It's about more than you, Steve.

Actually its a good point finally.  The crux of the matter is how to
benefit them, not warehouse them.

Richard. I don't think you're really seeing the issue clearly.

"How Big Business Is Buying the Election":

"http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/politicsandgovern
ment/1689/how_big_business_is_buying_the_election?page=1"

What makes you think I'm not seeing the issue clearly, Senator?

The readers of The Economist magazine agree with me 2 to 1:

"http://www.economist.com/economist-asks/america-better-now-it-was- four-years-ago"

And here's why they agree with me:

http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/

Here, Richard. You have a dinky poll.

"The Hill Poll: Voters say second term for Obama undeserved, country is worse off"

And this:

The Surprising Ingredients of Swedish Success -- Free Markets and Social Cohesion

September 5, 2012

A new paper demonstrates that Swedish economic success is a result of the free market and not the welfare state, says Nima Sanandaji of the Institute of Economic Affairs (U.K.).

Indeed, Sweden did not become wealthy through social democracy, big government and a large welfare state. It developed economically by adopting free-market policies in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It also benefited from positive cultural norms, including a strong work ethic and high levels of trust.

•As late as 1950, Swedish tax revenues were still only around 21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

•The policy shift toward a big state and higher taxes occurred mainly during the next 30 years, as taxes increased by almost one percent of GDP annually.

•The rapid growth of the state in the late 1960s and 1970s led to a large decline in Sweden's relative economic performance. In 1975, Sweden was the fourth richest industrialized country in terms of GDP per head. By 1993, it had fallen to fourteenth.

Big government had a devastating impact on entrepreneurship.

•After 1970, the establishment of new firms dropped significantly.

•Among the 100 firms with the highest revenues in Sweden in 2004, only two were entrepreneurial Swedish firms founded after 1970, compared with 21 founded before 1913.

In addition, high levels of equality and favorable social outcomes were evident before the creation of an extensive welfare state. Indeed, generous welfare policies have actually created numerous social problems, including high levels of dependency among certain groups.

Since the economic crisis of the early 1990s, Swedish governments have rolled back the state and introduced market reforms in sectors such as education, health and pensions. Economic freedom has increased in Sweden while it has declined in the United Kingdom and United States. Sweden's relative economic performance has improved accordingly, says Sanandaji.

Source: Nima Sanandaji, "The Surprising Ingredients of Swedish Success -- Free Markets and Social Cohesion," Institute of Economic Affairs (U.K.), August 27, 2012.

2. Can my employer offer a health insurance plan to some workers but not others?

Yes, at this time an employer does not have to offer health insurance coverage to all employees. It can choose to provide coverage based on employment-based categories, such as full-time versus part-time workers, or salary versus hourly workers.

"They just have to make sure they treat everyone within a classification consistently," Sanicola says.

www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2011/05/17/hey-employer-group-health-insurance-questions/

Sweden has for at least 50 years provided, generously, for its poor and unemployed. That has never stopped it from being prosperous as a country. Indeed it has helped.

Of course it helps because sharing amongst any group works out much better than hoarding or selfishness, unless you get a thrill out of wars.

Simple logic indicates what course to take, so don't expect the USA to pick up this type of reasoning. We have spent a lot of time to get to our mindset. If the devil intercedes we might catch on. God doesn't care unless there is a profit involved.

Have Our Financial Elites Already Seceded from America?

Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension—and viable public transportation doesn’t even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call and a chartered plane to get to the Mayo Clinic, why worry about Medicare?

"http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolt-of-the-Rich--Have-by- Richard-Clark-120906-534.html"

"That has never stopped it from being prosperous as a country" - Ricardo

Just a couple of years ago Forbe's 'Richest man in the world' was the
founder of IKEA, who lives in Sweden and pays their taxes.

Zactly.

But sharing the wealth wouldn't help the mega-rich become very much mega-richer.

So you can see how it's distasteful.

:-\

Democracy Now has produced a clever pastiche recording of the debate, in which the comments and rhetorical questions of presidential candidates Rocky Anderson and Jill Stein have been interjected at the appropriate moments. It is 3 hours long.

"http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/10/4/expanding_the_debate_watc h_democracy_nows_full_three_hour_special?autostart=true"

He Could Call for Breaking Up the Biggest Banks and Resurrecting Glass-Steagall

By Robert Reich

President Obama should propose that the nation's biggest banks be broken up and their size capped, and that the Glass-Steagall Act be resurrected. It's good policy, and it would smoke out Mitt Romney as being of, by, and for Wall Street -- and not on the side of average Americans.

It would also remind America that five years ago Wall Street's excesses almost ruined the economy. Bankers, hedge-fund managers, and private-equity traders speculated on the upside, then shorted on the downside -- in a vast zero-sum game that resulted in the largest transfer of wealth from average Americans to financial elites ever witnessed in this nation's history.

Most of us lost big -- including over $7 trillion of home values, a $700-billion-dollar bailout of Wall Street, and continuing high unemployment. But the top 1 percent have done just fine. In the first year of the recovery they reaped 93 percent of the gains. The latest data show them back with 20 to 25 percent of the nation's total income -- just where they were in 2007.

The stock market has about caught up to where it was before the crash. The pay and bonuses on the Street are once again sky-high. So are the pay and perks of top corporate executives. The Forbes list of richest Americans contains more billionaires than ever. And the tax rates of the top 1 percent are lower than ever -- courtesy of their armies of lobbyists.

Mitt Romney, private equity manager and financier -- well within the top one-tenth of 1 percent, collecting more than $20 million a year, yet paying 14 percent in taxes because of tax preferences for capital gains and for private-equity -- is the avatar for all that's happened.

Just like the rest of the Street, Romney used other peoples' money to make big bets, leveraging like mad, pumping and then dumping companies regardless of the human costs. Even worse, Romney wants to cut taxes even further on the top 1 percent -- giving them the lion's share of a $4.7 trillion tax cut -- while shredding safety nets the rest of us rely on. Yet still worse than that, he wants to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act that goes some way to preventing the worst excesses of the Street.

And this man has an almost 50-50 chance of becoming president?

This is why the President should counter Romney's extraordinary solicitude toward the Street with a proposal to cap the size of the nation's biggest banks so that no bank is ever again too big to fail. And resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act, which once separated commercial from investment banking.

"http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-Obama-Can-Smoke-Out-Mi-by- Robert-Reich-121019-684.html"

Moyers on plutocracy:

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-plutocracy-rising/

{199} Reich is still beating the dead horse that bubble home values
were real value. His big idea is to re-inflate the bubble.

The banks would already be "broken up" and smaller had we not
coddled them all along and bailed them out with implicit promises to
do so again, which Reich NEVER calls out his own party's
culpablility in.

He also refuses to acknowledge that Obama and his advisors are just
as much in thrall to Wall Street and big banking cartels as Romney
(or anyone else who could get close enough to becoming President).

Reich is a big fraud.

Much to my surprise, and as much as I am generally impressed by Reich, I think those specific points you just made are good ones.

On Monday, NEWSHOUR will have a segment which asks if corporations
should have to disclose all their political donations.

And of course we all, here, know full well that they should be forced to disclose the donations they make to politicians, PACS etc. Right?

I would be all for it, then the left couldn't hide behind how their
candidates are bought off by big business, and even the most hated
big oil. Yes obama and his friends are also big oil people. Unlike
the repubs they hide their affiliation to the big oil money.

I think Obama and his administration are even moreso the puppets of the world of banking and finance. Other than that I agree with you Chaz.

yes Richard I do agree, so was bush and many other politicians as
well. Goldman Sachs employees seem to have a revolving door in being
cabinent members of presidents, then go back and work for Goldman
Sachs. Both parties do this, but some will say only repubs do this,
and my counter is look at those bankers that were under Clinton and
obama.