Just a note on rising tides, drowning, and forests.
Whilst the wealthy and the upper middle class do indeed have boats, and hence rise with rising tides, people in poverty are standing on the bedrock. With water up to their chins. They don't float. They drown.
As others have noted, the "rising tide" or "trickle-down" idea has been tried several times since 1980. It hasn't worked. Ever. It fails.
I've been doing a bit of escapist reading, which for me means science-for-the-layman. It seems that in a beech forest, the trees share nutrients through their roots. A sick or damaged tree in a forest can be helped along by its neighbors until it recovers.
Why? Why would nature, bloody in leaf and twig, eschew survival of the fittest in favor of vegetable socialism? It appears that a forest creates its own climate -- cooler, more humid, sheltered from wind, better at retaining water. Breaks in a beech forest where trees have gone missing degrade the forest climate. The more breaks, the more degradation. Therefore it benefits the whole community if all members have at least a minimum standard of well-being.
The parallels with human nation-states is obvious enough I won't belabor it further.
I suppose the reason Trump idolizes Putin is that the leader of Russia is, like Trump himself, a believer in the Big Tree theory: only the biggest -- ie, most powerful -- members of society matter. They are the winners, and winners are the only ones who are important. The little trees are the hoi polloi, like Big John and Bombastic Bob. They are there to be used, lied to, abused, and then chipped for mulch when the Big Trees decide they are no longer useful.
Back in December, Trump tried to ditch the press en route to a rich-guy dinner at Club 21. He dined with a "sampling of the wealthiest denizens of five boroughs [of New York]". And he told them, "Don't worry about it -- we'll get your taxes down." Which is exactly what the scanty details of his administrations tax policy reveal: large tax breaks for the very wealthy, and a complete repeal of the inheritance tax on large fortunes.
And so forth, and so on. Nobody changes their mind after reading a post on an internet site, even a forum as shiny and intelligent as this community of commentards. So I'll stop now.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
