Where do the Poor People Live? Obama-Clinton Presidential Ticket Likely : John McCain Unlikely to Win because of State of U.S. Economy

Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have toned down their campaigns against each other, which we think is a sign that a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton presidential ticket is in the offing, which would heal the acrimonious party division caused by the primary campaigns, and which would virtually guarantee the Democrats the election - and that after all, is the main thing, recovering government power and making the changes that need to be made.

One can tell by watching John McCain that he is having the time of his life running for President, profiling his own personal war life, and so on, which is understandable, but sorry to say for the presumptive if nostalgic Republican Presidential nominee, history shows that he has very little chance of winning the upcoming Presidential Election, given the rather desolate state of the U.S. economy, a situation which generally favors the challenging party in Presidential elections.

Who in America really wants "more of the same"? Surely not the majority. As written at Rasmussen Reports:

"Forty-two percent (42%) say the economy is the top voting issue of Election 2008. That figure includes 51% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans. Just 17% rate the U.S. economy as good or excellent. Thirty-seven percent (37%) rate the economy as fair while a plurality of 44% say the current state of the economy is poor. Ten percent (10%) say the economy is getting better while 64% say it is getting worse. Nationally, the Rasmussen Consumer Index shows that consumer and investor confidence is near the lowest levels of the past seven years....

and here further:

Rasmussen Markets data shows that the Democratic candidate is currently given a 59.5 % chance of winning the White House in November. Visit the Rasmussen Reports home page for the most current polling data on all topics."

McCain may draw the votes of those who have money in the US, the traditional stronghold of the Republican Party, but it is a dwindling few, and of those even many are so unwilling to share their wealth that McCain has had trouble financing his campaign. Greed is not healed by politics.

Poverty is widespread in the United States and growing. There are now nearly 30 million people on food stamps. David Osborne in New York writing for the Independent has labelled the situation USA 2008: The Great Depression:

"Emblematic of the downturn until now has been the parades of houses seized in foreclosure all across the country, and myriad families separated from their homes. But now the crisis is starting to hit the country in its gut. Getting food on the table is a challenge many Americans are finding harder to meet. As a barometer of the country's economic health, food stamp usage may not be perfect, but can certainly tell a story."

30 million people are nearly 10% of the population - a massive army of downtrodden - created in part by the faulty economic policies of the current administration, whose tax cuts benefit the rich without any corresponding benefit to the nation or the mass of its people and whose economic policies have greatly weakened the middle classes. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the divide is getting bigger than ever. As Daniel Gross writes at Slate:

"The distinction between the performance of the Dow and that of the other market indices is a perfect metaphor for the economy under Bush. Assume the stock market represents America. The Dow components—the tiny minority of the richest—are putting up record numbers, while the masses are struggling to do as well as they did in the late 1990s."

The discrepancy in wealth between the top and the bottom is system-induced and system-supported. One of the things in Germany that has astounded some of our visitors is the somewhat better distribution of wealth here, something which marks most of Northern Europe. As one guest here in Germany for the first time asked us: "where do the poor people live?" We had to answer that there were no poor in Germany in the same impoverished sense that one finds in the USA.

A class of poor only exists because the economic system has created that particular economic class without implementing the necessary measures of corrective wealth distribution. When, as the current administration did, you take a large financial government surplus and give it back to taxpayers pro rata for the amount of taxes paid, that is simple wealth redistribution to the rich, who did not complain about their windfall. Most people, even those on the right who claim to be against wealth redistribution in principle, accept such redistribution without complaint. It just depends on who is getting the money. As for the effectiveness of the tax cuts made, 61% of Americans have said the tax cuts did not help them or their families.

Moreover, as we recently stated to someone complaining about his taxes, the last persons who should complain about high taxes are the wealthy, because they are the main benefactors of those taxes, which go primarily to sustain the entire structure of the political and economic system that permits them to become and stay wealthy in the first place, while at the same time keeping the "have nots" in their places.

In the legal sphere, thousands of patent examiners, for example, are not being paid to protect the rights of the average citizen, rather they are being paid to protect the rights of that small elite minority of patent holders, mostly corporations, whose tax-financed and government-protected monopolies allow them to accumulate great amounts of wealth, often through no real work at all. It is a government gift, operating as wealth redistribution on a gigantic scale, financed by the tax monies of citizens.

LawPundit Link at the New York Times brings New Visitors to LawPundit

We greet all new visitors from the New York Times.

Over at The Caucus, the New York Times politics blog, LawPundit is linked at From Around the Web at the blog posting Clinton Bowls Over Media, and this is bringing some new visitors to LawPundit.

Enjoy.

The Obama Campaign is Operating in the Black : The Clinton and McCain Campaigns are in the Red : Leadership Begins BEFORE One Gets in the White House

Judging by the ability to raise money for the Presidential election campaign and consequently the capability to operate on a sound fiscal basis, Barack Obama has left Hillary Clinton and John McCain in the dust. See the Kenneth P. Vogel article at CBS at Cash-Strapped Clinton Fails To Pay Bills, where Vogel writes:

"Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months....

... [because of] Clinton’s inability to keep up with the staggering fundraising pace set by her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama....

The presidential campaign of presumptive Republican nominee Arizona Sen. John McCain reported $4.3 million in debt at the end of February...."

This observer finds it hard to accept the argument that a candidate can not raise enough money for their own Presidential campaign but yet can try to claim to be the best future leader of the country. Leadership RESULTS do not begin at some magical date in the future, but rather are manifested - or not - quite clearly long before any votes are cast.

Obama is leading ... and McCain and Clinton are following.