Our problem is that we have a government of, by and for the corporations.

[JDPriestly]

A majority of our politicians are owned by the corporations. The Constitution gives to our democratically elected Congress the sole authority to issue our currency.

But the Fed, which is run by bankers, and Wall Street determine the value of our currency and thus actually control the issuance of it. In the real world, it is the value of our currency and the ability to lend that determines our economic health.

Wall Street abandoned us for China, India and the cheap-labor nations long ago.

Wall Street and our corporate godfathers stole our industrial capacity and sold it cheap. Beginning with Nixon they bought our legislature, representative by representative and senator by senator. Obama is the creation of Wall Street, surrounded by agents of Goldman Sachs and Morgan, Stanley to name just two.

And the Republicans are much, much worse.

Tax the rich before it is too late.

Our leaders seem to be ignorant of the history of Austria and Germany after WWI. That was the period of the great inflation. The money you earned on Monday could not buy anything by the time you received your paycheck on Friday. That is where we are headed. What incredible ignorance.

What a bunch of losers we have in D.C. -- losers on all sides.

But the Republicans are the worse.

Sorry, not much research, not much information here. Just the one last word: Tax the rich before our country falls apart. Start with the hedge funders and then move to the CEOs of large companies. They caused this mess. Let them pay to fix it.

[daggahead]

1. I think the beginning of this can be traced back to ...

... the creation of the 401K.

The grouping of many companies into "retirement" funds put the pressure on to have quarter after quarter of profits. After all, we all want to be able to retire, right?

That, in my humble opinion, started the single-minded drive for profits, no matter what.

[JDPriestly]

3. I agree.

But you see, the rich wanted their own tax haven. They didn't want to put their money into Social Security.

That is another way we could solve our whole budget problem. Lower the FICA tax rate and then extend it to all income including Wall Street bonuses and capital gains.

[daggahead]

4. We could lower the SSI retirement age, while we're at it. n/t

[nashville_brook]

2. time they paid THEIR fair share.