say they fairly earned every dime they have, the reality is that we now have the vast majority of wealth in this country controlled by a collective few.
Why is this problem? It's a problem because when that wealth has become like velcro and just keeps attracting more and more wealth. There is no shortage of money to invest, and that's a point that Fuld makes wherein gargantuan banks won't lend to small start ups. Some rich guy might invest in an idea that seems like it will make him even more money, but will he invest in educating people to build it? will he invest in roads to ship it on? Not a chance. And if he buys into a company, he certainly isn't going to say, "Hey, let's pay all the workers more money"
So, cynically, you and others can perpetually sound the trumpets at the failure of liberalism to do anything but waste money. That won't, however, fix what is a very real problem which is that an enormous amount of the nation's wealth is now dead money. The super rich have billions more than they can spend in a lifetime and rather than risk it, they are just going to use it to keep buying people who will write laws to protect it. I continue to believe there has to be a better balance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/business/dealbook/richard-fuld-breaks-his-silence-since-lehmans-collapse.html?_r=0
Of course the wealthy are getting wealthier. They have money to invest with the frothy market. Middle class was a bit shell shocked, nervous, gun shy after the market of 2008. The wealthy were not.
DeleteThe old saying applies. Takes money to make money. Thanks to the Federal Reserve the poor, middle class have less to invest with ZIRP, inflation. Thanks to the administrations policies, open border, wages are beyond stagnant. Happens with an excess of entry level labor. Why would anyone pay more when there are so many available to fill the ranks?
As to alternatives, welfare should be determined on a local level to address local needs not from the global Federal level. Administering a program from 50,000 feet vs ground level is never accurate. Local level tens to have less fraud as they are invested in the community vs. it's not their money and they don't care attitude.
A work for benefits as well as a time frame should be instituted unless the person is not able to work.
But then again we have to take care of everyone even when they are capable of taking care of themselves.
Perhaps I am exactly the same as the rich. I am no longer willing to invest in my business (except for myself) as there is little to gain and everything to lose.
And still, I don't believe it is that simple. We are talking about decades worth of unwinding the intrinsic wealth that used to be possessed by a group of people who weren't rich, weren't poor but lived a pretty decent life. We have always had immigrants. No doubt they have had an impact, but I see them as a true bit player in the massive wage gap that has been created. In the 80's, I didn't need money to make money. I could show up and work and even at a total blue collar grocery store job, I could make enough to actually put some money in the bank. This is a much bigger macro move.
DeleteThe days of meritocracy are long gone. Many jobs being created today are shitty low wage jobs and unlike when I was a teenager, these jobs are not gateways to something better, unless you are using the money to go to school. These are not jobs that are giving you a skill. They are jobs that are putting money into he pocket of the owner and little else. In my mind, when employees have a chance to better themselves and make more money, they spend more money and the economy grows. When I say this, Im attacking the wealth. When people like Buffet, Dick Fuld, S&P and so on openly admit that trickle down is a failure, I'm not sure what else can be said.
As for local programs, I can see that benefit in context. But, I look at place like Vegas here. There are some local business people trying to do some good things, but we remain dominated by casinos. The Tesla guy put a big battery plant up near Reno, but he did not do it until he had a shitload of tax breaks. If he actually winds up employing as many people as he promises, maybe that works out. Still, I would much rather see access available to education. Student loans are a fucking rip off. Why are mortgage rates next to nothing while we gouge the crap out of students? This is just one example.
Add in our not so free free trade agreements that have allowed off shoring of manufacturing, call center, engineering jobs etc. and you have it all. What else would you expect?
Deleteof course jobs here are low paying, lots of people chasing jobs, where's the incentive for them to pay more???
We have discussed out of wedlock babies, we have discussed the rampant abortion mills. We pointed.out that the most dangerous cities have the strictest gun laws. We all know that most of.these cities have been run by Democrat administrations.
ReplyDeleteRecord levels of tax inflow, record levels of spending, record levels of waste and fraud. None of this is new.
What is new is the bald face progressive strategy of separating people by class. In the progressive death throw we see the last grasp of vanilla flavored Markism.
The are only so many getto's to "organize." There are only so many catagoies to slice and dice the population into. This is not about wealth. This is about Socialism on it's death bed.
Please explain how communist China is the world's #2 economy, projected to be #1 in about twenty years.
DeleteAs Ronnie said facts are stubborn things. The great society was in fact successful. In 1962 there were 800,000 American families living in abject poverty. By 1979 that number had fallen to 540,000. And what happened? With the advent of Mr. Facts are stubborn things administration we began to dismantle the Great Society and replace it with the trickle down joke.
DeleteMick, in 1985 did you "project" the Iron curtain would fall within a few years?
DeleteCommunist China still has billions of people that earn less than a dollar a day.
Our latest experiments in Marxism are about to experience a massive deflation based on failed dogma.
William,
DeleteIn January 2013, the Chinese Government released data confirming that the population of China was an impressive 1,354,040,000,
Your wrong about wages in China.
http://www.clb.org.hk/en/content/wages-china
Mick,
DeleteA bit behind times:
In 2014, China became the world's largest economy for the first time in modern history. It replaced the United States by producing $17.63 trillion in economic output. The European Union (EU) remained in second place, producing $17.61 trillion. Together, China and the EU generate 32.8% of the world's economic output of $107.5 trillion.
The United States fell to third place, producing $17.46 trillion.
Depends on what you mean by "economy". Here are the latest figures:
Deletehttp://knoema.com/nwnfkne/world-gdp-ranking-2015-data-and-charts
William, China is an economic powerhouse whose GDP is second only to the U.S.
ReplyDeleteChina's economy is growing faster than ours, therefore it is likely that China will replace us as the worlds largest economy before too long. China is a "people's republic", in other words communist country. Would I like to live there? Of course not.
Then stop sucking their dick Mick. You're to smart to believe that communism is anything more than a ponzi scheme, basically a feudal society.
DeleteAnyone who believes China's numbers, or our numbers for that matter, is insane.
LBJ had a wet progressive dream. All these years later we are left with the obvious social and economic nightmares.