(March 8, 2016 at 3:47 pm)scoobysnack Wrote: Everyone talks about the left/right paradigm, but no one talks about the ones above it. The ultra rich. What do they want? They want centralized power, and bigger government because in the end they pull the strings. This is why large banks funded communist Russia, because when you control the capital flow of money, you control the people who receive it. They want to solidify their power, by making people dependent on them. Free people are not dependent, but everything is so inverted, that some think government programs like welfare creates independence. It's like someone taking out a million dollar loan and claiming they are a millionaire. No they are a million dollars in debt to the lender, just like welfare recipients are in debt to the government. Not that they will pay it back, but they will always vote for those who offer bigger government. That's the democratic base to an extent.
The ultra rich want as much power as they can singularly control. In the United States, this is much easier to accomplish on the state level, hence why the right has always been big on states having the power to basically do whatever they want, free to own other people as property, free to run their state according to what they view as Christian principles, free to change the rules so that those in power stay there. They idolize the wealthy and inspire the working class to be dependent on them as 'job creators', which is also a really effective way for the wealthy to pocket a greater share of what the working class produces.
Welfare does create a sort of dependence when it is barely enough for subsistence and it is combined with a depressed job market. There's no room for growth when everybody is poor because demand is not there when no one can afford anything. This should not be the case, we can produce more wealth than ever while requiring less labor than ever. Everyone should be living a good life in this circumstance. The reason it's not the case is because the right, and their big money owners, have fooled people like you into thinking that jobs get outsourced because people are paid too much, and not because shareholders and executives feel entitled to the majority of the wealth produced by the people they employ.
Of course, big money owns a lot of Democrats, too. And these Democrats are beneficiaries of the system, many of them conservatives at heart. In large part, however, these are Democrats who are against the welfare state and collaborate with Republicans to minimize it wherever and whenever possible. The further you get from the influence of Wall Street, the more favorable the idea of a welfare state becomes.
The fact of the matter is this: we wouldn't need a welfare state if employers paid workers fairly and didn't feel entitled to take as much as they can get away with. There would be more jobs because a lot more people would have a lot more money, creating a lot more demand and also enabling a lot more people to start businesses of their own to meet this new demand.
Trickle-down economics is fraud, and the people really picking your pockets are pointing at other people whose pockets they've picked and telling you "Hey, that guy's picking your pocket". The average taxpayer ($50,000 income per year) pays $36 annually to fund SNAP programs, and almost $6,000 per year to fund corporate subsidies and cover revenue lost to tax havens. This is money corporations are reporting as profits, and most of it goes in the pockets, portfolios and hedge funds of shareholders and executives, most of whom are already fabulously wealthy people. Wal-Mart posts $100 billion in profits every year while costing taxpayers, on average, $900,000 per store because they pay their employees so little that they require welfare and SNAP to subsist.
You're being played, my brother.
