What Happened To Binghampton

I have absolutely no idea what that means. Are you saying the economy is poor in Binghamton, the rest of NY State outside of the NYC Metro Area as the result of what NY State politicians have done? First of all, NY has a split legislature with a Democratic majority in the Assembly and a Republican one in the Senate working with Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo. And NY is also corrupt as hell across Party Lines, as recently both the Democratic Speaker of the Assemby and the Republican Senate Majority Leader were convicted for different corrupt actions.

And if you're saying that Liberal policies are making it a 'human-free zone,' that is proven false by facts. I grew up in the NYC Metro and live in San Francisco now. The state and local taxes in both areas are just about the highest in the nation, and yet there has been no exodus of 'job creators,' and millionaires/billionaires. Those millionaires/billionaires make constant complaints that they'll leave if taxes go up - Sean Hannity is a recent example - but their unwillingness to leave these cities/states shows how unserious their complaints are.

I'd love to stay and chat...but I'm not going to.

I don't think I gave you any right to call me an 'idiot,' or 'blind.' I said you did not seem to know what you were speaking of, as it appeared to me that you were applying economic theory to a region you have never lived in and likely never even been to. To me, insulting someone as an 'idiot' is clear proof that one has no facts or ability to win an argument.

Investing money in a private account, receiving a massive inheritance (and most wealth in the USA is inherited wealth given to people who did not 'earn' that money...trust fund babies that Warren Buffet calls 'members of the lucky sperm club') or investing in businesses that move overseas does NOT result in money for anyone other than the person who invested the money: mere wealth itself does not create jobs, nor does it better the economy through its sheer existence. I believe in Keynesian economic theory which says that the economy does not get better by simply giving more to the wealthy and HOPING (with no instrument to allow anything beyond hope) that they spend it in ways that benefit everyone and the economy itself, but it DOES get better if we give more money to poor and middle class people because they MUST spend it. Instead of investing it in ways that will benefit no one but themselves, the poor and middle class must spend their money on food, clothes, and other such necessitities. The places that they buy those goods from will then be able to hire new workers, and those workers will then have more money to spend, and everyone will start doing better, because there will be more private sector jobs which will then take the place of the government spending that was originally needed to give the poor and middle-class more money.

Part of the reason IBM left Binghamton had nothing to do with rising costs of workers or anything like that, but because they polluted so much that they created a 'toxic plume' that is still underneath Endicott, Johnson City, Vestal, and Binghamton and has resulted in increased rates of cancer for those who, unlike IBM, could not simply leave for someplace else. I know multiple people in their 20s who have developed cancers and other illnesses that are normally seen in older people.

What Reaganomics (which George H. W. Bush termed 'voodoo economics') really leads to is a race to the bottom where American workers have to fight for jobs against people who are little better than slaves, and it is NOT good for the economy. In order to become competitive with those foreign slaves, workers would have to work for so little money that they could not afford to live in this country without state and federal assisstance, meaning that tax payers would be paying the difference so that the workers do not starve to death or die of a case of a house cold. This in effect is already happening in the USA at companies like Walmart and McDonalds. Those companies could still make a LARGE profit by paying their workers enough to survive and get off federal assistance, BUT in an attempt for even BIGGER profits, they have conned the American people into subsidizing those profits. They pay their workers starvation wages and, simply to keep them alive, the government must provide them with enough to survive, meaning that the government steps in and makes up the difference between what the companies SHOULD be paying their employees in order for those employees to survive, and what they are ACTUALLY are paying them.

I may be a 'blind idiot,' but to me it is simple math: If a person needs $15 an hour to survive without needing government assistance, but a company only pays $7 an hour, then the tax payers are forced to make up the other $8 unless we want people starving to death in the streets and full-on revolution (for what responsible person would starve and watch his/her family starve to death and merely accept it?). It is MORE expensive for tax payers to subsidize the large profits of companies that pay their workers almost nothing than it would be if the wealthiest Americans saw their income taxes go up.

But I'd be surprised if you read this, since the paragraph structure is displeasing to you and I am 'an idiot.' But if you DO read it and you cannot find anything better to say (and I do admit that there is almost no data since 1980 that will support Trickle Down Reaganomics, so I do almost sympathize with you) than to resort to name-calling, then maybe you should find a better way to spend your time?

I'd love to stay and chat...but I'm not going to.