One of our “tenets” in our tag line for this blog includes “hot topic news” and this most certainly fits the bill. Please read on!

I must be having withdrawal symptoms since my favorite MSNBC news shows air only Monday through Friday. So it’s digging deep into our local, “switch sides every other day” (sound familiar?) local newspaper, The Las Vegas Review Journal that grabbed my attention this morning.

Actually much of the following – other than my own two cents – comes from a section of the paper, the Las Vegas Sun (don’t ask me what their relationship is – but the one does stick in parts of the other). And, just so you know up front, the Las Vegas Sun endorses Obama.

The first tidbit I’d like to share is along the lines of “is wealth distributed properly in this country.”

Here’s a shocker for all us working “Joes and Janes” (thanks Palin) – from Sunday’s Parade Magazine:

Question: Are U.S. Senators eligible for a PENSION if they are NOT re-elected and serve just ONE six-year term?

Answer: Yes. Senators need just five years to be eligible at age 62. (Currently, the pension would be less than 8.5% of their 2008 salary, $169,300). If they become disabled, Senators can immediately get benefits after 18 months in office.

Does THAT sound fair for all you booing the “spread the wealth” ideals?

That’s $14,390.60 a year or 1,199.20 per month for life – for working just five years - whether they do a good job or a lousy job.

Have you checked YOUR Social Security lately? What YOU will get after working 40+ YEARS of your life? And that’s IF it’s still available when your time to retire comes around.

Five years versus 40+ years – oh that’s fair, that’s spreading the wealth.

The second tidbit I’d like to share is this also from Saturday’s Las Vegas Sun:

“In sobering testimony Thursday before the House Oversight Committee, Greenspan conceded he had made faulty economic assumptions based on the mistaken belief that banks would be more careful than they were. Greenspan called the financial calamity a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami.”

Greenspan was an adherent of the anti-regulation philosophy, also embraced by the Bush administration, that over the past several years adversely affected not only financial matters but also many other aspects of federal policy, ranging from environmental issues to product safety.

This is the type of backward thinking that should be replaced in Washington by political leaders who understand that regulatory controls, when used properly, are valuable tools that can PROTECT citizens and make our nation stronger.

And, since I’m on a rant here, with that said, here’s an interesting tidbit written by Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado and a columnist for Scripps Howard News Service:

“A ridiculous idea that has become a standard part of political talk in American is that politicians shouldn’t [that's should NOT - my input] “redistribute wealth.”

For example, last weekend John McCain went on Fox News and criticized Barack Obama for wanting to “spread the wealth around.”

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace asked helpfully, “Is that socialism?” To which McCain replied, “So is one of the tenets of socialism redistribution of wealth? Not just socialism, a lot of other liberal and left wing philosophies. Redistribution of the wealth, I don’t believe in it.”

Have faith though – for those of you reading who can feel your blood pressures rising – Campos continues:

“What’s absurd about this is that saying you don’t believe in redistribution of wealth is like saying you don’t believe in gravity. All politics that deviate from the economic status quo redistribute wealth, and the present status quo itself always engaged in some redistribution of wealth from a previous arrangement.

For example, the past 30 years have featured a massive redistribution of wealth in America FROM everybody else TO the top 1 percent, and much more radically, the top 1/10th of one percent (this is, the richest thousandth) of Americans.”

Consider these figures from the Economic Policy Institute. In 1979 the top 1 percent of wage earners made 9.4 times as much, on average, as the bottom 90 percent of the populace. This ratio has remained virtually unchanged since the end of World War II.

Meanwhile, the top 1/10th of one percent made 21 times as much as the bottom 90 percent – again, a ratio that had barely budged in the postwar period.

So, if you’re sitting snug in your little bed and confident that you are in the top 1 percent to 1/10th of percent of Americans, yes I guess the idea of “spreading the wealth” might have you freaking out. How dare your money sources even considering helping out the remaining 99% of us Americans!

However, for those of us unlucky enough to not be in that oxygen-depleted stratosphere, read on – and keep taking deep breaths to keep calm:

“Since then the income ratio of the top 1 percent relative to the bottom 90 percent has doubled, thus making it about the same as what the ratio of the top 1/10th of 1 percent to the bottom 90 percent was for the first 35 years of the postwar period.

That’s startling enough, but the most radical redistribution of income has been at the very top of the economic pyramid. The top 1/10th of 1 percent now enjoys a wage ratio approximately 70 times that of the bottom 90 percent – an astounding generational transfer of literally trillions of dollars from nine out of 10 Americans to the super-rich.”

Here’s the kicker, and here’s also why you may believe that, “Oh, that’s okay, McCain is right anyway…”

“…contrary to 30 years’ worth of propaganda, this redistribution of wealth hasn’t been an inevitable product of the “laws” of economics, or the Divine Right of the Plutocrats, or whatever rationalization the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal are peddling this week.

Rather, it’s been largely a product of conscious policy changes: changes in the tax code, in the laws that distribute social power between capital and labor, in America’s trade relationships, and in a host of other ways that have moved money FROM everyone else TO the extremely rich as surely as Bonnie and Clyde moved money out of Depression-era bank vaults.”

Furthermore, Campos has anticipated what I call the “think view” of those still under the influence of some type of brain washing – for all you out there that still believe all is well should a Republican remain in office. He states:

“Of course none of this counts as a “redistribution of wealth” if you take the view that there is a certain natural economic order, and that only deviations from that order count as “redistribution.”

That, indeed has been the position of contemporary American conservatism.”

Now here’s the part where you really need to let it all sink in. There has not been a system of checks and balances, and believe it or not, regulation is not an evil empire waiting to take over your life and turn you into a Stepford citizen. Instead – through the sheer act of willful deregulation, this has proven to be a systematic attack on us lowly 99% of Americans – those of use working our collective butts off to shovels tons of money into the coffers of those elite 1 to 1/10th percent of the country – and around the world. Sounds a bit like slavery don’t you think?

To round out today’s more or less economic history lesson, I’ll finish with these last words from Campos:

“It should be unnecessary to point out that there is nothing in the slightest bit “natural” about this vision. It’s simply one ideological view of how society ought to be organized – a vision that can be justified if one believes either that what’s best for (the) very rich is automatically best for society as a whole, or that the highest function of the state is to protect the interests of the wealthy.

John McCain, who had an income of $4.6 million last year, seems to consider these “truths” to be self-evident.”

So to all out there that made it this far and are cheering away every time McCain and his cohorts tell you “spreading the wealth” is bad, evil, dirty… just remember, he’s already got his huge piece of the pie, along with his wife who’s an heiress to a beer company. And, if he gets his way, he’s gonna hang on to it and leave the rest of us high and dry. A repeat of the last eight years – oh joy what a great thing to look forward to… NOT!

You just keep clapping, and every time your hands come together, there’s another dollar in his pocket – not yours.

Oh, and by the way, Obama has openly stated at many of his rallies and on television that he DOES make more than you do, AND he wants YOU to have the same benefits and enjoy a similar standard of living that he and his family enjoy.

Obama’s message to “spread the wealth” of course has many up at arms. Why? Because it means a better life for the middle class?! Who in their right minds would not want a better life?!?

While the Republicans would like to keep the wealth “in house,” here’s a potential leader ready and willing to do what it takes to make the other 95% of our country happier, healthier, and wealthier. Doesn’t seem to bother him in the slightest that he’d like YOU to have a better life than what you’re going through now.

Don’t you believe you deserve a higher quality of life? See a shrink!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Awareness, Hot Topic News, Recommendations, Reference, Reviews, democracy, economics, making money, politics, u.s. citizens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.