Does Poverty Make You Less Moral?

Greece is in a worse position re Europe than Germany was after WW2. Germany had invaded and destroyed much of the continent. Greece has simply suffered a financial setback. Why is Greece in a worse position? (The New York Times discusses the Greek situation succinctly here.)

Germany could at least argue that failure to forgive its debts would cause it to invade its neighbors a third time. Would Greece be better off if it was an armed aggressor?

Why do we associate solvency with morality? Why are you more moral when you have more money?

It has to do with the hostages you hold.

Wall Street banks created havoc in the world economy by committing crimes, but they were bailed out. Why? Were they Too Big To Fail or Too Big To Jail or both?

(A judge writes about this in the LATimes. And Rolling Stone did an excellent piece about this in 2013.)

Germany may not have been solely guilty for the First World War, but it did cause and perpetrate the Second. And yet their argument in 1953 was valid. So is Greece’s. Germany of all countries should know this. Having a strong hand doesn’t make you the best moral arbiter.

In Ferguson, Missouri the mostly black citizens were targeted by police and city government as an easy revenue source. That revenue source meant the city could take less in taxes from property owners. If you are rich the system does you favors. If you are poor the system sees you as prey. Greece is the people of Ferguson, and the people of Ferguson are Greece.

Are the systems of government there to serve people? There’s a verb that has two possible meanings. There was a Twilight Zone episode where a book treasured by a ruling class of aliens was titled To Serve Man. It ended up being a cookbook, instructions how to serve humans as food in different and interesting ways.

Economics and justice sometimes turn on this kind of convenient misunderstanding. The powerful find it easier to misunderstand these things and profit from the misunderstanding.

The immorality and viciousness of the city government of Ferguson has been demonstrated and certified by the Justice Department. But it’s happening all over the country. Poverty or alienness makes innocent people easy prey, allowing police and city governments to take their property and extract fines from them with no law broken and no charges placed.

(The New Yorker described this in a riveting piece last year. I didn't believe such things happened legally in this country. They do.)

Being poor or being less than rich is becoming a crime in this country. Who and what have we become?

The Premeditated Murder of the American Middle Class

This headline isn't from a lefty blogger, it's from Investors' Business Daily:

10-Year Real Wage Gains Worse Than During Depression.

Did you wonder how the American economy went bad? Look no further. The vast majority of Americans are nervous, underpaid, and either out of work or working harder than ever. This does not make for a robust consumer economy. When you starve the majority of incomes it has consequences.

The middle class isn't just done, it's been ruled irrelevant. So says Advertising Age. With flat incomes and rising necessary expenses on fuel, housing, education, healthcare and food, their disposable incomes have disappeared. Without money to spend you don't matter anymore.

The engine of the great American prosperity 1945-1975 was a prosperous working and middle class. The two were practically the same thing. Reaganomics ended that by flattening middle class incomes, killing unions and shifting the tax burden off the rich and onto the middle class taxpayer. Reagan accomplished this with the willing help of millions of American workers.

Today's GOP is outdoing Reagan, though, mounting an all-out assault on the American middle class, while protecting the very small, very rich upper class. A lot of Americans still vote Republican out of habit, out of team spirit, out of obedience to the dog whistle.

The middle class Republican has to swallow a lot of outright lies. Self deception is something you learn to do, and if you practice for a long time you get good at it. Being obedient helps. This GOP ability to lie and get away with it is remarkable enough it's written about in places like Forbes.

Who is really paying taxes? We (the working and middle classes) are. They (the rich) are not. Yet the sacredness of upper class tax cuts remains the keystone of Republican politics.

The reason for the current deficit? Reducing taxes on those who've taken all the income increases over the past generation and a half, while increasing taxes on those whose incomes have stalled–––on most Americans. The Republican policy is to protect and help the few who need no help or protection while leaving the less fortunate, most of us, unprotected and unhelped. Sometimes it's worthwhile to listen to a Nobel economist.

The debt, run up by Bush and compounded by the collapse Bush and his Republican policies precipitated, makes the current situation worse. It takes chutzpah to make debt an issue when your own party created it. If you like massive debt––Vote Republican.