Us Budget Hits 2.3 Trillion...

[RawAlex]

Bush's version of the budget, 2.3 trillion, tax cuts all over..

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...et_30&printer=1 (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&u=/ap/20030203/ap_on_go_pr_wh/budget_30&printer=1)

Most important, a budget deficit that will add $3500 per citizen in debt in the next 5 years.... you don't want to know what that is going to do to your tax bill in about 10 years...

Alex

[Mike AI]

Spending should be cut, especially for PORK! But cutting taxs is needed, not only will it help economy - but cutting taxs actually brings more money into gov't coffers.

[Buff]

We need more government programs with bigger budgets. There's no excuse for the federal budget to be a mere $2.3 trillion -- that means there's still too much wealth in the private sector.

I look forward to the day when we are all government employees with 30 days paid vacation per year, full dental and medical benefits, pensions, and no chance of being fired.

[ulfie]

Tax the shit out of the rich. MikeAI has a bigger house than I do, that's not fair. He has more cars than me, that's not fair either. Why should some dumb southern hick that made good business decisions be better off than I am? That's not America I tell you, he should be forced to donate all his money to people that don't produce anything. That would be fair!! :unsure:

[cj]

Originally posted by ulfie@Feb 4 2003, 12:04 AM
Tax the shit out of the rich. MikeAI has a bigger house than I do, that's not fair. He has more cars than me, that's not fair either. Why should some dumb southern hick that made good business decisions be better off than I am? That's not America I tell you, he should be forced to donate all his money to people that don't produce anything. That would be fair!! :unsure:
is this an example of a 'liberal'?

i'm slowly getting this american government system!!

[Peaches]

Originally posted by cj@Feb 4 2003, 01:23 AM
is this an example of a 'liberal'?

i'm slowly getting this american government system!!
Very good, cj! :rokk: But it's even better when you add "bed wetting" to the liberal label - i.e. Bed Wetting Liberal :)

Then you would have someone that would give Michael's house to me and his cars to Ulfie......wait a minute.....maybe this Bed Wetting Liberal thing isn't such a bad thing after all! :groucho:

[ulfie]

cj, why should Mike be successful when millions of Americans are struggling? It's just unfair. His wealth should be confiscated and given to needy people around the world. If we had less greedy bastards like him we could all be living in mud huts and everyone would be happy.

[Peaches]

Originally posted by ulfie@Feb 4 2003, 01:41 AM
If we had less greedy bastards like him
I'm pretty sure his parents were married when he was born :nyanya:

(I need to get to sleep - smartassness is failing....fast.......)

[RawAlex]

Ulfie's humor aside...

Seriously folks, cutting taxes and boosting government spending is a ticking time bomb... all of this forecasting INCLUDES the apparent benefit of cutting taxes.

It isn't to tax Mike more - it is to find a way to make the government spend less!

Canada's budget is balanced, come on now, you claim we aren't as advanced as you are...

Alex :nyanya:

[Diamond Jim]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 4 2003, 01:02 AM
Ulfie's humor aside...

Seriously folks, cutting taxes and boosting government spending is a ticking time bomb... all of this forecasting INCLUDES the apparent benefit of cutting taxes.

It isn't to tax Mike more - it is to find a way to make the government spend less!

Canada's budget is balanced, come on now, you claim we aren't as advanced as you are...

Alex :nyanya:
That's because Canada's budget is about $1.75 U.S.

[PornoDoggy]

Even though hundreds of other government programs would be squeezed, the president projects the deficit will still hit record highs of $304 billion this year and $307 billion in 2004. Over the next five years, deficits would total $1.08 trillion. Yep ... this is what you get when you replace "tax and spend" Democrats with "don't tax and spend anyway" Republicans. :zoinks:

[RawAlex]

Originally posted by PornoDoggy@Feb 4 2003, 01:57 AM
Even though hundreds of other government programs would be squeezed, the president projects the deficit will still hit record highs of $304 billion this year and $307 billion in 2004. Over the next five years, deficits would total $1.08 trillion. Yep ... this is what you get when you replace "tax and spend" Democrats with "don't tax and spend anyway" Republicans. :zoinks:
... which leads to the false impression of "tax and spend democrats" because they have to tax people higher later to pay for the republican programs today.

it is a nasty bit of finger pointing, in the end...

Anyway, can you say "1 term president?" I knew you could... :zoinks:

[JR]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 3 2003, 10:02 PM
Ulfie's humor aside...

Seriously folks, cutting taxes and boosting government spending is a ticking time bomb... all of this forecasting INCLUDES the apparent benefit of cutting taxes.

It isn't to tax Mike more - it is to find a way to make the government spend less!

these are the largest flaws in the system in my opinion.

no one is directly accountable for government spending.
there is no incentive to increase effeciency in government.

these are the reasons i support a flat tax. it would force to degree of
effeciency and equality into the system.

but probably cant happen since it would strip the Democrats of their
single greatest weapon... "class warfare" ;)

[Buff]

Of course, we could always go back to having the Congress abide by the Constitution. And while we're at it, maybe we can have the President and the Supreme Court abide by it too. I guess that's too much to ask, though.

I'm sure this is exactly what the founding fathers envisioned: a bloated federal government which employs more people than any other entity in the world.

[RawAlex]

Originally posted by Buff@Feb 4 2003, 02:34 AM
I'm sure this is exactly what the founding fathers envisioned: a bloated federal government which employs more people than any other entity in the world.
Which is hundreds of times worse than welfare, in my opinion, because they are overpaid, and for the most part only get in the way - creating more expense, and limiting productivity.

Alex

[JR]

Originally posted by Buff@Feb 3 2003, 11:34 PM

I'm sure this is exactly what the founding fathers envisioned: a bloated federal government which employs more people than any other entity in the world.
this is what i mean. the US government did not start out like that... but it is in fact a system that is destined to evolve in that direction due to the nature of its design. there are no constraints.

i have not looked at the issue very closely, but it seems on the surface that if there was a flat tax system, there would be no more incentive to look at new sneaky places to impose new and seemingly inconspicuous taxes that having a habit of continuing to increase and compound over time while developing a spending system that is dependent on those taxes making it impossible to reduce them.

Our tax codes are larger in volume that the entire civil, criminal AND tax laws of most countries other countries in the world.

i personally have nothing against taxes. i think that the current tax system offers plenty of means to minimize tax liability for those who are inclined to do so. but it freaks me out a little to know that there are so little controls on taxes and how money is spent and used or that money is well managed and spent wisely... all while creating a larger and increasingly inefficiencient government .

Bill Gates remarked in Business @ the Speed of Thought that the federal rules on hiring and firing of government employees is more than 2000 pounds of paper.

i am not found of blindly funding others ingorance and inefficiency. i always thought it a bit ironic that a government bent on embracing free markets and capitalism knowing that competition promotes better prices, service and quality is the same government that cant do enough to be wasteful.

[Almighty Colin]

I think tax cuts are not the best idea right now. While economic incentive tax cuts can work, I would think they don't work all the time. Philosophical points about what is fair or not aside for a moment, I think supply-side economics works under some conditions and not under others. If we knew when and how, well, someone would have a Nobel for that.

One cannot budget the current budget with a supply side approach. One can only balance the future budget that way. That may or may not work. We guess. We don't know.

Blaming or crediting one party or another for a budget that is in the red or black makes no sense. It's completely futile. No one ever wins those debates because there is no one clear responsible party. Give credit to the president or congress? Place blame on the president or congress?

Take 1999 for example. Democrats say "Look, our president balanced the budget!". Republicans say "Look, our congressmen passed a balanced budget!". What really happened? Republicans wanted a 1% cut in the budget. Clinton wanted less. They settled on a .38% cut. Now, who to credit? How about both?! Congress and the president acted at the same time to provide a balanced budget. For once.

Now, I think one could blame the Republicans for the current budget. There are no Democrats to blame. To me, it makes sense to balance the budget now and not later. Of course, supply side tax cuts might work too but by the time they would ripple through the economy no one would know for sure that is what happened.

Thre are so many variables that determine the course of a large-scale economy. These debates will never end because of that.

[Peaches]

From Boortz:

ECONOMIC IDIOCY
Oh boy, aren’t the Democrats having just a wonderful time slamming Bush’s budget and his tax cut proposals. Yeah, I know .. I have problems with Bush’s budget too. The difference is, I’m honest about it. The Democrats aren’t. And there’s another difference: I want the economy to improve. The Democrats don’t; at least not until after the 2004 elections. To Democrats economic recovery and jobs for the jobless can damn well wait until they route the evil Republicans from those House and Senate seats that rightfully belong to Democrats .. not to mention the White House.

Anyway … back to the Democrats. They’re lying about the proposed Bush budget … and they’re getting away with it.

There are two principal areas where the Democrats are playing fast and loose with the truth. One is on the impact of the Bush tax cuts on the American economy and government revenues, and the other is on the size of the deficit.

Before we get into the details, let it be said that politicians couldn’t get away with their lies and half-truths about the effects of tax cuts and deficits if it were not for the fact that most Americans are economic imbeciles. Dare we blame this on our wonderful system of government education? How do you expect someone who can’t read a simple apartment lease or balance a checkbook to understand the most basic of economic principles?

We’ve talked about the effect of tax cuts before. Simply stated, every time there is a major tax cut revenues to the government increase. The reason is simple. When the profit from a certain activity increases, people have a tendency to increase that activity. If a taxpayer’s profit for each hour of work increases that taxpayer will be encouraged to work more hours. If the profits realized from a certain business activity increase, look for that business activity to increase. As the work hours and business activities increase not only do the profits from those activities increase, but so, too, does the total amount of taxes paid! Look, this is all so simple that almost any government high school graduate should be able to grasp it.

Secondly, the size of the deficit. To hear the Democrats describe it, the projected deficit under the Bush Budget is the biggest, most devastating deficit in the history of this country. This morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution is referring to the Bush deficit as a “record.” The truth is, it just ain’t so.

Consider your own family budget. Let’s say that your monthly bills exceed your monthly income by $200. You’re running a $200 per month deficit. That amounts to $2,400 a year. Now that’s pretty serious, isn’t it?

The truth is you can’t judge the seriousness of the situation until you have more figures. The best way to judge the seriousness of this deficit is to find out just how big it is in terms of a percentage of your total monthly or annual spending. If your entire budget is $1,000 a month or $12,000 a year, then you have a bit of a problem. Your deficit is $2,400 a year, or 20% of your budget. Not good. But what if your monthly budget is, say, $7,400, or $88,800 a year. Now your $200 deficit would amount, in percentage terms, to a deficit of 2.7% of your monthly or annual. That doesn’t sound quite as bad, does it? That, my friends, in terms of percentage, is the very deficit that is projected in the Bush budget.

Now --- is this deficit a bank buster? Is this an all-time high? Hardly. Here’s a handy little chart for you. It shows the year, the amount of the budget deficit, and the percentage of the total budget represented by that deficit.

Year Amount of Deficit Percentage of Total Federal Budget
2004 $307 Billion 2.7%
1992 $290 Billion 4.7%
1983 $207 Billion 6.0%

Do you see what I see? The proposed Bush deficit that the Democrats are describing as “huge” is actually about one-half of the deficit of the 1990’s and less than one-half the deficit of the ‘80’s. Where’s the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s elusive “record” deficit? Try 1983!

Now … we wiped out that 1992 deficit not with tax increases but with the incredible technology dot com economic expansion. We killed off a 4.7% deficit. How hard can it be to eliminate a 2.7% deficit with a little economic expansion?

Yes, I have problems with the Bush budget. It’s way too large. It’s just sad that such vast numbers of Americans are so ignorant of basic economic principles and history that they can’t understand that tax cuts increase economic activity and tax revenues, and that the true measure of a deficit is in its percentage of the total budget.

[Torone]

Originally posted by Diamond Jim+Feb 4 2003, 01:17 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Diamond Jim @ Feb 4 2003, 01:17 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--RawAlex@Feb 4 2003, 01:02 AM
Ulfie's humor aside...

Seriously folks, cutting taxes and boosting government spending is a ticking time bomb... all of this forecasting INCLUDES the apparent benefit of cutting taxes.

It isn't to tax Mike more - it is to find a way to make the government spend less!

Canada's budget is balanced, come on now, you claim we aren't as advanced as you are...

Alex :nyanya:
That's because Canada's budget is about $1.75 U.S.[/b][/quote]
And the US gave them foreign aid to pay that... :nyanya:

[Torone]

Pd and Alex,
A non-citizen and a Marx-reading liberal. You might as well be French... :moon:

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by Peaches@Feb 4 2003, 09:25 AM
Simply stated, every time there is a major tax cut revenues to the government increase. The reason is simple.
But, it's NOT that simple.

The GDP expands in most years and recessions are usually small and quick. How can one measure the effects of one's policies on the GDP against a backdrop of annual increases? Pick any starting point and it will be higher at some later date.

I think tax cuts sometimes increase government revenues and sometimes do not. If you take the extreme cases, a 0% tax rate and a 100% tax rate this will be obvious. With a 0% tax rate, the GDP will expand but no income will be collected. With a 100% tax rate, there would be no incentives to run a business.

The optimal tax rate must be in the middle somewhere then. At any given point, one does know whether that point is up or down.

[JR]

Originally posted by Torone@Feb 4 2003, 06:48 AM
Pd and Alex,
A non-citizen and a Marx-reading liberal. You might as well be French... :moon:
is a "non-citizen, Marx reading Liberal" worse than a hillbilly, truck driver who wraps his head with wet pages of Rush Limbaughs book "the way things ought to be", to keep the CIA from scanning his brain?

:o

[Almighty Colin]

The deficit may be 4% of GDP but the DEBT is $5.6 TRILLION dollars. I think that's more than double the annual US government revenue and we still have to pay our bills - which so far are more than the revenue.

The annual interest on the US debt is greater than our entire military budget - which is HUGE.
Both parties need to get serious about debt reduction at the same time. In some years, it is Republicans, in other years it is Democrats.

Maybe there won't be hell to pay but any economic downtown might become much worse with the burden of the debt.

[Torone]

Originally posted by JR+Feb 4 2003, 10:04 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (JR @ Feb 4 2003, 10:04 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--Torone@Feb 4 2003, 06:48 AM
Pd and Alex,
A non-citizen and a Marx-reading liberal. You might as well be French... :moon:
is a "non-citizen, Marx reading Liberal" worse than a hillbilly, truck driver who wraps his head with wet pages of Rush Limbaughs book "the way things ought to be", to keep the CIA from scanning his brain?

:o[/b][/quote]
1st of all, you keep missing my point about Alex. He's not from here; therefore his opinion is irrelavant. As for Pd, even a Lib such as you have shown yourself to be can not only remember that he admitted reading Marx; but should be able to see the correlation in his posts.
As for the Rush Limbaugh thing, because I am constantly moving in and out of range of stations, I mostly listen to the CB. If Rush happens to agree with me, that is to his credit, not the other way around. :moon:

[JR]

Originally posted by Torone+Feb 4 2003, 07:24 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Torone @ Feb 4 2003, 07:24 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Originally posted by -JR@Feb 4 2003, 10:04 AM
<!--QuoteBegin--Torone@Feb 4 2003, 06:48 AM
Pd and Alex,
A non-citizen and a Marx-reading liberal. You might as well be French... :moon:
is a "non-citizen, Marx reading Liberal" worse than a hillbilly, truck driver who wraps his head with wet pages of Rush Limbaughs book "the way things ought to be", to keep the CIA from scanning his brain?

:o
1st of all, you keep missing my point about Alex. He's not from here; therefore his opinion is irrelavant. As for Pd, even a Lib such as you have shown yourself to be can not only remember that he admitted reading Marx; but should be able to see the correlation in his posts.
As for the Rush Limbaugh thing, because I am constantly moving in and out of range of stations, I mostly listen to the CB. If Rush happens to agree with me, that is to his credit, not the other way around. :moon:[/b][/quote]
you would not consider it wise to read Marx before criticizing or supporting Marx?

if you feel that anyones opinion is irrelevant or that nothing can be learned from it, then you have probably hit rock bottom intellectually and you may want to try a vocation more suited to your character, like truck driving for example... oh... shit, i'm sorry. my bad.

[RawAlex]

Torone: Don't read this post, it's irrelevant.

The Boortz comments are interesting, if for no other reason than to point out a VERY common bullshit tactic in politics: playing with the numbers and trying to make the other guy look bad.

The whole discussion had nothing to do with the actual budget, nothing to do with what it means in people's pockets over the next 10 years, nothing to do with the future tax increases that are to come, but rather dedicated to try to diss a single democrat comment about how big of a budget bust this all is.

Interestingly, you will notice that he doesn't mention WHICH Presidents were in charge in 1983 and 1992 - the answers are Reagan and Bush. Thus, we have the biggest budget busts sinse the last time the voodoo economic people were in power. Nothing new here, except to remind you all what happened to your taxes and government service level once the party was over ("read my lips, no new taxes" followed by a major tax hike).

You have to remember too that, even if there is a boost to federal income as a result of a tax cut, I am sure that this boost effect has been written into the future forecasts. So this is the best case scenerio, from what I can tell.

It should be illegal for tax cuts and such to be set past the legislative date of the current president / house / congress.

Alex

[LAJeff]

Originally posted by Buff@Feb 3 2003, 11:34 PM
Of course, we could always go back to having the Congress abide by the Constitution. And while we're at it, maybe we can have the President and the Supreme Court abide by it too. I guess that's too much to ask, though.


This is exactly the problem, our elected officials do not follow the constitution. The constitution was written so that government would stay small and in check.

An example of this, and there are many, is the way our money system is so blatantly miss used.
Article Sec8 - The congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof
Article Sec10 - No state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payments of debt.

This keep the government in check so they would not print as much money as they wanted. Well in 1974 Nixon closed the gold window and now our government had a wide open printing press.

Our founding fathers did not want this, this is bad.
The government now prints trillions of worthless paper (no goldbacked = no value) each year. This inflates prices (inflation). Most of this worthless paper is diverted back into the stock market.

If the government would stop printing all this money, this would allow prices to fall, your savings will be worth more, and then people will spend more.



Last edited by LAJeff at Feb 4 2003, 10:35 AM

[Marc De]

I may really shine here with my political ignorance, but when we say debt and defecit - who is that money actually owed to? Nobody is really 'lending' us that money as I see it, so how is it so bad?

[Mike AI]

Marc De, the Defecit is a yearly figure of when spending is over the amount of revenue taken in by the Gov't. To offset the defecit, the Gov't issues bonds and other ways borrows the money to offset this figure. The amount borrowed ( bonds) and interest goes to the total debt.

The money is owed to investors, bond holders, etc... Many economist have theorized that defecit spending is not that harmful, and can be helpful on the shortterm.

The problem is the politicans all play games with these numbers, they baseline them, they shift debt from short term to long term ( which effects interest rates), and generally cause problems through creative accounting.

[Torone]

Jr,
As one who knows your type, happens to have been many things in my life, and knows the 'big picture' better than you can ever be taught it, Fuck off!

As for deficit spending, it CAN be useful in some ways. I can think of several...

[PornoDoggy]

Originally posted by Torone@Feb 4 2003, 09:48 AM
Pd and Alex,
A non-citizen and a Marx-reading liberal. You might as well be French... :moon:
Torone, are you not taking your meds any more?

I never denied reading Marx. That doesn't mean I agree with him. I've read far more William F. Buckley than I ever did Marx - and I probably agree with him more than I do Marx. I've also read, at varying times, the memiors of most American presidents (Democrats and Republicans), Henry David Thoreau, John Locke, Ghandi, Churchhill, Atcheson, Haldeman, Nixon, and gawdamitey knows what the hell else. Oh, yeah, and both Mad Magazine and National Lampoon.

You are slipping, buddy ... slipping badly. Reading Marx didn't even get me in trouble (or cause me clearance problems) when I was in the Navy in the 1970s - and I checked it out of the base library. When the Base Commander found it on my desk during a room inspection and asked me why, I told the truth - I'm "under arms" preparing for the possiblity of war with them, my country was spending billions of dollars to defeat them in several different ways - I wanted to know what they were about (and what Marx was "about" was about as exciting as watching paint dry - Trotsky was much more interesting). I'm not like you - I don't fear that reading or listening to individuals with views different than mine will corrupt me in some way. It will make me thing sometimes - but I don't find that uncomfortable or unacceptable yet.

As a matter of fact, using "he admitted to reading Marx" hasn't really flown very well (except in the rarified air of the extreme right) since the 2nd Eisenhour administration - after the discrediting of Tailgunner Joe. I'm fully aware that there are still people who think that's some kind of indication of traitorous intent - but there are also people out there who belive in Marx, who believe in Mao, who believe in the Reverend Moon, and some who believe that UFOs are beaming microwave transmitters at Texas-based truck drivers to keep track of them for the Democratic Socialist Liberal Pinko Conspiracy Committee. It's a free country - people can believe in just about any kind of whacked-out bullshit they want to.

And besides - what exactly is Marxist about statements that are anti-deficit? Please explain that one to me, would you? I'm dying to know.



Last edited by PornoDoggy at Feb 4 2003, 11:57 PM

[JR]

Originally posted by Torone@Feb 4 2003, 05:22 PM
Jr,
As one who knows your type, happens to have been many things in my life, and knows the 'big picture' better than you can ever be taught it, Fuck off!

As for deficit spending, it CAN be useful in some ways. šI can think of several...
Torone, i have not seen anyone support your idea that being convinced that everything is a conspiracy, that those "sneaky Communists" are stalking you, that black helicopters follow you everywhere and that Democratic Party=Leninism and that all media is just socialist propoganda, represents a unique understanding of "the big picture".

its more indicative of someone who is aged, bitter and alone who needs both therapy and medication to help him endure the pain and misery of a suffering existence amongst "so many Communist assholes that just dont get it"

what exactly is my "type"? that perfectly annoying individual that will at least consider both sides of an arguement which may rub against your typical a.m. conservative talk show beliefs, that you repeat mindlessly with an almost evangelical and unquestioning conviction?

i was reading Marx the other day too online. I have read the entire works of Lenin. You think that makes me a Communist? i have also read The Universe in a Nutshell, by Steven Hawkings... does that make me a physicist? Does reading Milton Friedman make me an economist? Does reading Playboy make me a 20 Year old Blond with big tits? Or perhaps... just perhaps, it makes me a curious individual who has some interest in learning, exploring and understanding, especially, the views of others, their behaviors and opinions.

when your mind is so closed to other opinions, beliefs or ideas, you are no different than those you dissagree with. you comfort yourself in telling them they are blind and yet you cannot see past the psychological walls your have constructed around yourself to provide a convienent buffer between your own beliefs and those ideas which may cause you to question them.

You may dislike me, PD or RawAlex but at least there are of the few that consider "learning something new" to be part of the game.

i have learned more about myself, the world around me and politics from porn messageboards in the last few years than i have in the preceding 25 years. if i had your attitude, one sidedness and unfortuneate belief system, that would not have been possible.

so smile. relax. if your ego, sense of pride and sometimes arrogance, will not let you ask "why" once in a while as is sometimes the case with myself, you can still look things up quietly on the web, read a little and try to understand. you will be able to make a better arguement, you will learn something new and you may start to like it. You will be a better person for it in the end.

i know i am.



Last edited by JR at Feb 5 2003, 02:20 AM

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 4 2003, 04:53 PM
Many economist have theorized that defecit spending is not that harmful, and can be helpful on the shortterm.
Yeah, a good example is the great economist John Maynard Keynes. He was very responsible for the proliferation of the idea of deficit spending. He also said such debts should be repayed.

[Almighty Colin]

Speaking of Marx (don't forget Engels), "the Communist Manifesto" is a true work of art. A beautifully written, exceptionally crafted piece of work. I can see why it has been so appealing to so many people. It aims for the intended nerves with both the full brunt force swing of a hammer and the razor sharp edge of a sickle.

You can find the full text (http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html) online but here are a few paragraphs:

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.

The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development."

[Almighty Colin]

Oh, it helps to know the bourgeoisie are the middle class and the proletariat are the lower class.

[Buff]

Did you call Keynes a great economist? Keynes was the worst economist ever. His General Theory is the most incomprehensible and ridiculous economic works of all time. His attempt to refute the classical school was laughable, as he didn't even do a good job refuting the straw men he laid out (and I am giving him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he even understood the classical tenets to begin with).

Fuck Keynes. He was a disaster.