mrstickball said:
You utterly fail at economics. Bush doesn't control the oil supply for the majority of America, OPEC does. The price of crude oil is invaribly tied into gas prices. So unless Bush controls dozens of countries, his transitioning out of office had nothing to do with it. Let's look at oil prices on the SAME graph I showed you: Now, here's the point of the graph: Oil prices also changed when the recession hit - not just American or Canadian oil, but the entire global oil industry. No one man, even Bush, could change that. It took a global recession to cause prices to go down. If you cannot understand that, then you really have no grasp of economics. Now, for the 'poor will always be poor' statement: It really comes down to how stupid the population is when it comes to money. The real underlying issue of creating wealth for anyone is how much they can save their earnings, rather than spend them. Unfortunately, our society spends much and saves little. Even poor people have a penchant for stupidity when it comes to how they spend their time and money, and this causes them to be poor. You may disagree with that statement, but it is truthful. I fully understand that poor people have less discretionary income, but they also spend what they have in such a way to ensure that they will never get ahead. Successful people that are upper-middle to rich do not do this. As it stands, Americans watch an average of 151 hours of TV per month. That's approximately 5 hours of television per day. How much wealth do you think is lost during that time, where those people in the average could be participating in a revenue-generating activity? There are dozens of correlating factors, but it all comes down to the issue that you will be poor when you don't save. And if you aren't learning how to generate more income (or reducing expenses which the poor could easily help), then you will always be poor.
Anyone in the country can go from poverty to riches, but the problem is that few people want to take the time, and put the extra hours in to do it. If you want to start a thread (or I can) about how to generate wealth, we can do that. I even am working on a blog concerning how to become wealthy on minimum wage, so I'd love to discuss it with you. |
Actually, I don't think I gave a very good answer the first time. And it really is amazing how much one can forget in a year which may be why so many Americans seem so hellbent on getting the Republicans back in charge and returning to the Not So Glorious Bush Years.
The reason gas started to come down in July 2008 was because those in charge -- the Bush Brigade (and maybe some others) wanted to get Mccain elected President very badly, so they made it appear that gas prices had been lowered under Bush (as high gas prices had been a very big complaint against the Bush regime). Gas prices began to come down in an effort to try to get Mccain elected; however it didn't work.
It's true that gas prices have increased about $0.60 under Obama. However, they certainly aren't at the $6.00 to $8.00 a gallon they would have been under Mccain by now in the rich's attempt to strangle the poor in order to prevent them from ever being able to rise up and be a threat to rich's hegemony and their pockets.
Sure tell me how to get rich working at a backbreaking and soul destroying job for $8.00 an hour 40 hours a week when you have to pay for insurance, gas for your car if you have to drive very far to work, electricity, your apartment and other bills, while still being able to have enough time and energy for social, cultural, and intellectual development and fulfillment while the supervisors at your job are more concerned with their kids becoming the next big stars in the company rather than anyone else.
