The Elite: It's a Big Club and You're Not in it

[doghouse]

My critical thinking hat is in the shop (excess sweat caused the brow to shrivel) at the moment so help me out here - where in the article is there a strawman argument? He is literally taking Samuelsson's talking points and shooting them down.

He's not, that's the point. He's making up similar sounding arguments to what Samuelson is saying, and shooting down those arguments in an abortive attempt to discredit Samuelson. That's what a strawman is.

Samuelson = Middle class gets most government spending and breaks
Idiot = Samuelson is wrong, wealthy get biggest benefits from market.



The correct refutation is the government spends more on the wealthy. But obviously that isn't true so he can't say that.

 

[OfficePants]

Besides you are still unable to define this mythical "they"? Not really. I mean, I could toss out the obvious stuff about how silly it is to assert immigrants are "stealing" jobs or the superstructure of government does go to the middle class and you have confused it with the superstructure of the private sector, but until you realize there is no "they" only 330 or so million individuals, then there really isn't a point.

Large corporations are making large contributions to allow more H1B visas in. There are More H1Bs than ever, and fewer college grads with CS degrees getting jobs. Wages for software engineers are down across the board. Those are simple facts. We don't need the H1Bs, in fact never really did, and the middle class would be better off without the H1B visas, that's an opinion.

Obviously, much of government has to serve the largest populations, but it's a worthless point. The underpinnings are of a rigged system, and they are rigged towards the elite and their corporations. Until you realize the system is rigged and start observing the rigged system as a factual structure, you'll keep posting articles with minimal and oversimplified factual information.

 

[doghouse]

Obviously, much of government has to serve the largest populations, but it's a worthless point.

It's probably not worthless to people like yourself that are benefiting. Anyway, your appraisal of it's worth isn't relevant. It's just a fact and exists independent of any value judgment.

The underpinnings are of a rigged system, and they are rigged towards the elite and their corporations. Until you realize the system is rigged and start observing the rigged system as a factual structure, you'll keep posting articles with minimal factual information designed to avoid the truth.

I am giving facts, and as much as you want to proclaim factual information, you have yet to even define what facts you want. "The system is rigged" isn't a fact. It's an opinion. Facts are things like this person gets x amount of dollars.

Honestly, this entire thread is basically a big whine on how people have more stuff than you. You should have just gone to the moaning thread. The world has it's power dispersed more broadly and shallowly than at anytime in it's history.

 

[Grand Potentate]

He's not, that's the point. He's making up similar sounding arguments to what Samuelson is saying, and shooting down those arguments in an abortive attempt to discredit Samuelson. That's what a strawman is.

Samuelson = Middle class gets most government spending and breaks
Idiot = Samuelson is wrong, wealthy get biggest benefits from market.



The correct refutation is the government spends more on the wealthy. But obviously that isn't true so he can't say that.

No he's not. Nor is he trying to discredit Samuelson. But I'm way too tired to continue to bicker over this so you win.

 

[doghouse]

No he's not. Nor is he trying to discredit Samuelson. But I'm way too tired to continue to bicker over this so you win.

Well, I'm not trying to win, I'm just trying to get people to think critically and dispassionately, but I'm guessing that isn't going to happen.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Well, I'm not trying to win, I'm just trying to get people to think critically and dispassionately, but I'm guessing that isn't going to happen.

You know what I meant. You might not be able to sway OfficePants. I'm perfectly willing to concede a point. I just didn't see it in this instance.

 

[doghouse]

You know what I meant. You might not be able to sway OfficePants. I'm perfectly willing to concede a point. I just didn't see it in this instance.

Oh, well I was just trolling him initially with the article. He's all with the elite.

It's quiet in the office these couple days between Christmas and NYE.

 

[OfficePants]

It's probably not worthless to people like yourself that are benefiting. Anyway, your appraisal of it's worth isn't relevant. It's just a fact and exists independent of any value judgment.

So is the fact that corporations are able to funnel unlimited amounts of money into campaigns. I could build a whole narrative around this, just like your author did about how much of Government money gets doled out to who.

I am giving facts, and as much as you want to proclaim factual information, you have yet to even define what facts you want. "The system is rigged" isn't a fact. It's an opinion. Facts are things like this person gets x amount of dollars.

Honestly, this entire thread is basically a big whine on how people have more stuff than you. You should have just gone to the moaning thread. The world has it's power dispersed more broadly and shallowly than at anytime in it's history.

I can point out many factual ways in which the system is rigged, but I don't believe it will do anything to convince you. You seem set in the belief that power dispersion is more broad and shallow than ever and this is proof we don't live in a rigged system towards the elites, despite a tsunami of evidence that it is: anyway, it's population bro. It's obvious that if you have 7 billion people power dispersion will take on that look. It doesn't mean it's not rigged. Again, much of this stuff is about illusion of choice, and that you somehow have a say in it.

I'm not whining people have more stuff than me (point out one example, please). I'm well aware a bigger fish will always swim by. I'm whining about how it's rigged, there's a substantial difference. If you look at the thread again, you'll see it's about rigging, now about who has what.

 

[OfficePants]

You know what I meant. You might not be able to sway OfficePants. I'm perfectly willing to concede a point. I just didn't see it in this instance.

Come on Rambo. I already conceded the low and middle get most of the dole. What I don't concede is that it changes the premise that the system is rigged.

 

[doghouse]

I'm not whining people have more stuff than me (point out one example, please). I'm well aware a bigger fish will always swim by. I'm whining about how it's rigged, there's a substantial difference. If you look at the thread again, you'll see it's about rigging, now about who has what.

Well please point out what is exactly rigged against you having a happy fulfilling life that you want to lead?

Power is more dispersed today, there is really no arguing that. Pick who you think the most powerful man in the world is. Anyone. US President who answer to donors and electors? Banker who has to fend off regulatory oversight and suck up to politicians? Military dictator somewhere? All of these people have far less power than a middling noble of 16th century England.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Come on Rambo. I already conceded the low and middle get most of the dole. What I don't concede is that it changes the premise that the system is rigged.

Hey, I'm completely on your side in this. I was just telling Doghouse that despite his persistence he's probably not going to be able to change your mind with is "facts".

 

[Grand Potentate]

doghouse Here you go again:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/12/middle-class-needs-more-income-faith-will-follow

The Middle Class Needs More Income. Faith Will Follow.
—By Kevin Drum

| Mon Dec. 29, 2014 11:11 AM EST
Atrios has decided to force me to read Robert Samuelson's column this morning. Thanks, dude. Here's the start:

What is curious about the present understandable preoccupation with the middle class is the assumption — both explicit and implicit — that the system is “rigged” (to use Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s favorite term) against this vast constituency of Americans. In reality, just the opposite is true. The system is rigged in favor of the middle class. That’s a natural result for a democracy in which politicians compete more for votes than for dollars.

If you look at how the federal government spends and raises its money, the bias for the middle class and poor becomes plain. In fiscal 2014, about two-thirds of the $3.5 trillion federal budget went for “payments to individuals.” This covers 59 million Social Security recipients, more than 54 million Medicare beneficiaries (overlapping with Social Security), 68 million

Medicaid recipients, 46 million food-stamp recipients — and many more.

This really doesn't make sense. When we speak of the "middle class," we're nearly always talking about the working-age middle class. Samuelson surely knows this. But the only programs he calls out by name are specifically directed at the elderly and the working poor. Barely a single dollar of those programs goes to middle-class workers.

What's the point of this pretense? Beats me. I guess it allows Samuelson to ignore the stagnant middle-class wages and skyrocketing upper incomes of the past 15 years, which is what nearly everyone means when they say the system is rigged against the middle class. And it allows him to make the truly chin-scratching point that during the aughts, the result of this soaring inequality was basically a massive and fraudulent loan program from the rich to the middle class that eventually—and inevitably—broke down, producing a massive economic recession. This, in Samuelson's view, was "an intellectual, political and social climate that legitimized lax lending policies in the name of promoting middle-class well-being." If that's the way we promote middle-class well-being, can I please be transferred to a different class?

I don't agree with Samuelson much, but this column is a real head scratcher. It's not as if any of this stuff is ancient history. For more than a decade, income gains have been going almost exclusively to the rich; the housing bust, by contrast, was a calamity mostly for the working and middle classes; and government aid programs have been aimed largely at rescuing the financial sector and (in a pinch) helping the poor. The middle class folks thrown out of work have gotten a few grudging extensions of our meager unemployment insurance and a slight expansion of our meager disability system, but that's about it. This is not a "crisis of faith," as Samuelson puts it. It's a crisis of not having very much money.

 

[doghouse]

So much butthurt from emotional people.

 

[Grand Potentate]

So much butthurt from emotional people.

I can think of one...

 

[doghouse]

I can think of one...

You or OfficePants?

 

[Grand Potentate]

You or OfficePants?

 

[doghouse]

 

[Thruth]

why does the middle class need handouts? while subscribing to the ethos of the middle class, its members seem to be living beyond their means in an attempt to keep up with the Jonses. problem is that the Jonses and middleclass-chump are leagues apart. the Jonses may be elites or a notch below but that does not stop middleclass-chump from craving what the Jonses have. too much house, too many new vehicles, too many toys, too many vacations. why in all of this discussion is the middleclass' lack of responsibility in their habits not savaged? the differentiation between the poors and the upper classes was deferment of gratification. that has gone out the window.

 

[doghouse]

why does the middle class need handouts? while subscribing to the ethos of the middle class, its members seem to be living beyond their means in an attempt to keep up with the Jonses. problem is that the Jonses and middleclass-chump are leagues apart. the Jonses may be elites or a notch below but that does not stop middleclass-chump from craving what the Jonses have. too much house, too many new vehicles, too many toys, too many vacations. why in all of this discussion is the middleclass' lack of responsibility in their habits not savaged? the differentiation between the poors and the upper classes was deferment of gratification. that has gone out the window.

Such an Elite.

 

[Thruth]

Such an Elite.

i am speaking as a middleclass-chump or maybe a slightly-higher-but-not-elite-level-chump. i ask for nothing from The Man, other than a desire for flat rate taxation

 

[doghouse]

i am speaking as a middleclass-chump or maybe a slightly-higher-but-not-elite-level-chump. i ask for nothing from The Man, other than a desire for flat rate taxation

If you get some, spread that shit around.

 

[Thruth]

The game is not rigged that's the thing. It is just whining. Start with a flat tax to decimate the need for all those evil bastards at the IRS & CRA Canada.

The real problem is where is the centre of population growth? Not the elites. Not the middle class. The poors. No wonder that the $$$ go to the social safety net. This is also the group that will not have meaningful employment because of low literacy and education rates and every other societal ill.

Keep on having babies y'all. The government will take care of you. Well maybe not but there is free cheese.

 

[Thruth]

The Jonses are real at least in the imagination of people who are jealous and desirous of what others have. If people just stuck to their own shit and not focussed on what others have and they don't they would be better off. No one created this. If in Afghanistan one goat herder has two goats and one teenage boy in his possession and his neighbour has 5 goats and three teenaged boys you know goatherd 1 wants what the other gots. Of course it is all about sex but you get my point.

 

[OfficePants]

Well please point out what is exactly rigged against you having a happy fulfilling life that you want to lead?

Power is more dispersed today, there is really no arguing that. Pick who you think the most powerful man in the world is. Anyone. US President who answer to donors and electors? Banker who has to fend off regulatory oversight and suck up to politicians? Military dictator somewhere? All of these people have far less power than a middling noble of 16th century England.

Rigged:

Corporations can funnel unlimited cash into campaigns
High frequency trading
Dividend income
Banks can invent money
Banks own the Federal Reserve
Budget 2014
Farm subsidies
Bush v Gore
Scooter Libby
The lobbying system: corporations write the law

I can go on and on and on.

The US president has the most power. He can blow up the earth. No 16th century English noble could do that. Check mate on this one.

 

[Thruth]

You cannot shut down the system without a radical turnover in society. Too many people have been complicit in the wrongs of the current system and would continue to corrupt any future system. First you must remove the people then you can fix the problem, although likely removing the people would fix the problem.

There is no fixing anything. All political systems are flawed and will always be so

 

[OfficePants]

why does the middle class need handouts? while subscribing to the ethos of the middle class, its members seem to be living beyond their means in an attempt to keep up with the Jonses. problem is that the Jonses and middleclass-chump are leagues apart. the Jonses may be elites or a notch below but that does not stop middleclass-chump from craving what the Jonses have. too much house, too many new vehicles, too many toys, too many vacations. why in all of this discussion is the middleclass' lack of responsibility in their habits not savaged? the differentiation between the poors and the upper classes was deferment of gratification. that has gone out the window.

Start a middle class screed thread. None if this has to do with how the elite rig the system. Fuck the Jonses.

 

[OfficePants]

"The government spends more money on the elites!"

I mean c'mon you socialist pig dogs, really. You claim the game is rigged and the elite hold us down while they throat-fuck us. If that's the case then how can you possibly expect to beat them by playing the game with them? This idea that the solution to terrible government corruption is more government is ridiculous.

Who said this?

 

[doghouse]

Rigged:

Corporations can funnel unlimited cash into campaigns
High frequency trading
Dividend income
Banks can invent money
Banks own the Federal Reserve
Budget 2014
Farm subsidies
Bush v Gore
Scooter Libby
The lobbying system: corporations write the law

I can go on and on and on.

The US president has the most power. He can blow up the earth. No 16th century English noble could do that. Check mate on this one.

None of things answer this question.

Well please point out what is exactly rigged against you having a happy fulfilling life that you want to lead?

Yes, in terms of leveling the earth, there are currently several people who can do that, though the US president isn't one of them, so that actually isn't checkmate. But we are talking power and elites, it's controlling other people, not wanton destruction.

 

[OfficePants]

The game is not rigged that's the thing.

What is what I wrote above, if not rigging? And there are 100's of other examples just like it.

 

[Thruth]

Rigged:

Corporations can funnel unlimited cash into campaigns
High frequency trading
Dividend income
Banks can invent money
Banks own the Federal Reserve
Budget 2014
Farm subsidies
Bush v Gore
Scooter Libby
The lobbying system: corporations write the law

I can go on and on and on.

The US president has the most power. He can blow up the earth. No 16th century English noble could do that. Check mate on this one.

Every country has its biases. The names and processes change but it is all the same. Since the dawn of time. Systems are rigged - I will grant you that - because humans take advantage of the system.

 

[Thruth]

The issue is not the IRS and its "evil workers" but rather the rich who cheat on their taxes. If everyone pays their taxes the system would work a hell of a lot better. Yes you still have issues with the blacks and poors but you would have much more capital to fix problems. Instead you have the rich cheat and steal.

You have a system which provides loopholes for people to take advantage of which everyone from the small home business to large corporations do. It could be fixed but government and the IRS don't want to. The IRS' identity is not about processing tax forms but finding tax frauds and the ones who take the hit are not elites but regular people trying to save a couple of bucks. The IRS and other taxmen/women relish their jobs. It is not without emotion when they come for you

 

[OfficePants]

None of things answer this question.

Yes, in terms of leveling the earth, there are currently several people who can do that, though the US president isn't one of them, so that actually isn't checkmate. But we are talking power and elites, it's controlling other people, not wanton destruction.

It does, you just frame the question in a way that is non-sensical. I can't know what my life would be if those elements disappeared, I can get into speculation but you'd end around that with more dispersion. All those places I mentioned exist and they are examples of the system being rigged. If you want to defend any of them, feel free.

The threat to create destruction is as basic as power gets, so I have no idea what you mean. Roman elites conquered and terrorized at will by sending armies into lands and taking it by force. The US president uses our nuclear capabilities to project power to the world. Same kind of projection comes with economic and technical power.

 

[OfficePants]

Every country has its biases. The names and processes change but it is all the same. Since the dawn of time. Systems are rigged - I will grant you that - because humans take advantage of the system.

At least someone accepts that the systems around us are rigged. Next bridge to cross accepting it's by and for the elites. Just because it's been going on a long time does not discount the truth.

 

[Thruth]

What is what I wrote above, if not rigging? And there are 100's of other examples just like it.

I suppose it is how one defines rigging. I don't see it as a small group of people creating a master plan. More like human foibles piles one upon another until you have a skewed system

 

[doghouse]

It does, you just frame the question in a way that is non-sensical. .

You feel your current quality of life is non sensical? I'm being serious here. What in the system is keeping you from living the life you want to live?

All those examples you gave exist but the aren't any rigged system. I mean, dividend income? I have dividend income.

Destruction is certainly basic, but I didn't think that was what we are talking about. If you want to go kill someone, that happens all the time by even the most powerless people. I guess if volume of death is your criterion, then the US is the current champ like Klitschko, but we couldn't touch and all time great like Russia (Ali in this metaphor) or Germany (Joe Frazier). Anyway, I don't see how that figures into this topic, it's a state on state power projection. And the President can't launch nukes on his own.

 

[Thruth]

At least someone accepts that the systems around us are rigged. Next bridge to cross accepting it's by and for the elites. Just because it's been going on a long time does not discount the truth.

But there are examples of rigged or abused systems up and down the food chain. Medicaid/Medicare/welfare fraud are examples of non-elite advantage taking of a flawed system. Surely that was not created to somehow benefit the elites

 

[OfficePants]

I suppose it is how one defines rigging. I don't see it as a small group of people creating a master plan. More like human foibles piles one upon another until you have a skewed system

Who ever said master plan? Again with this comic portrayal. There's no master plan. There is just a club of elite people who have access to and game the system to their advantage. And yes, over time the rigging piles up on itself. You again just fail to mention the word elites. Joe the plumber ain't getting a plumber exception, but look at the perks the wealthy sugar baron families get, again, it's rigged towards the interests of the elites.

 

[OfficePants]

Destruction is certainly basic, but I didn't think that was what we are talking about. If you want to go kill someone, that happens all the time by even the most powerless people. I guess if volume of death is your criterion, then the US is the current champ like Klitschko, but we couldn't touch and all time great like Russia (Ali in this metaphor) or Germany (Joe Frazier). Anyway, I don't see how that figures into this topic, it's a state on state power projection. And the President can't launch nukes on his own.

But there are examples of rigged or abused systems up and down the food chain. Medicaid/Medicare/welfare fraud are examples of non-elite advantage taking of a flawed system. Surely that was not created to somehow benefit the elites

These 2 posts address the point about elites. You can kill a single person. A connected elite(s) can kill thousands and millions. You can game the system for some welfare fraud and make a few $, or you can setup a HFT machine next to an exchange and earn the lottery every day (and you better believe HFT is illegal).

Even a hobo can game the system, but it's not elite. When you can force farm subsidies to continue thru your corporate power, then you are funneling billions from the tax base we all pay. That's elite.

 

[Thruth]

But to follow your arguement, the elites may be gaining an unfair advantage but so to is the small farmer paid not to grow tobacco or paid to grow corn. Or people who can compete on equal footing for jobs or entrance to university but take advantage of affirmative action schemes.

The actions of whomever does not impact my life unless their use of loopholes disadvantages me directly.

As far as I am concerned I am as unfettered as i want to be

 

[doghouse]

These 2 posts address the point about elites. You can kill a single person. A connected elite(s) can kill thousands and millions. You can game the system for some welfare fraud and make a few $, or you can setup a HFT machine next to an exchange and earn the lottery every day (and you better believe HFT is illegal).

Even a hobo can game the system, but it's not elite. When you can force farm subsidies to continue thru your corporate power, then you are funneling billions from the tax base we all pay. That's elite.

Osama Bin Laden = Elite?