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| Credit. http://racinesales.wordpress.com/ |
"The weather has finally gotten nice and the snow is gone!
"Some photos and commentary from Racine, WI.
"Clicking on the picture will enlarge it. Some of these are big files."
Read more: http://racinesales.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/riding-around-racine/
Well that was depressing. I'm not sure what the message was: help those who are living hand to mouth or that the "government enslavement " aka government programs are the problem.
ReplyDeleteI'll say it again... Wisconsin needs jobs... the Racine, Milwaukee, Kenosha and Beloit area need them desperately. In addition to this, some of the current state budget was set up to directly skew and punish service related state taxes (taken equally from ALL of us) from being distributed in these areas.
Some interesting facts and figures:
ReplyDeleteComparing Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee. All facts taken from official 2014 City budgets:
Kenosha 2014 Budget: $73,923,249.
Kenosha Population: 100,150
Kenosha Area, Sq. Miles: 26.68
Kenosha $/Person: $738
Racine 2014 Budget: $81,628,291
Racine Population: 78,700
Racine Area, Sq. Miles: 18.68
Racine $/Person: $1037
MKE 2014 Budget: $590,701,755
MKE Population: 594,833
MKE Area, Sq. Miles: 96.1
MKE $/Person : 993
From a recent JT Editorial whining about Racine being "broke" because there are so many..... Potholes to fill.
We have services and amenities here in Racine that need funding, too. We have the wonderful North Beach and Racine Zoo that draw people from all over the area. But due to this year’s harsh winter, we cannot make many of the road improvements our city desperately needs because we have to put so many resources into filling potholes.
LOL.
Somebody Get Me A Doctor!
Depressing? It's reality. Imagine being one of the hundreds of Racine residents who has to live through that!
So far 97 families have been thrown out of their homes this year. Racine averages slightly more than one family thrown out of their home per day. That's reality.
Live simply so others may simply live was thrown out long ago!
The Piketty Phenomenon
ReplyDelete(Or why it's time to seize the $$$ of the wealthy and redistribute it... i.e. the The Johnsons Billions)
Excerpts from David Brook's Op-Ed from The New York Times
Many people join the political left driven by a concern for the poor. But, over the past several years, the Democratic Party has talked much more about the middle class than the poor. Meanwhile, progressive political movements like Occupy Wall Street directed their fervor at the top 1 percent. Progressive movies and books have focused their attention on conspiracy and oligarchy at the top, not “Grapes of Wrath” or “How the Other Half Lives” stories at the bottom.
This is natural. The modern left is led by smart professionals — academics, activists, people in the news media, the arts and so on — who tend to live in and around coastal cities.
If you are a young professional in a major city, you experience inequality firsthand. But the inequality you experience most acutely is not inequality down, toward the poor; it’s inequality up, toward the rich.
You go to fund-raisers or school functions and there are always hedge fund managers and private equity people around. You get more attention than them at parties, but your whole apartment could fit in their dining room. You struggle with tuition, but their kids go off on ski weekends. You wait in line at the post office, but they have staff to do it for them.
You see firsthand the explosion of wealth at the tippy-top. It really doesn’t help that you have to spend your days kissing up to the oligarchs and their foundations to finance your research, exhibition or favorite cause.
The situation is ripe for the sort of class conflict the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu used to describe: pitting those who are rich in cultural capital against those who are rich in financial capital.
And into this fray wanders Thomas Piketty. His book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” argues that the real driver of inequality is not primarily differences in human capital. It’s differences in financial capital. Inequality is not driven by young hip professionals who arm their kids with every advantage and get them into competitive colleges; it’s driven by hedge fund oligarchs. Well, of course, this book is going to set off a fervor that some have likened to Beatlemania.
The problem with those who stress financial capital inequality over human capital inequality is that up until now they have described a big problem but they have no big proposal to address it. Now they do: a global wealth tax. Piketty proposes that all the governments in the world, or at least the big ones, get together, find all the major wealth in the world and then tax capital progressively.
First, acknowledge that the concentration of wealth is a concern with a beefed up inheritance tax.
Second, emphasize a contrasting agenda that will reward growth, saving and investment, not punish these things, the way Piketty would. Support progressive consumption taxes not a tax on capital. Third, emphasize that the historically proven way to reduce inequality is lifting people from the bottom with human capital reform, not pushing down the top. In short, counter angry progressivism with unifying uplift.
Understand that America does not practice Capitalism, it is a perverted form of Fascism that can be labeled Crony-Capitalism.
ReplyDeleteExcerpts from Robert Lindsay:
Your Choice, Ukraine
This is what was really going on in Ukraine. The deal with the EU and the US was set to put Ukraine under horrifying austerity conditions akin to World Bank and IMF loan strictures. Ukraine’s entire economy would have been opened up to EU imports, but only 5-10% of Ukraine’s economy would have been opened up to exports to the EU. Mass imports from the EU would have ruined Ukraine’s industry, resulting in the colonization of the Ukraine by EU and US multinational capital. The prior pro-Russian president opposed this deal with the EU/US, and this was said to be the reason he was overthrown by violent a coup via putschists. He cared about his people, so he was overthrown. West Ukraine, mostly Galician Uniate Catholic Ukrainian ultranationalists, were behind the project to open the Ukraine up to the rape and ruin of the nation via EU/US imperialism. Only 40% of the country supported this suicidal deal. The rest of the country – the Rusyns in the far west and the Russians in Crimea, Odessa and and Eastern Ukraine, all opposed the deal. Eastern Ukraine is the industrial heartland of the Ukraine, with much of its production exported to Russia. The EU/US would have utterly destroyed Eastern Ukraine, so the working class there who work in those heavy industries vigorously opposed the deal.
As you can see, part of this suicidal deal was to cut the already meager pensions of $80/month in half to $40/month. The socialist-minded Russians in the East were outraged at this assault on the elderly. In addition, the deal was set to double heating prices to residences. Cut pensions in half and double heating costs! That means a lot of people, especially old people, are going to freeze to death this winter. The pro-Russian East had some excellent reasons to oppose this deal.
What is truly insane is that the liberals and Left in the US are for the EU/US rape of Ukraine, slashing pensions in half with doubling heating oil prices. Rob from the poor and give to the rich! This policies are right out of the Republican Party playbook and if this was happening in the US, these same liberals would be screaming bloody murder. But overseas, US liberals love to impose the most reactionary Libertarian Paul Ryan economics on poor, hapless populations.
Hey! If that’s the way you liberals fell, why don’t you leave the Democratic Party! Go join the Republican Party! We don’t want Paul Ryan types in our party!
It is up to you, Ukrainians. The stark choice is in front of you. Either heroic Euroasian-Russian socialism or US/EU radical Libertarian McDonald’s capitalism.
Russia represents freedom and democracy and social justice.
America and the EU represent violent coups, undemocratic regimes, police states and reverse Robin Hood economics.
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ReplyDeleteUpdated
ReplyDeleteTwo more Statistics comparing Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee:
Kenosha $/Sq. Mile: $2,770,000
Kenosha March 2014 Unemployment: 7.3%
Racine $/Sq. Mile: $4,300,000
Racine March 2014 Unemployment: 8.7%
MKE $/Sq. Mile: $6,100,000
MKE March 2014 Unemployment: 7.7%
Unemployment rates were taken from the Official Wisconsin Worknet.