poverty

This video was posted today on the Big Orange Satan and I thought it was worth trying to embed here for others to see. If my technique isn't good, I'll just post the link.

As you watch, keep in mind the apparent GOP nominee...Mittens Romney...would like to do away with all taxes on capital gains and dividends and interest. Since capital gains are already taxed at a max of only 15% as opposed to the usually 25% or more on sweat-earned income this is just another ploy to further screw the 80% of Americans who have only about 7% of the wealth while placing a kevlar lining in the pockets of the already sticking-it-to-us ultra wealthy.

Hat tip to Action NC for Tweeting this story:

Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans - nearly 1 in 2 - have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

Of course, the Free Market corporate lackies think this is a great way to reshape the country:

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at such an embarrassingly dimwitted and offensive statement.

One in six Americans now officially living in poverty. Look for Republicans to fix things by changing the definition of "poor."

I am very troubled, even hurt, by what I see in America today. Intellectually I understand the falling and the raising of political fortunes as well as the gulf which separates so many Americans ideologically, socially, financially and politically. There are vast differences of opinion among us regarding how we can, or should go forward as a world power, a prosperous nation and a place where we can all be free to pursue happiness without unnecessary interference, or encumbrance by our government, or anyone else for that matter.

Our diverse views, each strongly held,have been with us ever since the founding of our nation and yet over the past ten years something has changed. The “We The People” part has changed. It has been weakened. Political forces, I believe, have finally succeeded in convincing much of America that, as a people, we exist in two separate and opposing camps which can never reconcile their differences. Something new has reached us ... something bad ... something not cognizant of how we became so great through the very diversity it opposes ... and it's tearing us apart.

What makes a story timeless? Recent research suggests that every enduring story has a few common components. There needs to be a setting: agreed-upon facts or rules that provide context and set the scene. There must be a plot with a beginning, middle, and end, and a moral point that the audience finds compelling. Most of all, there have to be recognizable characters: a villain to cause trouble, a set of victims who suffer at the hands of the villain, and a hero (perhaps flawed in his or her own right) to step in and save the day.

I'm reading Joseph Heller's novel Picture This, a rumination on Rembrandt's "Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer." After the fold, what this has to do with economics, poverty, and capitalism.

Neighborhood schools sound pretty innocuous to many people. I have been asked by many well-meaning parents what is so bad about kids not having to get up so early to catch a bus halfway across the county in order to arrive at some magic number made up by statisticians. Where's the harm in having your kids go to school closer to home, they ask. Doesn't that make more sense?