Inequality Cartoon Says it All

Posted by Bob Lord

From Tom Tomorrow at Daily Kos (click to enlarge) --

Comments

[Thucydides]

This says it all only in your liberal fanfasy land. The ultimate robber baron was supposed to be Vanderbilt, the richest man who ever lived. How did he make his fortune? By driving prices so low on transit that he gave the transportation away. That's the true secret of many of the superwealthy - the serve the poor and put the looters out of business.

They are called the robber barons by the businesses who were charging the poor high prices.

Sam Waltons desk was a piece of plywood. He never consumed even a tenth of one percent of the wealth he created. He lived in the same home he bought for 150k till the day he died. The same is true of Carnegie and JP Morgan. When they were managing the countries welfare, we grew a ten percent a year. Walmart revolution in logistical supply chain management was responsible for fully half of the nations improvement in living standards during the 1990s.

Your cartoon is complete horse defecation.

[Bob Lord]

Q: Was Cornelius Vanderbilt a "robber baron" or a "captain of industry" or both?

A: He was a robber baron. During the Civil War he sold or leased to the U.S. Navy unseaworthy vessels at inflated prices, some were in such bad shape they sank before leaving port, at least two of his ships sank in open sea taking their entire crews down with them. After the Civil War he used lawyers and hired guns to steal land from settlers and indians to build his railroads on, the only reason he's considered a captain of industry is because his family wrote his biography.

Have you ever heard the saying "behind every great fortune is a great crime", well, the Vanderbilt fortune was the source of that saying.

[Bess1919]

Sam Walton's desk was plywood? Proof that Walton must be a mensch, for sure. I think it's just time to ignore the troll.

[Bob Lord]

I could ignore him, Bess, but he's actually a fascinating case study. Think about the pathology here. He's a mental midget, but apparently reads a lot, or at least reads headlines and conclusions. Then, when he engages in his own analysis, he completely botches it more often than not. He purports to be ultra-confident in his views, yet not enough to stop hiding behind a screen name, and also not enough to own up to his own analytical mistakes.

[Thucydides]

What mistakes? You were the one who didn't make the Krugman integrity adjustment for inflation...

[Bob Lord]

I think you just made my point.

[Thucydides]

You cant choose your own facts. Revenues per capita are down over the last three years and for the first time since the Great Depression, havent hit their prerecession peak six years later.

[Thucydides]

The extension of my point is the consequences of revenue weakness - investment by state and local governments has plunged from $290 billion to 240 billion since 2008 and the decline is still not over. These are crumbling streets, bridges, schools not being built and rebuilt and the associated jobs not being created. All while tax rates are at all time highs.

[Bob Lord]

I've already addressed this. Your reading skills are a bit lacking, my friend.

[Bob Lord]

This is what you do at two in the morning? Post moronic comments on blogs. State tax rates are not at all time highs. Again, you're lying to make false arguments.

[Thucydides]

I always bring evidence to the intellectual marketplace, sometimes you bring evidence but often you just bring a sneer.