<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><font color="#000000"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">On Oct 19, 2018, at 12:41 PM, William Flynn Wallace <<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com">foozler83@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>(Responding to Spike)</span></font></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Now you are overgeneralizing - I never said that I liked, accepted, thought was OK, just everything the feds are doing. I share your concern. But I am very pessimistic that things will change a lot. I think it will take another crash on Wall Street or maybe even worse to get us off the free money train we are riding. We have to raise taxes and lower spending without harming the vulnerable - and yes, I do think that's possible. But before we blame the feds, look at us - I don't know the latest figure, but the average credit card debt is over $6000 last time I looked. We are acting like our government - severely irresponsible. What are those people going to do when they retire after having saved next to nothing? Rely on the feds to keep the bread and circuses going.</span></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">You know, if I had not been deaf in one ear and a college student, I may have wound up Canadian - would not have served in the military in Vietnam. </span></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The USA is staggeringly rich and monumentally stupid.</span></font></div></div></div></div></blockquote><br>Most oppression of the poor happens via the government. Zoning laws, occupational licensing, sales taxes, tariffs, price supports (especially on foodstuffs), and police measures (the drug war, crackdowns on crime, “stop and frisk”) all fall more heavily on the poor and are usually embraced by the upper middle class. In fact, much wealth transfer in the US is to the upper middle class. (In a sense, this happens and works because the ruling class needs middle class support and the upper middle class is much more likely to organize and overthrow any ruling class that doesn’t treat them well. This kind falls under the rubric of hierarchical coherence: folks with money are the folks with power in the long run. When this isn’t the case, the social order becomes unstable until it becomes the case.) This includes corporate welfare, bailouts, public works projects, and other economic stimulus policies.<br><br><div dir="ltr"><div style="line-height: normal;"><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Regards,</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Dan</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Sample my Kindle books at:</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://author.to/DanUst">http://author.to/DanUst</a></span></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>