A MINORITY VIEW

BY WALTER WILLIAMS

RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 2010



Minimum Wage Cruelty: Update



"Minimum Wage Cruelty" (4/14/10) was my column about the unemployment effects of Congress’ 2007 minimum wage increase on the canning industry in American Samoa, a U.S. territory in the far Pacific Ocean. The 2007 legislation mandated 50 cents annual increases in Samoan minimum wages until it reached the U.S. mainland’s hourly minimum of $7.25. In response, Chicken of the Sea International moved its operation from Samoa to a highly automated cannery plant in Lyons, Ga. That resulted in roughly 2,000 jobs lost in Samoa and a gain of 200 jobs in Georgia. Prior to minimum wage increases, Samoan wages were about $3.25 an hour. With the legislated increases, Samoa’s minimum wage is $5.25. So the question is: Which is preferable for the Samoan worker -- being employed at $3.25 an hour or being unemployed at $5.25? Which buys more of life’s essentials?

The Samoa News (April 10, 2010) reported that American Samoa’s Gov. Togiola Tulafono warned Congress more than once that American Samoa is "destined for very serious economic difficulties" if nothing is done to change provisions of federal law which mandate annual minimum wage increases.

On May 14th, the governor’s warnings bore distasteful fruit. StarKist, the island’s remaining cannery, announced that between 600 and 800 people will be laid off over the next six months, reducing the company’s Samoan workforce from a high of more than 3,000 in 2008 to less than 1,200 workers. StarKist CEO Don Binotto said it's difficult to compete when Samoan workers' wages are nearly 10 times those of its competitors in Thailand and other countries.

Labor unions are the major supporters of increases in the minimum wage. Even though the overwhelming majority of their members earn multiples of the minimum wage, they spend millions upon millions lobbying for minimum wage increases. They do it because higher minimum wages protect their members from competition with low-skill, low-wage workers. Most other minimum wage supporters are decent people with a concern for low-wage workers, but their actions suffer from a misguided vision of how the world operates.

If it is one’s vision that an employer must have a fixed number of workers to do a particular job, it makes sense to help workers by mandating higher wages. The same number of workers will be hired earning higher wages and the only difference is that employers will earn lower profits. Other people with the same desire to help low-wage workers will argue against minimum wage increases because they have a more realistic vision of how the world operates. They recognize that there is not a fixed number of workers necessary to get a particular job done. The employer can substitute capital for labor -- automate. If employers do hire the same number of workers with higher wages and try to shift the higher cost on to the product price, consumers can purchase substitute goods, including goods from foreign producers. Finally, employers can relocate to cheaper-wage countries. These and other responses to higher wages reduce employment.

Poor people are not poor because of low wages. For the most part, they're poor because of low productivity, and wages are connected to productivity. Congress can easily mandate higher wages, but they cannot mandate higher worker productivity or that employers hire a particular worker in the first place. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy, echoing the vision of many, said in his support of higher minimum wages, "I believe that anyone who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, should not live in poverty in the richest country in the world." It’s breathtakingly stupid to think of minimum wages as an anti-poverty tool. If it were, poverty in places such as Haiti, Ethiopia and Bangladesh could be instantly eliminated simply by proposing that these country’s legislators mandate a higher minimum wage. I’m wondering whether the Obama administration has proposed a $7.25 minimum wage as part of the cure to Haiti’s poverty.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2006, AND THEREAFTER
THE POVERTY HYPE

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Despite claims that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, poverty is nowhere near the problem it was yesteryear -- at least for those who want to work. Talk about the poor getting poorer tugs at the hearts of decent people and squares nicely with the agenda of big government advocates, but it doesn't square with the facts.

Dr. Michael Cox, economic adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm, a business reporter for the Dallas Morning News, co-authored a 1999 book, "Myths of Rich and Poor: Why We're Better Off Than We Think," that demonstrates the pure nonsense about the claim that the poor get poorer.

The authors analyzed University of Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics data that tracked more than 50,000 individual families since 1968. Cox and Alms found: Only five percent of families in the bottom income quintile (lowest 20 percent) in 1975 were still there in 1991. Three-quarters of these families had moved into the three highest income quintiles. During the same period, 70 percent of those in the second lowest income quintile moved to a higher quintile, with 25 percent of them moving to the top income quintile. When the Bureau of Census reports, for example, that the poverty rate in 1980 was 15 percent and a decade later still 15 percent, for the most part they are referring to different people.

Cox and Alm's findings were supported by a U.S. Treasury Department study that used an entirely different data base, income tax returns. The U.S. Treasury found that 85.8 percent of tax filers in the bottom income quintile in 1979 had moved on to a higher quintile by 1988 -- 66 percent to second and third quintiles and 15 percent to the top quintile. Income mobility goes in the other direction as well. Of the people who were in the top one percent of income earners in 1979, over half, or 52.7 percent, were gone by 1988. Throughout history and probably in most places today, there are whole classes of people who remain permanently poor or permanently rich, but not in the United States. The percentages of Americans who are permanently poor or rich don't exceed single digits.

It doesn't take rocket science to figure out why people who are poor in one decade are not poor one or two decades later. First, they get older. Would anyone be surprised that 30, 40 or 50-year-olds earn a higher income than 20-year-olds? The 1995 Annual Report of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that "Average income tends to rise quickly in life as workers gain work experience and knowledge. Households headed by someone under age 25 average $15,197 a year in income. Average income more than doubles to $33,124 for 25- to 34-year-olds. For those 35 to 44, the figure jumps to $43,923. It takes time for learning, hard work and saving to bear fruit."

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report listed a few no-brainer behaviors consistent with upward income mobility. Households in the top income bracket have 2.1 workers; those in the bottom have 0.6 workers. In the lowest income bracket, 84 percent worked part time; in the highest income bracket, 80 percent worked full time. That translates into: Get a full-time job. Only seven percent of top income earners live in a "nonfamily" household compared to 37 percent of the bottom income category. Translation: Get married. At the time of the study, the unemployment rate in McAllen, Texas, was 17.5 percent, while in Austin, Texas, it was 3.5 percent. Translation: If you can't find a job in one locality, move to where there are jobs.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report concludes, "Little on this list should come as a surprise. Taken as a whole, it's what most Americans have been told since they were kids -- by society, by their parents, by their teachers

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter."-Ayn Rand

Thou Shalt Not Covet
As a Sunday school kid, I never quite understood the significance of the commandment, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." It was easy to understand why you shouldn't covet your neighbor's wife. After all that could lead to adultery but what's wrong about being jealous about your neighbor's other possessions? Liberals have helped me see the light: jealousy is a precursor to evil. It causes otherwise decent people to fall easy prey to scummy charlatans.

Look at the debate surrounding the Republican proposed tax cuts. Liberals protest it isn't fair to cut taxes of those earning over $200,000. Liberals make the incredibly thoughtless argument that since the wealthy have benefitted the most from society they also owe the most. Higher taxes are a way to make them "give something back." Liberals' agenda is to make us jealous and make us think that one person has more because another has less so they can succeed in their redistributionist agenda.

But how do people earn money in a free society? Let's take the extreme example of billionaire Bill Gates, founder of Micro-Soft. There is no evidence that Gates enslaved or robbed anyone. There's a lot of evidence that millions of common people like you and me voluntarily gave him money for software programs that make life easier and more pleasurable like Windows, DOS and other products. Gates served us well and he's rich because millions upon millions of independent decision makers agreed his products were superior to the next best alternative.

Liberals make the nonsense argument that people like Gates owe society something. If anything society benefitted far more from Gate's activities than Gates himself. That's nearly always the case. People who invented products like MRI's, miracle drugs, and laser machines or services like overnight mail, e-mail, and hotels benefitted society much more than anything they themselves might have received. Just ask yourself: who received the greatest benefit from the antibiotic that may have saved your loved one's life - the inventor who got profits from sale of the medicine to you or was it you and your loved one?

How appropriate is it to hold people, who serve us so well, up to scorn, abuse and ridicule? We might also ask: how appropriate is it for us to make social mascots out of society's leeches, vermin and parasites? How much sense does it make to confiscate the wealth of those who serve us and reward those who seek to live off and prey on others?

Liberals are about the control. Jealousy is their powerful instrument for the politics of envy. By getting us to covet that which belongs to our neighbor, we in turn give them the power to confiscate what are perceived as illgotten gains of others and pass it around. In the process we all wind up being less free, less prosperous, less moral and become a nation of thieves engaged in the futile attempt to live at each other's expense.

You'd think at least the church would be in the forefront in preaching against envy. But one of the greatest successes of liberals is their co-optation of America's church leaders into their evil agenda. Today's church leaders, along with members of Congress, have forgotten God's commandment against coveting and probably interpret the commandment "Thou shalt not steal" as God really meaning "Thou shalt not steal, unless there's a majority vote."

Walter E. Williams
April 25, 1995

Utopia versus freedom

By Thomas Sowell












http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether "change," "universal health care" or "social justice."


If we can be so easily stampeded by rhetoric that neither the public nor the Congress can be bothered to read, much less analyze, bills making massive changes in medical care, then do not be surprised when life and death decisions about you or your family are taken out of your hands — and out of the hands of your doctor — and transferred to bureaucrats in Washington.


Let's go back to square one. The universe was not made to our specifications. Nor were human beings. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that we are dissatisfied with many things at many times. The big question is whether we are prepared to follow any politician who claims to be able to "solve" our "problem."


If we are, then there will be a never ending series of "solutions," each causing new problems calling for still more "solutions." That way lies a never-ending quest, costing ever increasing amounts of the taxpayers' money and — more important — ever greater losses of your freedom to live your own life as you see fit, rather than as presumptuous elites dictate.

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Ultimately, our choice is to give up Utopian quests or give up our freedom. This has been recognized for centuries by some, but many others have not yet faced that reality, even today. If you think government should "do something" about anything that ticks you off, or anything you want and don't have, then you have made your choice between Utopia and freedom.


Back in the 18th century, Edmund Burke said, "It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know much of an evil ought to be tolerated" and "I must bear with infirmities until they fester into crimes."


But today's crusading zealots are not about to tolerate evils or infirmities. If insurance companies are not behaving the way some people think they should, then their answer is to set up a government bureaucracy to either control insurance companies or replace them.


If doctors, hospitals or pharmaceutical companies charge more than some people feel like paying, then the answer is price control. The actual track record of politicians, government bureaucracies, or price control is of no interest to those who think this way.


Politicians are already one of the main reasons why medical insurance is so expensive. Insurance is designed to cover risks but politicians are in the business of distributing largesse. Nothing is easier for politicians than to mandate things that insurance companies must cover, without the slightest regard for how such additional coverage will raise the cost of insurance.


If insurance covered only those things that most people are most concerned about — the high cost of a major medical expense — the price would be much lower than it is today, with politicians piling on mandate after mandate.


Since insurance covers risks, there is no reason for it to cover annual checkups, because it is known in advance that annual checkups occur once a year. Automobile insurance does not cover oil changes, much less the purchase of gasoline, since these are regular recurrences, not risks.


But politicians in the business of distributing largesse — especially with somebody else's money — cannot resist the temptation to pass laws adding things to insurance coverage. Many of those who are pushing for more government involvement in medical care are already talking about extending insurance coverage to "mental health" — which is to say, giving shrinks and hypochondriacs a blank check drawn on the federal treasury.


There are still some voices of sanity today, echoing what Edmund Burke said long ago. "The study of human institutions is always a search for the most tolerable imperfections," according to Prof. Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago. If you cannot tolerate imperfections, be prepared to kiss your freedom goodbye.

"The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbour and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less that which the smallest functionaire possess who wield the coercive power of the state, and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am able to be allowed to live or work."

F. A. Hayek

A MINORITY VIEW

BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS

RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 2009 AND THEREAFTER



Prosperity Lost



Ask the average person which is the correct answer to the following question: Which president gave the biggest tax cuts for the rich -- Reagan or Bush? I would bet the rent money that you would not get the correct response, which is: Presidents have no taxing authority. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises." I know that many politicians and news media people read my column. How do we characterize them if they continue to speak of presidents cutting or raising taxes?

Another tax question: If there's an imposition of a property tax on your land, who pays the tax? I guarantee you that land does not pay taxes; only people pay taxes. That means a tax on your land is a tax on you. You say, "Williams, that's pretty elementary, isn't it?" But what do you say to a politician or news media people who propose increasing corporate taxes as means to get rich corporations to pay their rightful share of government? They should be told that they speak nonsense because corporations, like land, do not pay taxes; only people pay taxes.

If a tax is levied on a corporation, and if it is to survive, it must raise the price of its product, or lower dividends or lay off workers. In each case, it is people, not some legal fiction called a corporation, who bear the burden of any tax levied on the corporation. An important subject area in economics called tax incidence says that the entity upon whom a tax is levied does not necessarily bear the burden of the tax. Some of the tax burden can be shifted to another party. That's precisely what corporations do and as such they are merely government tax collectors.

Here's another tax question: Which worker receives the higher pay: a worker on a road construction project moving dirt with a shovel or a worker moving dirt atop a giant earthmover? If you said the guy on the earthmover, go to the head of the class. But why? It's not because he's unionized or that employers just love earthmover operators. It's because having more capital (tools) makes him more productive and therefore earn higher wages.

It's not rocket science to conclude that whatever lowers the cost of capital formation enables workers to have more capital to work with and enjoy higher wages. Policies that raise the cost of capital formation such as capital gains taxes, low depreciation allowances and high corporate income taxes, and thereby reducing capital formation, serves neither the interests of workers, investors nor consumers.

Taxes also reduce transactions. I need my computer repaired. You and I agree that the job is worth $200. Suppose there's the imposition of a 30 percent income tax on you. That means you would net only $140 and might refuse the job. You might suggest that if I were willing to pay you $285 you would do the job because at that price your after-tax earnings will be $200 -- what doing the job is worth to you. There's a problem. The repair job was worth $200 to me, not $285. So it's my turn to say the heck with it, or would we and society be better off if you and I agreed to the repair job but did not tell anybody? I'd say yes, but we'd be criminals.

You might wonder how congressmen can get away with taxes and other measures that reduce our prosperity potential. Part of the answer is the anti-business climate promoted in academia and the news media. The more important reason is that prosperity foregone is invisible. In other words, we can never tell how much richer we would have been without today's level of congressional interference in our lives and therefore don't fight it as much as we should.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Senator Sanders and his fellow progessives in Congress scare me much more than corporations....I'll let Walter Williams explain for me:A MINORITY VIEW

BY WALTER WILLIAMS

RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2010



Who Poses the Greater Threat?



Bill Gates is the world's richest person, but what kind of power does he have over you? Can he force your kid to go to a school you do not want him to attend? Can he deny you the right to braid hair in your home for a living? It turns out that a local politician, who might deny us the right to earn a living and dictates which school our kid attends, has far greater power over our lives than any rich person. Rich people can gain power over us, but to do so, they must get permission from our elected representatives at the federal, state or local levels. For example, I might wish to purchase sugar from a Caribbean producer, but America's sugar lobby pays congressmen hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to impose sugar import tariffs and quotas, forcing me and every other American to purchase their more expensive sugar.

Politicians love pitting us against the rich. All by themselves, the rich have absolutely no power over us. To rip us off, they need the might of Congress to rig the economic game. It's a slick political sleight-of-hand where politicians and their allies amongst the intellectuals, talking heads and the news media get us caught up in the politics of envy as part of their agenda for greater control over our lives.

The sugar lobby is just one example among thousands. Just ask yourself: Who were the major recipients of the billions of taxpayer bailout dollars, the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)? The top recipients of TARP handouts included companies such as Citibank, AIG, Goldman Sachs and General Motors. Their top management are paid tens of millions dollars to run companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy, were it not for billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Politicians preach the politics of envy whilst reaching into the ordinary man's pockets, through the IRS, and handing it over to their favorite rich people and others who make large contributions to their election efforts.

The bottom line is that it is politicians first and their supporters amongst intellectuals who pose the greatest threat to liberty. Dr. Thomas Sowell amply demonstrates this in his brand-new book, "Intellectuals and Society," in which he points out that: "Scarcely a mass-murdering dictator of the twentieth century was without his intellectual supporters, not simply in his own country, but also in foreign democracies ... Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler all had their admirers, defenders and apologists among the intelligentsia in Western democratic nations, despite the fact that these dictators each ended up killing people of their own country on a scale unprecedented even by despotic regimes that preceded them."

While American politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision. Tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are the chief supporters of reduced private property rights, reduced rights to profits, and they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and coercion, by the state. These Americans who run Washington, and their intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. A tyrant's primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the market. Why? Markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, they seek to replace the market with economic planning and regulation, which is little more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite.

We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine's warning that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

Senator Sanders I am a gay man who lives in California. My partner is from the Philippines if he were a female immigration would be much easier for us. Where do you stand on gay civil rights?

REVOLUTION ! my dear America is the only way. I realize it sounds radical. But we need to take arms to the government who has slept in the same bed as Corporate America for years. While "WE THE PEOPLE" sit and watch them Rape the future from our children and grand children. Sen Sanders I appologize for this radical way of thinking but it is the only answer at this point. Pres. Obama is already in bed with the same institutions who caused all this mess. REVOLUTION is the only way!! Go back to the roots and foundations we formed this great democracy which ceases to exist. We are actually more Socialist than we realize in so many ways. I aquired a European citizenship one year ago because I could see there was no use in fighting IGNORANCE. I am comfotable paying 52% Taxes to have great schools, Low crime Rate, superior infrastructure,prime health coverage that can not deny benefits and a retirement that will actually make me comfortable till I Pass on. Greed and the wrong idea of capitalism has destroyed the ideals ofrom which was once a Great Nation. Radical Change is the only thing now that can turn our country back to the people. Revolution!!

Sen Sanders, thank you for your wisdom and statesmanship. Unfortunately most of your colleagues are poster boys for term limits. They changed the contribution rules so what we used to call graft and corruption is legal business as usual. They are bought and paid for by the corporations, and so is Obama, who ran the most expensive presidential campaign ever. I am a registered independent who contributed and voted for him, however, based on the wall street, banking, and military industrial complex whores he appointed and retained from the last administration, it's clear that the change he promised was a marketing ploy - say anything to get elected. He's shown that he is no different than Bush - beholden to the greedy corporations.

Senator, you're fabulous! You GO, Bernie!!

My kids and I recently moved from Vermont to my home state of Montana, and believe me I sing your praises here in Missoula, a mostly progressive liberal arts college town.

in solidarity

Rebecca Harris Kotula

IF we become conscious of our power as the working class and our authentic right to self-govern where we live as well as---crucially important---where we work, we will move humanity (We,The People) in the only direction in which we will create a healthy, truly democratic, cooperative society. If we only see the future as "More of the same, just a little bit better"...in other words, hoping reforms will inevitably work.....we may perish as a race and as a planet. Our real future can be as a Democratic Socialism in which capitalism's values, institutions and framework have been peacefully made illegal and voted out of existence--replaced by cooperative ownership and decision-making in a humane governance structure (see www.PeopleForANewSociety.org) OR Bernie and all of us who know there is a better way will be wasting precious time. Bernie! You've got the position to educate & begin a new party based on a REAL alternative. Democracy, Where We Live and Where We Work. Many of us are ready. We NEED YOU TO BE TOO!
Bernie, with your admirable skills & understanding, will you help us develop a unified movement, and then a new political party....one that uses the political process STILL AVAILABLE TO WE THE PEOPLE...to peacefully, potently and clearly present a simple & clear platform based on real economic & civic democracy....(for example, see PFANS working model).... and with plain-speaking candidates committed to that real change... help build a NEW SOCIETY? The time is coming.....
We Need You In Solidarity For Real Democracy,
PeopleForANewSociety

I invest in multi-family real estate using cash and a local bank. I stopped investing on Wall Street years ago because of the greed and immoral activity that occurs in that industry. I urge others to invest in real assets and not help Wall Street firms make more money. I wish pension funds and endowments would take a look at how their investments are destroying America and the world while enriching a few. New laws also need to deter rampant speculation of commodities that we all use and limit pay on Wall Street so that more bright college grads might decide to go into other industries and do something productive with their lives.

Senator Sanders,
What do you think about bringing back the Tobin Tax? It's a 1% tax on every financial transaction on Wall Street. Wouldn't it raise trillions of dollars over time and slow down speculative behavior?

I need to move to Vermont, but the winters are pretty rough.
Keep fighting the good fight Bernie!
Oh, and where can I make a donation to Brave New Films, so i can be blamed for funding a progessive viewpoint.
The last time I checked the dictionary, progressive: favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement or reform as opposed to maintaining things as they are. Conservative: disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
In my life, and I'm sure for others, things are always changeing. Let's as a country change for the better, become more humanistic, and care for all. For as a wise Jewish prophet once said, "As you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, as you do unto me"

ROTFLMAO! I'll just laugh openly at all of you liberals.

Just who is paying for these Brave New (World Order) Films?

and what do you do for a living? Stop with the label BS and look at what is really happening to the USA. The corporations and wall street are/own the government, not the people. And that includes their current puppet/Majordomo, Obama as well.

I don't see anything funny here. Perhaps this isn't your venue. Here there are concerned citizens who want to change the way Wall Street dominates our government and cause the devastation of our middle class citizens. If you can't contribute you could just observe. Being flippant doesn't solve anything.

expressing second-hand opinions and wisecracks from of a 'smart and witty' nature is not going to change any of the facts. you should ask yourself who is paying for this so-called 'crisis'.

Dear Senator,
Thank you for standing up for all of us. As I listen to the debate on health care, I am amazed at how the "public" cites the Constitution in it's argument. Where were these people when the Bush administration was appointed by the Supreme Court? Where were they when we were lied to in order to go into a war in Iraq? Where were they when Bush implemented the patriot act? Where were they when government wiretapping of citizens became the norm? Where were they when the greed on wall street decimated our bank accounts and pensions? I am sick of paying the price for the ignorance of others. I am scared to death that some nut will try to take this debate into their own hands and deny the rest of us the hope we voted for. It is obvious that many of these protesters do not understand the health care system. As a Registered Nurse for over 30 years I have seen first hand how the system has been decimated by greed and corruption. Don't these people get it that when profit is added to the equation that we all lose? Years ago, the fire service was a "private" enterprise. If a property owner did not pay a premium and obtain a fire dept. mark or sign on their home, the fire dept. would simply pass the burning structure and would not put out the fire. We have come a long way since then. Were there cries of socialism when the fire departments became public entities? I doubt it. People need to understand how they are being used by the opposition in this debate. Perhaps a basic intelligence test is in order to be able to vote.

it is good to see there are serious politicians in the usa that share my concerns. as an inhabitant of europe (the netherlands) i am very worried by the fact that the so-called 'free' market an it's agression managed to make the middle class disappear in just a matter of years. as we all have learned in history class, a strong middle class is needed to prevent totalitarism and a police-state. i doubt it if obama is capable of turning this process around. i will follow mr. sanders' comments with the greatest of interests, for europe's future is closely linked to that of the u.s. the americanisation of our social security system is the first sign that all our ancestors have fought for, is disappearing down the drain.

Unfortunately, politicians such as Senator Sanders are an extreme rarity in American Politics. He is the lone liberal voice in the Senate, much as is Dennis Kucinich in the House. There are around 50 members of the Progressive Caucus in our House of Representatives. They, and by extension, all of us American Liberals, are openly laughed at by the Speaker of the House.

Thank You Mr.Sanders
for speaking the TRUTH
The whole U.S.Goverment needs a HUGE re-haul---It been OFF the wall for many Many decades
Our founding fathers would be shocked at the MESS and Corruption in the US Goverment.
False flag wars,,,,Federal Reserve and Wall st.Bankers ruining the economy
Insurance companies and drug companies fleecing regular Americans for profit.
No Universal Heath Care in the worlds richest conntry !!!! How shameful !
The CIA and FBI ECT,,,,-almost answer to No one---Its becoming a Police state
The PATRIOT ACT takes away Our Constitutional Rights -and No One Cares ??? America Wake UP !!!!
WTC and 911 are very scary and questionable events-Why and What really HAPPENED ???
GEORGE W BUSH _ COMPANY WALK away from the MESS they made and No Lawsuits or Hearings ???
NO ONE GOES TO JAIL FOR LYING TO AMERICANS !!!! No WMDs and a lot of dead and suffering !
The U.S Goverment is failing to work for the common people ......By and Large
Its Dysfunctional for the middle class and regular folks and poor in America !!!
Most of Congress have become Eliteists and give Lip service to the masses
The Elite RICH Rule -----and control congress Its SICK ! The truth hurts and
the corruption is Institutionalized---SADLY Too many-American people are in Denial. BUT Dont STOP !
Dont stop and get allies form within and outside the US Goverment Grass roots-Go to the people !!!
Good Luck- God Bless you
From
Michael J.Koval Phila pa

Go for it, Bernie.

You are such a threat to the far-Right and the mainstream-Right. Please, please, please stay off of airplanes!

58% of the Republicans believe Obama is not a U.S. citizen and most Republicans still can't accept the fact that an African-American holds the highest office of the land. They will stop at nothing to destroy not just the Left, but the Moderate-Center, as well.

We must understand that laughing them off no longer works. They are floating trial balloons to see how much they get away with. We must confront them head on.

Thank you Senator Sanders. It seemed that no one has spoken up for us, at least not until I listened to your message. We are living like slaves in a system designed by criminals who prey off of honest hard working people. Please continue with the same courage and conviction.

Senator Sanders god bless your work!
We need more senators like you!
America is very sick,people are fed up of corporations,CEO's,Wall Street and so on.....
Thank you

I luv ya Bernie...Keep it up!!!!

Right on, Senator! I listen to you on the radio when I can on Thom Hartman's show, and we share common views on most issues worth discussing.

Regarding your reaching out to citizens concerning civil constructive correct communication creating common cognizance comprehensively - I concur.

Santa Barbara, CA

What bothers me is not so much the wealth itself in the hands of anyone. If some guy wants to live in a $13 million house, bully for him. What's troubling is the power that wealth buys. Money buys not only houses and champagne, it buys laws.

Not enough different people have enough money to balance and check each other. Who counters Big Pharma? Who counters Big Oil?

We need mechanisms to limit power. If that means limiting the size of individuals' wealth, or the size of business entities, that is what we have to do. Don't hold your breath waiting.

The notion that somehow-someone-in some way - will corral, limit,regulate,control or dictate to the corporate wage & profit system (capitalism)--while it might make us feel beter so we can forget about
doing anything as a people, is dangerously reckless. And idealistic! If the corporations own the political parties and thereby control every aspect of government at all levels - local, state,national & global -how do those who call for "reform & regulation" actually believe it can happen? Americans, wise up & smell the coffee.
We need a solid, serious, purposeful movement of ALL those who want to see a cooperative, humane and healthy country to call 'home'. WAKE UP!! IT CANNOT HAPPEN UNDER CAPITALISM!

Complaining, hoping, dreaming & playing at 'reform' is getting not only 'OLD"! Its looking more & more
dangerously absurd. We need a NEW POLITICAL PARTY that is based on real, peaceful change to begin building a NEW SOCIETY. Visit www.PeopleForANewSociety.org. We love Bernie's POTENTIAL. But we, the people have a lot of serious learning to do. A new paradigm must take shape BEYOND THE SACROSANCTITY OF CAPITALISM, competition, wages, markets, wars & imperialism. Capitalism MEANS
a bleak future. We need to get serious & start rethinking how to go forward. Its not thru the Duopoly
Party. It must come from We, The People and it can start here & now.
PeopleForaNewSociety