Saturday, January 31, 2015

Bill Maher Says Socialism Created America's Successful Middle Class

"The large, thriving middle class that America used to have didn't just appear out of the blue. It was created using an economic tool called socialism," said Maher on his show.

He went on to say that heavy taxation and redistribution of wealth after WWII led to America's middle-class success.  This, of course, is absurd.

Here are the facts. government revenue as a percent of GDP and in real terms declined dramatically  after WWII and it is much higher now than immediately after WWII.






Further, it is only in recent years that government redistribution programs have gone off the charts, especially in the areas of education and healthcare,




Here' s Mhaer talking complete nonsense.




 -RW 

19 comments:

  1. Bill Maher is an idiot. I used to watch because it would occasionally be decent when they actually had some differing viewpoints, but I just got tired of Maher's idiocy. There's truly little hope when Real Time is considered a "smart" political show.

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  2. The point I repeatedly make is that they have gotten their wishes and still demand more. And by their own measurements, inequality is rising. They never conclude that big government favors the cronies and that welfare keeps the poor from climbing the economic ladder.

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  3. “It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”
    — Murray Rothbard

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  4. The middle class is the byproduct of a free market economy; it is not manufactured by a politician's tax gimmicks, minimum wage laws, or government redistribution of wealth.


    Cronyism, the convoluted Tax Code, excessive regulations, the national debt and the Federal Reserve are the major causes of the widening income inequality gap.

    Solutions:

    Abolish Tax Code and IRS.
    Enact Fair Tax (national sales tax).
    Minimize regulations to only what is absolutely necessary.
    Balance the budget.
    Start decreasing the national debt.
    Abolish the Federal Reserve as we know it. Replace it with an automated system as Milton Friedman suggested.
    Treat gold and silver as legal tender (not as an asset) for tax purposes.

    The income inequality problem is counterintuitive. Big government equals more income inequality. Smaller government equals less income inequality.

    There is no such thing as a living wage; there is only a wage that someone can afford to pay. You have to tailor your living around your wage, not have government tailor your wage around your living.

    It is about supply and demand. If you have an easy time filling your employee needs, you offer lower wages, if you have a hard time filling your employee needs, you offer higher wages; because if you do not your competition will and you will be out of business.

    It is not about what people deserve or what is fair or what is just; it is about what the market will bear. Blame the consumer for shopping for the lowest price and blame the voter for voting for government to fix their problems.

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  5. We have more socialism now in the US than Bill Maher's magical age.
    We have the FHA, HUD, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Community Reinvestment Act, Social Security, Medicare, Student Loan Programs, Obamacare/ACA, Earned Income Tax Credit, Unemployment Insurance Program and more.
    So his theory is false and the opposite is true. Socialism hurts the middle class.
    Big government equals more income inequality. Smaller government equals less income inequality.

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    Replies
    1. If Socialism hurts the middle class, why does Norway, a socialist democracy, have such a strong middle class? Does your economic theory factor in manipulation, rigging, fraud, corruption, tax evasion, and everything else that all fortune 500 companies are involved in one way or another.

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    2. You can buy a lot of socialism with oil. Soviet Union did that for decades.

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  6. This guy is just libtard maggot. He's either a con-artist or a moron.

    For people who are uneducated enough to believe this fool read this and see he's full of it:

    http://mises.org/sites/default/files/Economics%20in%20One%20Lesson_2.pdf

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    1. Name calling is perhaps a better indicator of the uneducated. Maher was not debating the efficacy of Capitalism or Free enterprise as an economic engine. He was reflecting on the value of trade unions and a much more progressive tax structure in distributing earned wealth more equitably. The availability of unregulated and cheap off-shore labor afforded by globalism, has put paid to any significant union activity and allowed Capitalism to show its darker and more feral side. This has led to stagnant wages for the middle class and unarguably excessive remuneration for senior corporate management. The good news is that if you are not a global entrepreneur, you can still find yourself on the right side of the economic divide through what has come to be known as financial engineering (a descriptor that is profoundly insulting to an honorable profession).

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    2. LOL! You know nothing about me moron. I'm just done debating idiots like Maher (and from your response you too) so I mock them.

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    3. Yes Bill, the little all-knowing spaghetti monsters in DC will create a heavenly egalitarian utopia for all of us here on earth if we'd only believe hard enough. We just have to have faith, right Bill?

      Yes Bill, someday the all-knowing spaghetti monsters in DC will give each of us a free flying ice cream shitting Unicorn too.

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    4. About those maggots...."every-banker-for-himself regime of sanctioned theft"

      Nomi Prins: The Sinister Evolution Of Our Modern Banking System Because we're all about those banks, 'bout those banks...

      Today, the 'revolving door' connecting our political and financial systems is evident to anyone with eyes. But this entwined relationship between Washington DC and Wall Street is nothing new, predating even the formation of the Federal Reserve.

      To chronicle the evolution to where we find ourselves today, we welcome Nomi Prins, Wall Street veteran turned financial industry reformist, and author of the excellent expose All The Presidents Bankers.

      In this well-detailed interview, Nomi goes into depth of the rationale and process behind the creation of the Federal Reserve, and more important, how its mandate -- and the behavior of the banking system overall -- metastasized into the every-banker-for-himself regime of sanctioned theft we now live with.

      http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/91631/nomi-prins-sinister-evolution-our-modern-banking-system?

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    5. "The availability of unregulated and cheap off-shore labor afforded by globalism, has put paid to any significant union activity and allowed Capitalism to show its darker and more feral side."

      So you'd prefer those people being afforded a chance to make money, though at the expense of high cost but similar labor, be regulated and one assumes restrained from doing so?

      How else to you propose that they("cheap off-shore labor") gain wealth?

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    6. I was not taking sides, merely explaining why our middle class is disappearing. I assume that you have done very well in the current economy and I am happy for you.

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    7. "allowed Capitalism to show its darker and more feral side."

      Oh yes roksob, you have. How I've "done" in the current economy is meaningless. What is being debated is under what system man becomes prosperous, free market capitalism or "regulated" as you put it, "markets".

      By looking at the balance sheets of govt's around the world & counting the democide #'s, it's not even hard to see which has the "darker" side aside from the moral implications surrounding telling global labor what they can or can't do.

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    8. @roksob

      Are you saying that marginal productivity theory is bunk? If America worker can produce 10 his pay will reflect that. Same goes for China-man.

      However, if the unions force americans wages above market rate, it pays to not pay them.

      Real culprit is unions and (more so) our monetary policy. If the world wasn't warehousing our paper, real wages would be lower.

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  7. 1) Finally, a leftist admits we have,had a socialist economy. Granted I am of the school it is a mixture of socialism/fascism but a strange admission anyways.

    2) The fact that the Soviet Union, all of Africa, China and North Korea flourished under socialism almost makes his point for him.

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    Replies
    1. run by....?

      Former HCA executive Tavenner can return to the private healthcare sector and cash in like her predecessors, Nancy-Ann DeParle, Tom Scully, Gail Wilenski and William Roper.

      Ironically, Nancy-Ann DeParle designed PPACA in partnership with for-profit healthcare executives and their paid lobbyists.

      Tavenner's Turn for Healthcare Gold

      Ms. DeParle came from private equity to the White House Health Reform Office and returned to same as co-founder of Consonance Capital. Who better to mine PPACA's topography for profits?

      Tavenner steps down the end of February and in her place will rise another for-profiteer.

      Andy Slavitt, a former UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive who is the agency’s second highest-ranking official, will move into Tavenner’s job on a temporary basis, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell

      Not that UnitedHealth executives helped craft PPACA and former Medicare-Medicaid Chief Gail Wilensky sits on their Board of Directors..
      Former CMMS Chief Tom Scully is a private equity underwriter (PEU) with Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe.

      http://peureport.blogspot.com/2015/02/tavenners-turn-for-healthcare-gold.html

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