"The 1% aren't like the rest of us"

[applegrove]

The 1% aren't like the rest of us

By Benjamin I. Page and Larry M. Bartels at the LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-page-wealth-and-politics-20130322,0,3575694.story

"SNIP..................................................


Over the last two years, President Obama and Congress have put the country on track to reduce projected federal budget deficits by nearly $4 trillion. Yet when that process began, in early 2011, only about 12% of Americans in Gallup polls cited federal debt as the nation's most important problem. Two to three times as many cited unemployment and jobs as the biggest challenge facing the country.

So why did policymakers focus so intently on the deficit issue? One reason may be that the small minority that saw the deficit as the nation's priority had more clout than the majority that didn't.

We recently conducted a survey of top wealth-holders (with an average net worth of $14 million) in the Chicago area, one of the first studies to systematically examine the political attitudes of wealthy Americans. Our research found that the biggest concern of this top 1% of wealth-holders was curbing budget deficits and government spending. When surveyed, they ranked those things as priorities three times as often as they did unemployment — and far more often than any other issue.

If the concerns of the wealthy carry special weight in government — as an increasing body of social scientific evidence suggests — such extreme differences between their views and those of other Americans could significantly skew policy away from what a majority of the country would prefer. Our Survey of Economically Successful Americans was an attempt to begin to shed light on both the viewpoints and the political reach of the very wealthy.

.................................................SNIP"

[FirstLight]

1. ...and crickets...

Though we KNOW this to be true, we KNOW they have the pull to make stupid stuff our policy and the rest of us vote but never get anywhere...but is that knowledge going to make a difference? Not when the players all have our nuts in a vice and all the money in the world

[Dragonfli]

2. The push by President Obama and some Congressional Democrats

for a grand bargain that cuts Social Security benefits (to reduce a budget it has nothing to do with)
is not what the American people want. It is also radically out of sync with the wishes of our base. An incredible 73 percent of Democrats don’t think Social Security should be cut to reduce the deficit.

Let's tell the truth for once shall we?
73 percent of Democrats < Pete Peterson’s billion dollar campaign

The way our party is run (ever since it was taken over by the Koch bros. DLC) is constituents and polls do not matter, people do not matter, money is access, money decides policy, the rest is only a pr campaign, a sales pitch to get the rubes to buy the tickets stamped D every two years. You may buy a ticket with your vote and you get to watch the great show that they put on for us, but one ticket is all you get, and you have no voice to go with it. To count as a voice you must buy millions of special gold plated tickets, the more of these million dollar tickets you buy, the more your voice is heard, it is no longer a battle of Ideas, but rather an auction, and everything is for sale in this auction. Without millions, you can't even make an opening bid, let alone outbid the other special interests invited to the action.

All your vote buys is a seat under the big tent, they put on a grand show, one that resembles a game between the Globetrotters and the Generals, but only the dimmest of rubes think the Generals might win, the same dim bulbs that still think TV wrestling is for real.

Do you really think Obama cares what any of us think? If he did, would he really be pushing a deal a large majority of us are saying hell no to?

If you believe that, then you know the definition of Rube, and the picture next to that definition is a snapshot of you.

This is just the power one man, Pete Peterson, has over our "party leaders", there is also bank money, oil money, big pharma, the list goes on, all of them have purchased and even written bits of policy, more that that, they have purchased our party, our politicians and ANY man that parrots their austerity snake oil from the President on down, the sale of some men's principles is pathetically cheap in my opinion. To sell out one's principles and millions of people that wrongly trusted one is to sell one's soul. I am curious what the actual rate is.

[Maynar]

4. Thirty pieces, I would think.

Just sayin'

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. Well we are at least an inconvenient bother every other year.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

3. "could significantly skew policy away from what a majority of the country would prefer."

"could"????

[ReRe]

5. We have a couple of recently uploaded vidios....

Last edited Sun Mar 24, 2013, 12:38 AM - Edit history (1)

.... in particular, one of Thom Hartmann in a 5-clip conversation with Ravi Batra, and one of Richard Wolff, who tell why the politicians are blaming all of our economic problems on the deficit.
I highly recommend them both! They are long and time-consuming, but very worth the listen!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017107129

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017107439

Edited to correct spelling and add links!

[Egalitarian Thug]

8. Link? At least a title, please. n/t

[ReRe]

10. Sorry!

I edited my initial post that you replied to, but here they are for you. I really learned allot from these two OPs. Believe it or not, far from all gloom and doom, each one of these included a ray of hope. Seriously.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017107129

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017107439

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. TYVM. It is appreciated. n/t

[ReRe]

14. You're most welcome! ;-) n/t

[adieu]

6. Of course the rich

don't care about unemployment. They don't need it themselves (or are already well employed) and they know that the higher the unemployment rate, the lower the wages.

And they really don't care about the deficit. They just don't want to pay their fair share of taxes, so they'll use the roundabout way to say that by claiming the deficit and the spending is too high. They want the deficit to drop so that there's no need to raise revenue via taxes on the rich.

[ErikJ]

7. 1% too selfish and stupid to make abstract leap

They think the higher the govt spending the higher the deficits the higher their taxes must go. They dont realize that temp. govt spending to create jobs will kick in much higher tax revenue in the long run than they could ever pay.

[HiPointDem]

11. "If the concerns of the wealthy carry special weight in government" = IF?

[daleo]

13. This is why revolutions periodically recur

I'm not saying it will happen in the U.S., but this kind of disconnect between the peasant class and the overlord class has led to such outcomes in the past.

[Zax2me]

15. Well, the massive debt can increase unemployment.

The two are not islands apart. When the country carries a 16m budget deficit it alters the way private businesses behave.

[liberal_at_heart]

16. k&r