With the Romney campaign tossing around the word "redistribution" as if it were the secret political weapon that will sink their competitor President Obama, Hardball host Chris Matthews sought to provide a little perspective on this word and unpack what it really means.
"So when we get a Social Security check, that is redistribution. Somebody's payroll tax is going to someone like them who worked all their life to earn it. Terrible. When a teacher gets paid, a VA doctor, or a private in the Army—oh my god, more redistribution," Matthews said in his Let Me Finish wrap-up on his show Wednesday night. "Or a student who manages to get into college but might not have gotten there otherwise if not for a Pell Grant; how about a police officer working the night watch in a tough neighborhood. When he gets paid—there it goes again: redistribution."
What kind of redistribution would Romney agree to, asks Matthews?
"The only redistribution Romney likes is when he takes over a company, dumps the workers, widens the profit margins, flips it, and walks off with the proceeds," he said. "Now that's a redistribution he can get excited about."
For more on what a completely "redistribution-free" society would look like, read Ned Resnikoff's Lean Forward piece.
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Chris is all wrong. Most of the companies he bought and turned around were failing and would have shut down anyway. He saved many more jobs than he lost. And sometimes companies just can't make it. But they managed to limp along a little longer under his watch than they would have. And also, many of you don't know it, but your pensions may have lots riding on Bain Capital. Have you checked? You better be glad Romney was successful if you have money there. Many public pensions are there. The redistribution Matthews is talking about is not at all what most people call redistribution, and he knows it. Just another campaign plug to try to get Obama reelected on MSNBC's dollar. Are they getting campaign funds from the dems?
It doesn't matter what YOU think redistribution is or isn't. Any time money moves in the economy THAT IS redistribution. The wealth has been redistributed UP for decades, and now it is time for more balance. By the way, did you know Bain left US holding the bag for some of those pensions and debts when they 'redistributed' those assets to theselves and screwed some of those companies? We taxpayers had to pay.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/30/1126025/-Mitt-Romney-screwed-Goldman-Sachs-FDIC-to-save-Bain
Imo, Matthews sounded like an actual Democrat for a few fleeting moments. Matthews however is still a double talking, right leaning, conservative, pro life fellow who walks the political balance beam for corporate America, and shifts left or right depending on the operant breeze. .Matthews, in other words, is a corporate Democrat. Gobama!
Chris Mathews didn't "skewer" anyone...all he does, the ugly, aged, tired and ignorant old man....all he does is make a total ass of himself...a fool...an ugly, used up, little man. Skewer? Oh really? What a lousy joke. You people at MSMBC are an embarrassment to cable news..what a bunch of ignorant, boastful and useless, tripe filled duds.
Yea, "goobama.." away from the Presidency...you're a total, complete and abject failure!!
There is another word that starts to become relevant. When Rmoney and his rich friends end up with all the money, and the 0.01% attempt to rule the 99.99% using their wealth as their only source of power, then another word that begins with R will resurface, as it has throughout history. It will signal a new program of "redistribution." That other word, by the way, is Revolution.
I am glad Chris Matthews brought up the subject of redistribution of wealth. The definition of Economic Justice is "...the having and doing what is one's own." This means that all economic transactions between free men should be voluntary exchanges of equivalent value. Adam Smith the Scottish Moral Philosopher said capitalism was productive because the expectation of receiving equivalent value in exchange harnessed man's self-love as the incentive to produce something of value for others. The Capitalist Economic System in America is the best in the history of the world because it is continuously redistributing wealth on the basis of how much value one produces for society. The beauty of the system is that every body has to produce wealth to get wealth and nobody gets more wealth than he has created for society. But when somebody uses the power of government to violate this moral principle of the voluntary exchange of equivalent value among free men the prosperity of spontaneous order does not get produced. Let us say some despotic ruler uses the force of the government to borrow 6 Trillion Dollars and just gives it to people who have produced nothing of value. And these non wealth producing takers spend money over four years that force businesses to lay off 23 million workers. Now let us look at the damage done to the production and distribution of wealth by just violating the simple moral principle of voluntary exchange for equivalent value. Well the takers did not produce anything of value and the value that the 23 million workers could have produced is lost to society forever. This is unbelievably cruel because the way wealth is distributed in a Capitalist Economic System is based on the value one produces and the unemployed are denied the opportunity to be productive through no fault of their own. I calculated that if the 6 Trillion Dollars had not been borrowed and was paid to the 23 million unemployed workers they could have Produced Six Trillion Dollars of Wealth and each could have earned 62 thousand dollars a year for 4 years. GDP is a measure of COST not a measure of value. Unless somebody is willing to exchange something of value for your product or service, society has no way of knowing if value was produced. And finally the worst evil of all, somebodies in the future are going to be taxed more than 6 Trillion Dollars and receive nothing of value in return. Even if the government defaults on its debt the debt holders will have given 6 Trillion Dollars and received no wealth in return.
chris is right.