Kuwait to extend citizenship to Palestinians and Jews alike. Why isn't this being reported?!

It seems that no one is reporting the news that the Kuwaiti foreign minister announced today that Kuwait is extending an offer of citizenship to both Arabs and Jews who were displaced in the 20th Century.

The foreign minister is quoted as saying

The Kingdom of Kuwait encompasses nearly 7000 square miles and has a population of only four million people. We also have great wealth. We most certainly have the room and resources to accommodate both Palestinians who left Israel to fight with Arab nations against it, and also for the millions of Jews who were displaced from their ancestral homelands in the Arab world during the same time.

Asked why they are agreeing to extend Kuwaiti citizenship to Jews as well as Palestinians, the minister replied:

We recognize that Jews who were expelled from their homes in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Yemen literally have no other country other than Israel in which they can relocate in the middle east. To the same extend we feel that Palestinians should have a right to return to homes their parents abandoned in Israel, so too should Jews have a right to reclaim their homes in Arab lands that they were forced to abandon. Accordingly, we have decided to lead by example.

Asked why they were offering citizenship and not just residency, the minister replied:

The only country in the middle east that has ever offered full citizenship to the Palestinians is, oddly enough, Israel. We felt that it would be hypocritical to condemn Israel while offering out brethren less than Israel. The only moral thing to do is offer full citizenship.

We were wondering why this news is not being reported, so we asked the article's author. The author explained that the story is being quashed because it is untrue, that the quotes are false, and that the forgoing never actually happened. Neither Kuwait nor any other middle eastern country other than Israel  has ever actually permitted persons of Palestinian descent to obtain citizenship and has none have offered the Jews it expelled in the 20th century to return to their ancestral homes. Kuwait did not say that it recognizes that Jews were not only kicked out of the other countries in the middle east, nor did it acknowledge that the Jewish people literally have no place else to go as there are no other Jewish countries anywhere in the world (there are 28 Muslim countries, btw.) In fact,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Kuwait_relations

  

The most powerful man in the world

Imagine if you could, with the snap of your fingers, destroy the world's most powerful nation?

Vladimir Putin has that power. He need merely utter the words, "Yes, I colluded with the Trump team to make sure he got elected." Whether these words are true or false, Vladimir Putin has the power to utter them. Does that give him undue influence over the White House? You better believe it.

List of Companies that Openly Support Trumpism

This is a list of companies or companies with CEOs that openly support Donald Trump and thus stand against my values and which I shall immediate cease patronizing. I will add to the list as I learn of more companies. Please feel free to contribute, BUT ONLY IF YOU CAN DIRECT ME TO A SOURCE!

• November 12, 2016
• Source: https://mic.com/articles/159147/boycott-alert-here-are-companies-and-executives-that-supported-donald-trump#.ZEDcFB44M
• New Balance
• Home Depot
• Yuengling (Brewery)
• Hobby Lobby

(note: this source included Facebook, but Facebook did not actively support Trump, in my opinion but stuck to an idealistic vision of free speech which, in this case, the "other side" exploited the heck out of. I am not adding Facebook to my list.)

• Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign_endorsements,_2016#Business_leaders
• Las Vegas Sands^[491]
• Fox News Channel
• Colony Capital^[494]
• Beal Bank^[494]
• New Hampshire 1 Network
• Carlisle One Media,
• Boch Industries^[496]
• Atlassian,
• Jenny Craig Inc.^[502]
• Nucor Corp^[503]
• Formula One Group^[505]
• Cerberus Capital Management^[503]
• Fisher Investments^[507]
• Forbes,
• NASCAR^[509]
• The Blackwell Corporation
• Hobby Lobby^[511]
• Icahn Enterprises
• Federal-Mogul^[513][514]
• H. J. Kalikow & Company^[515]
• Kushner Properties^[520]The New York Observer
• The Home Depot^[521]
• Vector Group^[503]
• Encima Global LLC, 
• WWE
• Renaissance Technologies^[526]
• MDC Holdings^[527]
• Dune Capital Management and Finance
• Murray Energy Corporation^[529]
• Terry Neese Personnel Services
• Institute for the Economic Empowerment of Women^[493]
•  Paulson & Co.^[503]
• TD Ameritrade^[530]
• WL Ross & Co.
• Bank of Cyprus^[532]
• Vornado Realty Trust^[503]
• Trump Hotel Las Vegas^[533]
• SkyBridge Capital
• Martin Selig Real Estate^[507]
• Orange County Choppers^[536]
• PayPal, 
• Ultimate Fighting Championship^[509]
• Yuengling Brewery^[543]

Obamanomics are working. Raise Taxes for the very rich and lower them for everyone else.

Bloomberg Reports:
U.S. Economy: Growth Jumps 5.7%, Fastest Pace in Six Years
January 29, 2010, 12:40 PM EST

The economy tanked during Bush I and Bush II and grew at record paces under Clinton and now Obama. Is it possible that Republican economic policy doesn't work and the Democrats economic policies do? Is it possible that it is better for consumers to extra money than for corporations?
Is it possible that when major corporations are given tax breaks they take the money OUT of the economy and give it to their wealthiest executives who put the money in overseas investments and tax shelters, while consumers will spend their extra money on goods and services in the United States thus creating growth?
Trickle-down economics is, was, and always will be nothing but bunk.

Republicans Lie, Part (we ran out of numbers)

In what can only be described as pathetic, Ken Spain, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee has attributed the retirements of 9 congressional democrats to their aversion to having to "toe the line for Nancy Pelosi’s reckless agenda." What I find amusing about this is that 11 congressional republicans have also announced their retirements. I guess they are sick and tired of having of having to destroy the middle class.

Why are you opposed to the House Bill?

The House bill would impose a surcharge on individuals who make more than $500,000 and couples who make more than $1 million. The previous House bill would have imposed the surcharge on individuals who make $280,000 and families that make $350,000. The current bill also would impose a tax of 2.5% of income for those who make more than $250,000 and fail to purchase health insurance.

If I hear one more working shlub complain about the public option, which is an absolutely necessary part of health care reform, because, "it's gonna raise my taxes," I think my head will explode. SERIOUSLY man, wake up and smell the reality here. The only people who have any right to oppose this plan are:

1. the insurance companies who will lose their anti-trust exemption and have to compete fairly by actually providing value;*
2. individuals who report over $500,000 in personal net income and couples who report over $1,000,000 in personal net income (i.e. those with actual incomes in the 1-5 million dollar a year range); and
3. people who believe that "trickle-down" economics was anything other than an experiment that failed faster and more spectacularly than Soviet Communism and who actually believe they benefited by excessive executive compensation, outsourcing of labor jobs, and unequaled wealth stratification (aka "idiots").

* This week I had to cancel a doctor's appointment. I am insured with Kaiser Permanente at a cost of over $850 per month for my family of four as I am self-employed. After 21 minutes on hold to give them the courtesy of a cancellation call, I was rescheduled for: December 21, 2009! The first available appointment for a member paying $850/month was nearly two months away (my $30/visit co-pay actually raises the cost of medical care to my family to nearly $1,000/month). I could understand this kind of delay if the appointment were just some kind of annual physical or something, but this appointment is about a problem with a complication from a medication I am taking! Trust me, the government cannot do worse. I have had to receive medical care in both Canada and Israel. Believe me, we MUST have a public option when people like me are seriously considering the benefits of being uninsured.

Why California is F***'ed

When my 7th grader announced that she had fifty-seven students in one of her classes, I decided to get to the bottom of the current economic fiasco and I discovered that the problem is very, very easy to find.

The same law that allows homeowners to pay property taxes based on the value of their home at the time of purchase also applies to corporate and business landowners. The most expensive real estate in the country is being taxed based on its value from over 20 years ago! So, where once the counties used to be able to contribute back to the State, the State now has to subsidize all of the counties!

Revenue has to come from somewhere, and our schools should be funded by property taxes, not by spend now-pay later bond issues. Every commercial owner of land should pay property taxes based on the present value of their land and improvements, not on the value assessed in the 1980's. This would not adversely effect the business climate in California, in fact it would give new businesses a fighting chance against the big, staid players who have helped ruin this state.

But, once again the Reaganite conservatives refuse to accept the fact that "trickle-down" economics was the root cause of the destruction of the entire American economy and refuse to make corporate America and the Super-Wealthy pay a slightly higher percentage of the income in taxes preferring rather to raise the sales tax and put the burden on those least capable of bearing it.

We're Number 37! Yay!

Do something that does not compute

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Mexico Attacks!

Mexico has acquired thousands of long and short range missiles and have been firing them at cities within the United States. Two civilians have been killed by the incessant missile fire, including an American of Mexican heritage in El Centro, and another American in San Diego. The United States has been respecting a cease-fire with Mexico since the end of the Spanish-American war in which the United States won territories in what is now the southwest United States, including most of California.

America has attempted diplomacy in an attempt to resolve the situation, and has gone so far as to give the disputed territories back to Mexico as a means for avoiding armed conflict. Mexico has set up provisional governments in those territories, but, contrary to international expectations, rather than curtailing the violence, Mexico has used those reclaimed territories as launching grounds to hoard and fire missiles at more American cities.

In response to international efforts to calm an already tense situation, the Mexican authorities have stated, "We will not rest until every American is dead and we have taken over the entire United States. We will continue our campaign deeper and deeper into the American heartland, making use of every weapon available from rocks to suicide bombers until every American has left America."

Oh wait, that's not Mexico, they're not that crazy, and America's would never make such concessations or be so patient. It's Hamas and Israel. Did they think that Israel had to let this keep going on? Even now that they are a separate state? If we wouldn't let Mexico do it to us, why should Israel let Hamas do it to them?

God Bless America!

Obama's speech put tears in our eyes.  These words are inspirational.  Students should be taught to memorize them along with the preamble to the Constitution.  They come from the same spirit:

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
 
"It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.   
 
"It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America. 
 
"It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day. 
 
"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America."

Hey U.S., welcome to the Third World!

It's been a quick slide from economic superpower to economic basket case.

Rosa Brooks
September 18, 2008

Dear United States, Welcome to the Third World!

It's not every day that a superpower makes a bid to transform itself into a Third World nation, and we here at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund want to be among the first to welcome you to the community of states in desperate need of international economic assistance. As you spiral into a catastrophic financial meltdown, we are delighted to respond to your Treasury Department's request that we undertake a joint stability assessment of your financial sector. In these turbulent times, we can provide services ranging from subsidized loans to expert advisors willing to perform an emergency overhaul of your entire government.

As you know, some outside intervention in your economy is overdue. Last week -- even before Wall Street's latest collapse -- 13 former finance ministers convened at the University of Virginia and agreed that you must fix your "broken financial system." Australia's Peter Costello noted that lately you've been "exporting instability" in world markets, and Yashwant Sinha, former finance minister of India, concluded, "The time has come. The U.S. should accept some monitoring by the IMF."

We hope you won't feel embarrassed as we assess the stability of your economy and suggest needed changes. Remember, many other countries have been in your shoes. We've bailed out the economies of Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea. But whether our work is in Sudan, Bangladesh or now the United States, our experts are committed to intervening in national economies with care and sensitivity.

We thus want to acknowledge the progress you have made in your evolution from economic superpower to economic basket case. Normally, such a process might take 100 years or more. With your oscillation between free-market extremism and nationalization of private companies, however, you have successfully achieved, in a few short years, many of the key hallmarks of Third World economies.

Your policies of irresponsible government deregulation in critical sectors allowed you to rapidly develop an energy crisis, a housing crisis, a credit crisis and a financial market crisis, all at once, and accompanied (and partly caused) by impressive levels of corruption and speculation. Meanwhile, those of your political leaders charged with oversight were either napping or in bed with corporate lobbyists.

Take John McCain, your Republican presidential nominee, whose senior staff includes half a dozen prominent former lobbyists. As he recently put it, "I was chairman of the [Senate] Commerce Committee that oversights every part of the economy." No question about it: Your leaders' failure to notice the damage done by irresponsible deregulation was indeed an oversight of epic proportions.

Now you are facing the consequences. Income inequality has increased, as the rich have gotten windfalls while the middle class has seen incomes stagnate. Fewer and fewer of your citizens have access to affordable housing, healthcare or security in retirement. Even life expectancy has dropped. And when your economic woes went from chronic to acute, you responded -- like so many Third World states have -- with an extensive program of nationalizing private companies and assets. Your mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now state owned and controlled, and this week your reinsurance giant AIG was effectively nationalized, with the Federal Reserve Board seizing an 80% equity stake in the flailing company.

Some might deride this as socialism. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Admittedly, your transition to Third World status is far from over, and it won't be painless. At first, for instance, you may find it hard to get used to the shantytowns that will replace the exurban sprawl of McMansions that helped fuel the real estate speculation bubble. But in time, such shantytowns will simply become part of the landscape. Similarly, as unemployment rates continue to rise, you will initially struggle to find a use for the expanding pool of angry, jobless young men. But you will gradually realize that you can recruit them to fight in a ceaseless round of armed conflicts, a solution that has been utilized by many other Third World states before you. Indeed, with your wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you are off to an excellent start.

Perhaps this letter comes as a surprise to you, and you feel you're not fully ready to join the Third World. Don't let this feeling concern you. Though you may never have realized it, you've been preparing for this moment for years.

rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com

'Drill, Drill, Drill' by playwright, Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues)

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States . She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S. , but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Republicans Lie, part 104,368. This is getting too easy.

MIAMI HERALD:

Out of bounds: McCain-Palin misdirect blame for immigration flop

By DAVID LIGHTMAN

September 12, 2008

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/683911.html

Throw the flag against: The McCain-Palin campaign.

Call: Illegal shift.

What happened: The campaign Friday launched a 30-second Spanish-language television ad charging that Democrat Barack Obama and his Senate colleagues torpedoed meaningful changes in immigration laws.

"The press reports that their efforts were 'poison pills' that made immigration reform fail," the ad charges. "The result: No guest worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform. Is that being on our side? Obama and his congressional allies ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead."

What that's wrong: Media accounts cited two votes as effectively killing immigration reform last year - and Obama was on the same side as McCain in both.

On June 7, supporters failed by 15 votes to cut off a filibuster. McCain and Obama voted to limit debate. The Politico headline the next day: "Senate immigration compromise collapses."

On June 28, another effort to limit debate failed by 14 votes; CNN called it a "crushing defeat." Obama and McCain again voted to cut off debate, but it was largely Republican senators who led the filibuster.

In its review of the 2007 Congress, Congressional Quarterly cited both votes as crucial to killing the immigration measure.
Penalty: Set the McCain-Palin campaign's credibility back five yards.

ON THE WEB
To read the CNN account on the June 28 vote:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/28/immigration.congress/index.html

Further down the rabbit hole...

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow U.S. special forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government, The New York Times reported on Thursday."

1. Pakistan is in a time of transition in which a staunch U.S. ally, a military leader, Musharref, was unable to control the fundamentalist factions in his otherwise moderate moslem country.
   
2. This country became unstable the minute it was clear that Musharref could not maintain his power. I think that was about July.
3. Shouldn't our special forces be operating in our war zones? Oh, we must be opening another front in our war. Pakistan's a good choice: after all it is an increasingly fundamentalist moslem country, thrust into a period of political instability, which has nuclear capacity.
4. Also I guess the fact that Al Queda is already entrenched and protected by the locals-- because they like Al Queda-- shouldn't make you worry that, if a U.S. invasion leads to a galvanization of the fundamentalists, Al Queda could easily end up with nukes.
5. But then again, what are the odds that a U.S. invasion would actual create greater instability in the country resulting in the galvanization of, increased recruitment for, and thus power in the hands of the fundamentalists. I mean that already happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, so (ala Garp) what are the odds of that happening again?
6. Well no doubt we'll have far better luck than Musharref in getting Pakistan to follow a moderate line, after all, what could Musharref possibly have known about Pakistan?
7. Oh, something else-- how much do you think its going to help Benazir Bhutto's husband to have a US military presence in the country when he's promising to reestablish a moderate and functional democracy and actually has a chance to do so?
8. Isn't there some historical precedent for when a president authorized special forces to conduct operations in a country we were not at war without the approval of that government? How did that work out? Not too good, huh? Well I'm sure things will be different this time. After all, history never repeats itself.
   

Idiots.
(The forgoing sarcastic tirade, of course, is subject to withdrawal if we nab Osama as a result of these operations. Maybe two weeks before the election in November would be the best timing. But to suggest that the administration is taking this stupid risk to try to help McCain's otherwise worthless campaign would be the type of conspiracy-theorist paranoia that this writer tries --sometimes helplessly-- to avoid. Maybe they're not just stupid, maybe they're evil too.)

Republicans Lie, Part DDMXII

The press has given the republican party another break, calling this a mistake. What is missed is the irony of the fact that in trying to associate their candidate with the Walter Reed Medical Center, they have proved that their candidate has never even seen the Walter Reed Medical Center (or if he has, he has no recollection of it.)

It gets worse. The LAUSD charges $2,500/day for filming at its schools. I wonder if a check is on the way. So if its not bad enough that Republicans perpetually underfund education, it now appears as if they are actively stealing from our public schools.

The principal of Walter Reed Middle School, Donna Tobin released a statement on the school's website saying that the school had not given permission for the footage to be used, "nor is the use of our school’s picture an endorsement of any political party or view." I have lived in North Hollywood. McCain's lame attempt to connect himself to this marvelous community is an insult. I am willing to bet that there is not a single person with a family member in that school or otherwise actively involved at that schools that benefits from another Republican administration (except for those that are willing to sacrifice their jobs and affordable healthcare over gun control.)

I am not convinced this is a mistake. At best, this was a reckless act. In other words, an act undertaken without any regard for the truth. As McCain has insisted, "this campaign is not about the issues." It is an effort to convince a majority of the populace that they are similarly situated to those who earn over $600,000 per year and thus benefit from Republican policies. The only way they can do this in light of increased wealth stratification, decrease in real wages, the disappearance of public social services, and the rising cost of and thus unavailability of health care to the marginalized middle class, is to lie.