Rich people do pay their fair share. Its called Lobbying, in return, they pay a fraction of the tax RATE (as a %) of us working-class pay.

These rich people are so poor, they go to the governments to gain tax exemptions for variety of things like land, building, power to build their HQ/factory or what have you to subsidize their billions & trillions.

Interestingly, about 2 weeks ago one of my son's classmate's parents said pretty much this on the parents discussion group. The reaction was only mixed in that some parents have been doing this all along, and others thought it was a great idea and would start moving things that way.

The great thing about that is that it works class-by-class, mostly, and even if one kid does get a PS5 at least they're the outlier.

Personally, if I get my son something big for christmas, I want the credit for it, not some overfed figment 😁

Not a paintball.

Whatever it was, it used explosive propulsion, not gas, you can clearly see the flash just after 21 seconds. Paintball guns give a little puff of gas sometimes, but it wouldn't light up like that. Paintball guns also don't sound like that.

I hope it was some form of "non lethal" ammunition, but remember a reporter lost an eye just the other day to something similar.

The #1 job of the police is, and always has been, to enforce the divide between rich and poor. Most pretend or believe they are there to "protect" law-abiding citizens, but times like these their true colors shine through. If there weren't such a stark divide between rich and poor, 90% of the work police do would vanish. Maybe if they actually enforced the law when it came to rich people, laws on tax evasion and wage theft, I might believe otherwise.

Of all financially-motivated crimes in the US (theft, robbery, fraud, all that rolled together) the biggest sector, outweighing ALL OTHERS COMBINED by a 2:1 factor, is wage theft. Employers not giving vacation days, or breaks they're obliged to, forcing employees to work extra hours without pay, docking pay for illegal reasons, or simply not paying what they owe. This is a criminal enterprise that steals 15 BILLION dollars a year from working-class Americans for the benefit of people who already have more money than they can use.

If you steal money from the rich and get caught, you go to jail Period.

The penalty for wage theft, literally stealing from those who cannot afford to lose more? First offense, if you're convicted (which is rare) a $10,000 fine.

It doesn't matter, none of it matters. Treason, fraud, sexual assault, ... He is immune from any repercussions because of partisan brand identity. The political brain-washing of the masses began a long time ago to consolidate the interests of the ones who are already in power and already possess the wealth. They learned that we're all susceptible to confirmation bias and they used it to bifurcate us into two distinct groups, around a pile of arbitrary "issues". The current criminal in office is arbitrary, the branding is all that matters. God fearing, gun supporting, working class, racists would never vote against their "C"onservative brand and so they will always vehemently support the representative of that brand.

It's concerning that the all pretenses and facades have been torn down because the president is an unsophisticated buffoon who lacks the intellectual capacity for subtlety. But what was revealed behind the facade is not surprising. Just the same power hungry, wealth elite manipulating the uneducated to vote against their own interests...same as it ever was.

My understanding is <7% of the tax cuts were used to raise wages or create new jobs, the rest mostly going to upper management, stock buybacks, and automation (eliminating jobs). Trump and the Trumpeteers have called that a win for the working class.

I wish we could just transfer some of the extreme wealth of the wealthy and put it into infrastructure, jobs, sustainable energy, free education, free healthcare, etc. Because fuck them, they have way too much money and I certainly haven't seen anything good come from the elites in this country having that much money while the working class has remained stagnant for the last 40 years.

Uh,

Only watched through that once, but it sounded like the only working class white males that exist are racists.

I get it, har, har, lets laugh at the white trash working people at walmart and seven eleven who voted trump. You want to make sure that they never vote democrat in the future either? Keep on belittling them and making them the but of every joke.

15:05-15:30: you tell Mr and Mrs Front-Porch that your loonie of 1871 cannot be compared to your loonie of 2013 (year of this interview). You went off the gold standard in '33, you abandoned the peg in '70, and your currency has been free-floating ever since. Yes, the ratio of debt to GDP has some importance, but so does the nature of your currency. Just look at Greece and Japan, where the former uses a foreign currency and the latter uses its own, sovereign, free-floating currency.

Pay back the national debt -- have you thought that through?

First, the Bank of Canada is the monopolist currency issuer for the loonie, so explain to me in detail just how the issuer of the currency is supposed to borrow the currency from someone else? If you're the issuer of the currency, you spend it into existence, and use taxation as a means to create demand for your currency, and to free resources for the government to acquire, because you can only ever buy what is for sale.

Second, every government bond is someone else's asset. An interest-bearing asset. A very safe asset, in the case of Canada, the US, the UK, Japan, etc. "Paying back the debt" means putting a bullet into just about every pension fund in the world that doesn't rely exlusively on private equity or other sorts of volatile toilet paper.

There's a distributional issue with these bonds (they are concentrated in the hands of the non-working class, aka the rich), no doubt about it. But most of the other issues are strictly political, not economical.

What if the interest rate rises 1%? The central bank can lower the interest rate to whatever it damn well pleases, because nobody can ever outbid the currency issuer in its own currency. Remember, the central banks were the banks of the treasuries. The whole notion of an independent central bank was introduced to stop these pesky leftists from spending resources on plebs. That's why central banks were often removed from democratic control and handed over to conservative bankers. If the Treasury wants an interest rate of 2% on its bonds, it tells its central bank to buy any excess that haven't been auctioned off at this rate. End of story.

What if the market stops buying government bonds? Then the central bank buys the whole lot. However, government bonds are safe assets, and regulations demand a certain percentage of safe assets in certain portfolios, so there is always demand for the bonds. Just look at the German Bundesanleihen. You get negative real rates on 10 year bonds, and they are still in very high demand. It's a safe asset in a world of shitty private equity vaporware.

But, but.... inflation! Right, the hyperinflation of 2006 is still right around the corner. Just like Japan hasn't been stuck near deflation for two decades, and all the QE by the BoE and the ECB has thrown both the UK and the Eurozone into double-digit inflation territory. Not! None of these economies are running near maximum capacity/full employment, and very little actual spending (the scary, scary "fiscal policy") has been done.

But I'm going off track here, so.... yeah, you can pay back your public debt. Just be very aware of what exactly that entails.

As for the poster-child Latvia: >10% of the population left the country.

Here's a different poster-child instead, with the hindsight of another 4 years of austerity in Europe after this interview: Portugal. The Portuguese government told Master of Coin Schäube to take a hike, and they are now in better shape than the countries who just keep on slashing.

On a different note: Marx was wrong about the proletariat. Treating them like shit doesn't make them rebellious, it makes them lethargic. Otherwise goons like Mario Rajoy would have had their comeuppance by now.

PS: Blyth's book on Austerity is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in its history or its current effects in particularly the Eurozone.

@iaui
i do not understand you defense of corporate media pundits,who most certainly failed to recognize the actual political climate of this country.

i am not saying EVERY pundit got it wrong.there were internet political shows that did address the rise of populism,and the reasons behind it,and that trump was a valid threat and not to be dismissed.

but for the most part,corporate media pundits all echoed each others sentiments in regards to this last election cycle.

there is a REASON why bernie sanders populist language resonated with the public,and many of those people were republicans.

there is a REASON why trumps populist language,which was vastly different than sanders,resonated with another sector of the population,and not all of those people were racist,sexist,misogynist homophobes.

and none of those REASONS were addressed by corporate media pundits.they preferred to talk about trumps bombastic speeches,his racism and sexism...total cult of celebrity,because it SOLD,it made them MONEY.

it is those very same corporate media pundits that actually facilitated the rise of donald trump,and his actual presidency,because they simply did not get the current political climate here in america.which is exactly what this video is addressing,that these highly paid,and richly rewarded,pundit class reside in their own tiny,little echo chambers,that happens to reside in close proximity to the very people they have been assigned to watch,criticize and report on.

they failed on an epic scale,and it is no surprise that the majority of americans have abandoned corporate media as if it had herpes,covered in aids.

and to make the argument that this video is suspect SIMPLY because bob posted it,is intellectually dishonest,because it does NOT address the video.i disagree with bob on pretty much everything,but to ignore or disregard this video based solely on the fact that you,or i,disagree with bob politically is just incredibly weak.

now if you wish to defend corporate media political pundits,and opinion makers,and have strong case where this video is wrong in regards to how the pundit class have failed,live in a bubble,and did not understand the underlying frustration and anger boiling underneath americas working class.i am all ears,because in my opinion they have utterly failed the american people.

and i am not dismissing your polling numbers,i am just saying they are not as relevant as you are making them out to be.polls can be manipulated to mean anything you want them to mean,and in my opinion are not a strong basis to formulate an argument to defend corporate media.

but i suspect your argument is more against bob than the video,and your skepticism is based solely on your disagreement with bob politically.not un-warranted i admit,bob has posted some extremely slanted videos,but so haven't we all in our own way.

but in this case?
this video is spot on,even though bob is the one who posted.

do not let your bob bias and prejudice cloud your judgment.

No, I didn't confuse anything. Almost every single country benefits from 'illegal' immigrants as well as regular ones. France, for example, has thousands of illegal immigrants from mostly Islamic countries that provide services to it's mostly aging native population. We benefit no more and no less than any other nation from illegal immigration, as @newtboy mentioned, if you import food products or grow them locally you probably are benefiting from illegal immigration.

As far as your evidence, I hope this will suffice as 'some':

Steven A. Camarota, PhD, Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies, in a Jan. 6, 2015 article, "Unskilled Workers Lose Out to Immigrants," available at nytimes.com, stated:

"There are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country and we also admit over a million permanent legal immigrants each year, leading to enormous implications for the U.S. labor market. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that there are some 58 million working-age (16 to 65) native-born Americans not working — unemployed or out of the labor market entirely. This is roughly 16 million more than in 2000. Equally troubling, wages have stagnated or declined for most American workers. This is especially true for the least educated, who are most likely to compete with immigrants (legal and illegal).

Anyone who has any doubt about how bad things are can see for themselves at the bureau's website, which shows that, as of November, there were 1.5 million fewer native-born Americans working than in November 2007, while 2 million more immigrants (legal and illegal) were working. Thus, all net employment gains since November 2007 have gone to immigrants."

Jan. 6, 2015 - Steven A. Camarota, PhD

George J. Borjas, PhD, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard University, in a Sep./Oct. 2016 article, "Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers," available at politico.com, stated:

"[A]nyone who tells you that immigration doesn't have any negative effects doesn't understand how it really works. When the supply of workers goes up, the price that firms have to pay to hire workers goes down. Wage trends over the past half-century suggest that a 10 percent increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills probably lowers the wage of that group by at least 3 percent. Even after the economy has fully adjusted, those skill groups that received the most immigrants will still offer lower pay relative to those that received fewer immigrants.

Both low- and high-skilled natives are affected by the influx of immigrants. But because a disproportionate percentage of immigrants have few skills, it is low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and Hispanics, who have suffered most from this wage dip. The monetary loss is sizable...

We don't need to rely on complex statistical calculations to see the harm being done to some workers. Simply look at how employers have reacted. A decade ago, Crider Inc., a chicken processing plant in Georgia, was raided by immigration agents, and 75 percent of its workforce vanished over a single weekend. Shortly after, Crider placed an ad in the local newspaper announcing job openings at higher wages."

Sep./Oct. 2016 - George J. Borjas, PhD

Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., PhD, Emeritus Professor of Labor Economics at Cornell University, in an Oct. 14, 2010 briefing Report to the US Commission on Civil Rights, "The Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages and Employment Opportunities of Black Workers," available at usccr.gov, stated:

"Because most illegal immigrants overwhelmingly seek work in the low skilled labor market and because the black American labor force is so disproportionately concentrated in this same low wage sector, there is little doubt that there is significant overlap in competition for jobs in this sector of the labor market. Given the inordinately high unemployment rates for low skilled black workers (the highest for all racial and ethnic groups for whom data is collected), it is obvious that the major looser [sic] in this competition are low skilled black workers…

It is not just that the availability of massive numbers of illegal immigrants depress wages, it is the fact that their sheer numbers keep wages from rising over time, and that is the real harm experienced by citizen workers in the low skilled labor market."

Oct. 14, 2010 - Vernon M. Briggs Jr., PhD

There are more educated people than I that hold the same opinion, but let me give you an easier to understand, and absolutely true, example. How do I know it is true? When I was a much younger man, I worked for a roofing company. So I lived it.

The company I worked for was owned by a family friend, who had worked for most of his life in the field and had an excellent reputation. However, in the 90's around the time NAFTA was passed and (not related, I hope) illegal immigration spiked in Texas, he began to lose out to other companies. He did some snooping around and found out they were often charging hundreds of dollars less in their estimates than he could possibly offer, at least while still making a profit. He also found out that the two companies that were taking most of his business were staffed with illegal workers, being paid much lower wages than he could give to his legal employees.

Fast forward a year and he was close to declaring bankruptcy. Just like any type of labor where you pay your employees little to nothing comparatively to their compatriots in the same field, you cannot compete fairly. Net result, he was forced to let us go one by one, replacing us with illegals.

Obviously, I moved on, learned a different skill and began to make far more than I would have as a simple laborer. But the fact remains that an entire industry was undermined and radically changed by the inclusion of cheap illegal labor. This will not change if we simply ignore illegal immigration because it is the 'nice' thing to do. What it will accomplish is that young people will slowly find that certain jobs are out of their selection. It also will get worse the more accepted and commonplace illegal immigration becomes. I know for a fact that while I worked at Apple there were entry level support techs that were illegally here. Perhaps you will say that it is a benefit because it would prevent offshoring, but I disagree. What it does is make the working class poorer and doesn't solve the other issues brought about by illegal immigration, such as Emergency Rooms being flooded by people who can't afford insurance. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it is common to go to the ER and see people stacked like cordwood because they can't refuse patients unless they are a private hospital.

As far as The Jungle, and my statement about it and it's author, I was merely pointing out that as much as you try to put forth that illegal immigrants have a bad life here in the USA, the fact is that we used to treat legal immigrants far worse. Perhaps it was a reach on my part, but it seemed logical at the time.

I doubt we will agree on any of this, but I respect your opinion. I live in a state that has a very large proportion of illegal immigrants, and while you are correct that they are generally not a criminal negative to society, they do have severe effects which I think you are overlooking. I do think that legal immigration policy needs massive change and businesses that exploit the almost slave like labor of illegals to make more profit should be punished severely. In the meantime, when we do catch illegals, they should be deported, not protected by a sympathetic politically motivated law enforcement group.

29 comments, most of them rather long and more-or-less well reasoned, yet none about the content.

I get if you don't trust RT. It's a propaganda outlet of a foreign government, after all. But RT is not Chemical Ali style of propaganda: it is solid, well-researched reporting on many topics, subtly slanted on others, and completely balls-to-the-wall denial of reality on others again.

You want to take that as a reason to ignore it entirely? Knock yourself out.

I won't. Which isn't saying much, because I prefer text over video.

Anyway, they regularly offer a valuably "Korrektiv" with regards to reporting in the mainstream media. Of course I would prefer if I could get that from a less-dubious outlet like, maybe, the Indepedant, or the NZZ, but I can't.

Let's talk about the content of this clip, shall we.

Hedges references the Prop-or-Not pieces run by the WaPo. Does anyone here disagree that those were a total and utter smear job? Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive. Yves Smith and Glen Ford as mouthpieces of the Kremlin... my ass cheeks.

On the other hand, quite a lot of journalists in the US seem to have embraced the Red Scare with open arms, seeing as it gives an excuse as to why their previous HRC lost against the orange-skinned buffoon. Kyle illustrated it nicely with Rachel Maddow.

Second point: they had James Clapper present the report. Seriously? The fucker was caught lying under oath during the initial stages of the NSA revelations. Wasn't the fuckface also in charge of the satellite reconnaisence prior to the Iraq war, who could have presented imagery that debunked the claims of WMD "factories", and decided not to? He is just as trustworthy as Chemical Ali, but less entertaining.

Third: half the report was about RT. Why? I thought it was meant to outline how they "hacked" the election? What does their propaganda outlet have to do with that? And the critique they presented... has anyone read the passage about the "alleged Wall Street greed"? They are having a laugh, and people take it seriously.

Fourth: it distracts from the aspects of HRC's loss they don't want to be a subject of public discussion: class issues. They offered nothing for the working class, who got a shoddy deal over the last decades, and tried to focus entirely on identity politics, completely denying even the existence of class issues. Which is also why it's now the "white, male worker" who is to blame. Nevermind that >50% of white, female workers also voted Trump. Nevermind that significant portions of non-white working class folks also voted Trump. Can't be. According to the narrative, these people are minorities first, working-class second, and identity politics always trumps class politics. Except it didn't.

All this rage at the "deplorables", the "less educated"... it just reeks massively of class bigotry. Those plebs decided to vote for someone other than our beloved Queen HRC? How dare they...

And finally, RT's own part of this segment, about the credibility of the intelligence community's claims. Any disagreement on this? Anyone? Anyone think the torturers at the CIA are trustworthy enough to take their word without hard evidence?

Sounds like an exercising in rearranging the furniture on the Titanic to me.

In a world where discrimination and separatism is qualitatively and quantitatively on the rise, people in charge must be ecstatic that they can appease people without having to do anything meaningful that might piss off the extremists on the right, or "shareholders". And people are so used to being told that change is only possible through incremental adjustments that they'll eat it up like candy and think this is progress.

"People people people, if you're going to call someone a filthy tranny and throw fast food at xem on public transport, at least use the proper pronoun when you verbally abuse xem."

When there's a hole in the boat and you're taking on water, the least of your concerns should be about what language you use to describe the in-rushing water or shape of the hole, nor arguing over the colour of the material you use to repair it.

I'm sure some people will see this as a victory. Until next time they apply for a job and not get hired due to transphobia. And the manager of the company, with a gleam in their eye, begins the rejection letter with 'Dear bun/bunself', then sniggers to themselves and says "fucking trannies."

What I'm trying to say was summed nicely in a tweet i saw the other day:
ALTRIGHT/NEO NAZI: your all going to the gas chambers!!!
NEOLIBERAL: you're*

If this is the extent of what activism is able to achieve, i should say that the establishment/elite have won by pacifying and declawing the protesters. It's no longer about breaking the shackles of oppression. We can't go around breaking shackles everywhere - think of the effect on the economy? And what about people getting hit by shrapnel? No, instead the LGBTQ community will be given multi coloured chains, the black community will be given slightly longer chains, and we'll pad the shackles with silk so that everyone is much more comfortable. Don't complain about the concept of being chained, instead complain that your chain is not as nice as the next guy's chain.

It's as though the great struggle of protest and civil disobedience has been taken over by the liberal intelligentsia, and the worst kind of discrimination faced by a 20 year old middle-class university student with rainbow coloured dreadlocks and a nose piercing is the letter they receive about their student loan that begins "dear sir/madam". So they go out and march about it and think they've made progress when they get their own pronoun. In their life, in their experiences, they are treated equally in other respects, so they think they ARE fighting inequality.

But for the working class male or female transsexual who gets filthy looks and a seat isolated by themselves on public transport, to travel to their entry level job where they've been skipped over for promotion for not looking the part, or getting the right level of respect from the trans-phobic staff, getting snide whispered comments from customers about the size of their hands, getting abuse yelled at them as they travel to have a night out at the ONLY trans-friendly bar within a 20 mile radius....... I get the feeling that receiving a letter with the correct pronoun isn't exactly going to change their fucking lives.

To remove a weed, you go for the roots. Some wanker calling you him/her when you prefer bun/bunself is not the root of this problem. The problem is that they are trans-phobic, not the language - which is just the tool they use to discriminate against you. To change the language and think that you've won is a bit like redefining room temperature and claiming you've warmed everybody by a few degrees.

If you march for equal rights, fair pay, fair treatment then people are going to see that and join your protest because they also want those things. Those things will solve the problems faced by the trans community, feminists, masculinists, minorities alike! And through common goals and by supporting each other en masse for simple, unified goals like EQUALITY, progress will be made, change will happen. It is a concept called solidarity and seems to be going out of fashion, but our grandparents knew.

The objective for the establishment is to drive a wedge between groups of people so that their demands are more manageable, and they can be turned on each other. Feminists, masculinists, LGBT, everyone... can't you see how better off you'd be marching together for common values that lie at the core of what every human wants?

Wall of text, sorry... and I know it looks like i'm being insensitive. So congratulations, genuinely, for getting someone to use your preferred pronoun if that makes you feel better. But whilst people have been fighting tooth and nail to get their own pronoun (in civilised settings only), we've suffered huge leaps backwards in freedom and tolerance behind their backs whilst they were bent over intently concentrating on the finer detail of what their ideal equality looks like.

I can't wait to see Trump's 180 on the TPP. Maybe then we those of us with a little sense will be able to wake up the working class who voted for him.

blame?

i don't know if i would use such a charged word to describe a very and nuanced question.i think there is plenty of blame to go around,and it is never quite as simple as the media soundbytes we are all subjected to on a daily basis.

who do i blame most?
democrats..hands down.

but there are other factors that all served to produce this circus of an election cycle.

1.the failure of the left to actually understand just how frustrated and angry the working class had become.those people may be politically unsophisticated,but they are not dumb.

this really had very little to do with republican vs democrat.this was a large portion of the american population that had simply become fed up with a system that they finally understood had thrown them overboard decades ago.many of the people who voted for trump also voted for obama..TWICE..because they wanted to see "change" and what they got nothing,zip,zilch,zero,nada.

they simply refused to play charlie brown to the democrats lucy.

2.the DNC and debbie wasserman shultz,may she burn in hell for eternity.
this woman singlehandedly secured the nomination for clinton,while blocking a sanders nomination.

remember laurence lessig?
well,don't feel bad if you don't,because wasserman and the DNC kept changing the rules of application so lessig couldn't even get on the primary ballot.

the DNC basically said to the sanders supporters "sanders? fuck you! you get hillary and will like it".

3.the ultra left liberals,for being so sensitive and touchy (don't get mad,you guys are way too soft skinned) that they restrict their interactions in these weird,singular echo chambers.where everybody is agreeing with each other and nobody is challenging anything,no critical examination.

so when trump won.
they damn near lost their minds in shock!
because anybody who may have shed some actual light on the situation was already blocked or on ignore.

4.the republican party,who hated trump but allowed him to fan the flames of dissent with his bombastic speeches,emotionally charged rhetoric and divisive language.

they let this go on for almost a year,and while publicly denounced trump,privately sought a way to capture his thunder.

want carson?.....nope
cruz?...nope.
kasich?..nope.

because just like the left,they too,had misjudged just how pissed off people were in regards to our political system,and their plan backfired.

5.the democratic party for allowing such a shit candidate,and just like the republicans,not fully understanding just how pissed the electorate was.

6.the corporate media,who sought solely to profit from the election by giving us all this mish mash of reality tv,wrestling and days of our lives.they didnt report the issues,they fed the drama.

and every political pundit,every pollster,every opinion news mrs mcprettyface,got it FUCKING WRONG.

7.bernie bros who stayed home in protest,but this entire election was a protest vote.

so,
yeah..a lot of mitigating factors went into trumps win.

i didn't think he was going to win but i knew it was going to close,but i sure as fuck was not surprised.i was actually laughing at loud.

would you look at that...
my fellow countrymen just hit the nuclear option.
i didn't want a trump victory..no sir..but i have to admire the audacity of my fellow citizens to hit that shiny red button.

fuck you washington!

we live in interesting times my friends.
interesting and terrifying times.

and really...what would clinton have given us?
more of the same?
more wars and regime change?
more tax breaks for the super rich while children starve and more people become homeless?

i may find my fellow americans choice horrifying,but i have to respect it.
either way kids...something is gonna change.