Originally Posted by nation-x

I think that PleasurePays and Mutt have a very low opinion of their fellow Americans and have made sweeping generalizations about them. In reality, the majority of Americans are hard working people who DON'T overspend.... but are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

You two (and those that hold the same opinion) must be insulated from reality. A reality where a huge percentage of our manufacturing base has left our country and that loss has trickled down to millions of average Americans... Including millions of small business owners who are having to close their shops because the local economy has gone to shit. There is your Trickle Down Economics in a nutshell.

You have an elitist attitude toward other people and furthermore are mere parrots of the elite class that rules the Republican Party...

The Industrial Revolution killed your theories of "help yourself" in large part because during a 20-30 year period there was a huge paradigm shift where 95% of Americans stopped working for themselves and started working for others. Our country was largely supported by agriculture at that time... fast forward to now... there is no possible way for those 95% to go back to being self supporting because there is no demand for their services when they have to compete with huge multi-national corporations and global supply.

The basic problem with the "conservative" position is that it is a narrow minded position where the strongest survive. That era is over. Without the consumer... there is no strongest... the conservative view is wolf pack mentality.