Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Confidence in Capitalism

During the past many months many things have changed in the economic world.  The United States, most of its allies in Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea have all funded private banks through recapitalizations. A handful of countries, including the United States, took the more radical step of buying assets directly from private firms.  President Bush said that U.S. bank takeovers were "not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it."

Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution which represents the transitional stage between capitalism and communism.  A proletarian revolution is a social and/or political revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie.  The bourgeoisie are members of the upper or merchant class, whose status or power comes from employment, education, and wealth.

In this presidential election Mr. Obama has approximately 3 million donors that do not have to be disclosed under federal law because they gave less than $200.  These donors have contributed just over $300 million.  Also contributing to Mr. Obama was approximately 300,000 more donors who donated another $300 million.  In the 2008 democrat presidential primaries 12.1 million votes out of 22 million  were cast for Mr. Obama and in 2004 Senator John Kerry garnered nearly 10 million votes of the 16 million cast.  

Senator Obama has promised to give 95% of Americans a tax cut.  A third of Americans do not pay income taxes.  The top 5% of income earners paid 59.67% of all income taxes; this group earned $2.7 trillion.  The Tax Policy Center estimates that Mr. Obama’s tax package would add $3.5 trillion to the total debt.  Obama has proposed new tax breaks for low- and middle-income taxpayers, including a tax credit of up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for married couples. He would expand the earned income tax credit, a tax break that benefits the working poor. And seniors with income of $50,000 or less would pay no federal income tax.  

It seems that although both candidates plan to increase the federal debt it is more interesting to watch Obama and his plan.  So far watching and listening to Obama we learn that he uses the political realm to achieve class struggle.  The next step is to create a social and or a political revolution to so that he can get a trifecta.
  
The people are already enraged by the bourgeoisie and the Wall Street elite.   

2 comments:

Meg said...

Tax the rich! I am fed up with most of them.

Unknown said...

Agreed. If Obama is the socialist candidate - bring it on. I for one am tired of funding their rich asses with my tax money. I'm tired of getting nothing in return. I am an educator but haven't always been - I've also worked for private/non-profits doing social service work and community outreach. At this point, I can't even look forward to collecting any of my SS if I continue in public education. IF there will even be an SS left when I retire. So that's what I and millions of others have to look forward to as a thank you for all the years of working to help people, for pennies. We can't even retire with assurance that we'll be able to feed ourselves.