prole

You mean the biosphere isn't a piece of graph paper?

Yea. Thanks taxpayers! As long as bureaucracies are staffed by working human beings, I don't have a problem with those human beings making a decent living, having safe workplaces, and after a certain amount of service, enjoying a comfortable retirement. That this seems beyond what's reasonably possible these days shows not only how low our expectations and the lot of workers in this country have sunk (not how high unionized public workers have risen) but what a massive failure the restructuring begun under Reagan and continued under the corporate political class of both parties has been. "But we can't afford it!", you cry. The fact is, we could. But that would require actually looking at where our money's been going all these years, where it is now, and figuring out how to get it where it really needs to go. Or you can keep shaking down the bus drivers, toll-booth operators, and other just-marginally-better-off workers because they're easier prey than the real, protected game stalking out there.

And my question is: where is the "shared sacrifice" on the part of those most capable of bearing it, namely those who made the most substantial gains while workers across the board were backsliding (who, along with workers that were able to maintain some footing, are now being asked to bear the brunt of austerity)?

How long do I need to stop posting before you off yourself? It is very tempting. Fairweather's back from his "sabbatical", so...

There's a certain Zen quality about it.

Making you look like a complete ass on a daily basis helps!

We're there, bro! There's actually a metric used to study this. WE'RE 44TH! Believe it or not, you might have seen it mentioned earlier in this thread if you were paying attention. I can repost it for you if you need help.

Others, not so much...

Some are "learning" to live in a degraded environment quite easily...

But hey, the whole discourse limited to "do we cut off our hands or our feet" should be fun to watch for another 3-5 years...

Feel free to tell us exactly how you would change the compensation structure of CEO's compared to the rank-and-file fixing your oft-cited wealth gap. Let's hear some concrete explicit steps rather than typical progtard whining and hand-waving. I would think the oft-cited charts would make that answer obvious, roll back the "Reagan Revolution": retie wages and benefits to gains in productivity, enforce rules against union busting, tax the shit out of the global casino, deficit spending in the near-term to fund infrastructure and improvements in education while putting people to work, limit the access and influence of corporate cash in the political system, re-regulate finance, break up the big banks and/or run them as public utilities, close loopholes, limit tax offshoring, and prosecute avoiders and evaders, write off onerous debt for homeowners facing foreclosure, reduce health care costs by the only means available, a national single-payer health care system, penalize corporations seeking to reduce environmental and labor costs through offshoring and other 'race to the bottom' advantage-seeking behavior, tighten rules around repatriation of corporate profits, etc. Darn, did I mention CEO compensation?

I'm not even sure you know what that means. Feel free to post some spank material to illustrate your 'point', though. Reality will still be here when you get back.

Start small and build up to huge conglomerates. You're hilarious. Two moobs for you!

Oh please, more mythological small-businessman as heroic American figure to avoid, evade, and obscure the vast concentrations in wealth and power that have been taking place here and that are going to have to figure in any 'realistic' discussion of working through our crises without making them worse.

Oh that's right, when we're only allowed to play in the sandbox of the immediately possible those just marginally better off workers represent the most vulnerable, lowest hanging fruit. There's that vision thing again...

Sounds like the basic premise behind the concept of "redistribution of wealth" to me... This redistribution of wealth? The one that's actually happening rather than the rhetorical one that's dragged out any time improving the lives of regular people is mentioned? This relates to the issue of "shared sacrifice" as well. Why are we even discussing squeezing what are really just marginally better off workers when American finance, corporations and wealthy individuals whose incomes grew by leaps and bounds during the great redistribution, are sitting on a cash hoard in the trillions, and are positively thriving in the midst of austerity?

That must make you feel weird.

So, now you're willing to admit that the climate is warming? And now you just want to dicker around about how much? I'd say its your denialism that's unraveling...

Don't bother assuming anything about me. You don't even know how fucking clueless you are.

The bummer is that leveling down ("my benefits, wage, and pension package sucks and is getting suckier by the year, we should make everybody else's suck as bad as mine") has become the conditioned response in the current social climate rather than seeing public sector workers' struggles, strategies, and their ability to maintain the gains they've made in the workplace as something that all workers can learn from and emulate. But hey, keep your nose up the bosses ass, keep listening to the same radio station, vote for his initiatives and his politicians. Sounds like it's working out great for ya!

Where are your moobs?

"It's high-time we started giving Hayek, Friedman, et al. a chance." LULZ...

Here's another one you probably missed, Bill! [video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AiYaSyXcg4&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsearch_query%3Dclucking%2Bclimbing%26oq%3Dclucking%2Bclimbing%26aq%3Df%26aqi%3D%26aql%3D%26gs_sm%3De%26gs_upl%3D132l7808l0l8136l17l17l0l8l2l0l333l2033l0.2.6.1l9l0

That sucks, bro.

Brother, how right you are! From Wikipedia: "In the Greek New Testament, Cain is referred to as (some Greek gobbledygook).[3] In at least one translation this is rendered "from the evil one",[4] while others have "of the evil one."[5] Some interpreters take this to mean that Cain was literally the son of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. A parallel idea can be found in Jewish tradition,[6] that the serpent (Hebrew nahash (hebrew gobbledygook)) from the Garden of Eden was father to firstborn Cain."