I know, you don't really care if he's breaking anti-trust laws or not, you just know he's a greedy bastard and surely he should be prosecuted, right?

No, you don't really know much about me or anything, for that matter, as you've proven on this board multiple times. In fact, you just made up a fictional character and named him and are now insisting you know how I feel about said person who only exists in your fantasy.

Again, for Dems/Libs, it's always "We prefer to live in a dream world because the world of reality is just too cruel", right?

You tell me, old man. You're the one making up fake people and pretending to know how I feel about them. I'm still not a "Dem/Lib," no matter how many times you pretend that I am. It demonstrates a special kind of stupid for you to lecture me or anyone else about the "world of reality" when your posts are regularly full of misinformation and outright fabrication.

You said there was no law against price gouging, and rather than admit you were wrong about that, you're still busy fabricating more shit and making your proverbial hole deeper and wider, as if making up more stuff is going to somehow erase your earlier stupid. It won't; stop digging.

as for fairness vs. unfairness, need vs. want, moderate or immoderate, they are decided by the judicial branch - that's the entire purpose for its existence. the framers decided that too. It's in Article III.

JL

Who gets to decide what's "moderate"? We can just add 'Moderate' to 'Fair', 'Unfair', 'need vs.want', 'Price Gouging' and the whole rest of the list of nebulous, arbitrary terms which serve to explain why this sort of liberal 'feel-good' crap renders such state laws meaningless, and explains why there is no federal law against "price gouging".

And what happens when the anticipated hurricane changes course, and Joe's Lumber Yard has to sell his big plywood inventory at a loss? Shouldn't all the homeowners in town be prosecuted for 'Reverse Price Gouging'? Doesn't Joe also have those "inalienable rights"; yaknow, life, liberty, pursuit of, etc.?"

Unfair??, take it up with the founders! Oh - never mind, the founders were smart enough to recognize the insanity of the standard Dem/Lib attitude toward trying to define what's 'fair', what's a 'need', what's a 'want', etc.

you're the one who brought up the price of honey as an example, so it doesn't make much sense to criticize those of us who demonstrated why it doesn't apply. anti-trust laws were created to protect the basic, inalienable rights of the citizenry; yknow, life liberty, pursuit of etc. etc.? joe's lumber yard is price gouging because an impending natural disaster has increased demand, which has in turn made lumber scarce. without it lives and homes are in danger of being lost, so it has become a need rather than just a want. although a moderate price increase is merited, at some point people's right to keep their lives and homes outweighs joe's right to make a profit. dont like it? take it up with the founders.

JL

So, when Joe's lumber Yard of Anytown FL raises the price of plywood when he hears that a hurricane is coming, with whom is he colluding? How is he eliminating competition?

I know, you don't really care if he's breaking anti-trust laws or not, you just know he's a greedy bastard and surely he should be prosecuted, right?

Again, for Dems/Libs, it's always "We prefer to live in a dream world because the world of reality is just too cruel", right?

Can scarcely believe you nit-pickers want to argue on a political blog about the price of honey, as opposed to the laws and principles of economics that may have had an effect on the price of honey.

As JL already correctly informed you in 51 and 59, price-gouging laws wouldn't apply to the "price of honey." In addition, I can scarcely believe the asshat who fabricated statistics about honeybees and utter nonsensical outright lies about the "price of honey" is taking issue with those addressing the topic he broached in the first place in yet another lie-filled comment.

Speaking of "egregious economic ignorance," I'd say that any idiot who kept insisting that the wealthy are "the only ones who pay the taxes" isn't quite the self-appointed authority on "economics" that he believes himself to be.

It would be FAR more productive for you to research or discuss WHY there is no (national) "anti-price gouging law", as opposed to whether some infantile state legislators have passed such a law.

It would be FAR more productive for you to research or discuss WHY you seem overly obsessed with fabrication and digging your proverbial hole bigger and deeper. As I already stated in no uncertain terms in 61 above, federal antitrust law does indeed exist and has for over a century to protect consumers from coercive monopoly and entities engaging in "price fixing," which you will predictably split hairs and insist they are not the same as "price gouging," but "who are we kidding" since that's merely an argument over definitions wherein federal antitrust laws and state laws to prohibit "price gouging" aim to ultimately serve the same end of reasonable prices for consumers, although one from the perspective of marketplace competition and the other from directly protecting consumers from ridiculous price inflation for essentials during crisis events.

The fact is, the United States, the federal government, the state, our Uncle Sam, etc. does indeed have law(s), regulations, statutes, etc. that protect consumers from greedy asshats/entities attempting to set the price of goods, services, and/or commodities which overcharge, inflate, fix, gouge, etc., which antitrust law includes but is certainly not limited to:

* The Sherman Antitrust Act - 1890 bipartisan law enacted to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply, among other regulations
* The Clayton Antitrust Act - 1914
* The Federal Trade Commission Act - 1914

Antitrust Enforcement and the Consumer

"Many consumers have never heard of antitrust laws, but when these laws are effectively and responsibly enforced, they can save consumers millions and even billions of dollars a year in illegal overcharges. Most States have antitrust laws, and so does the Federal Government."

...

"The law does not condemn all agreements between companies, only those that threaten to raise prices to consumers or to deprive them of new and better products. But when competing firms get together to fix prices, to rig bids, to divide business between them, or to make other anticompetitive arrangements that provide no benefits to consumers, the Government will act promptly to protect the interests of American consumers."

https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/800691/download

Of course, I'm aware that would cause you heartburn when you figured it out, but a little heartburn beats the hell out of egregious economic ignorance when it comes to the welfare of the country.

So we've already established that itty bitty words "sadden" you, and now I take it that words will equally cause you "heartburn" and that you naturally assume... like you generally do... that what you're personally experiencing at your local Kroger affiliate and the acid regurgitation into your esophagus in Podunk, Idaho, is exactly what's happening nationwide, and in your perpetual state of self-aggrandizement you believe what you've experienced personally is somehow connected to the "welfare of the country."

Talk about "feelings" adjectives, what with all your "sadness" and "heartburn," you seem to be holding your own in the "feelings" department, pal. Hypocrisy, thy name is Stucki. *LOL*

It would be FAR more productive for you to research or discuss WHY there is no (national) "anti-price gouging law", as opposed to whether some infantile state legislators have passed such a law.

Of course, I'm aware that would cause you heartburn when you figured it out, but a little heartburn beats the hell out of egregious economic ignorance when it comes to the welfare of the country.

About 3 yrs ago as I recall, something wiped out about three-quarters of the honeybees in the country. Overnight, the price of honey went up close to 300%.

Wrong, wrong, wrong... 75% of honeybees in America were not wiped out in 2015 or any other year for that matter, and the price of honey in America did not triple "overnight."

At this point, you've lost all credibility and should really stop digging and further to cease and desist in your pathetic attempts at "recall" since your ability in that regard has now proven defective on multiple occasions.

Where were you and Kick and the state "anti-gouging" laws then??

I can't speak for CW, but I was busy killing the honeybees that made the unfortunate mistake of flying into my backyard... just kidding. In 2015 when the "bee-pocalypse" that began in 2006 was being discussed in Washington, D.C., data tracked by the USDA illustrated the fact that U.S. honeybee colonies had actually hit a 20-year high the previous year:

https://tinyurl.com/y7a4txxh

Which begs the obvious and predictable question: Where were you?

Yeah, well there will never be any shortage of "errors in my ways" where Dems/Libs are concerned. You guys DEFINE philosophical differences as "errors in ways", right?

Poet Re 'needs vs wants'

Yeah, maybe not inherently Liberal or conservative terminology, but certainly nebulous and arbitrary.

I just returned from my local Kroger affiliate, and I happened to see a 12 oz bottle of honey for $4.79. Label said "orange blossom", so maybe that justifies something in excess of clover honey, but it wasn't too long ago when $4.79 bought a quart of honey, at least where I live.

Price-gouging laws exist. You stated they didn't (or "it didn't"). Reality intervened, proving you wrong.

Admit it like a man, or like a liberal who concedes a point, rather than digging in to an increasingly-bizzaro-world interpretation, as conservative weenies usually attempt to do.

I know, right!? And Stucki has now doubled and tripled down on his utter nonsensical proclamation that such "law"... which obviously is a term that is not necessary singular and/or limited to a single law... would be unenforceable, and now he's simply down to the "conservative weenie" (props CW) predictable move of arguing semantics and definitions... in which case -- since he wants to go there -- he still loses the debate of definitions because federal antitrust law does indeed exist and has for over a century to protect consumers from coercive monopoly and entities engaging in "price fixing," which Stucki can predictably split hairs and insist is not the same as "price gouging," but "who are we kidding" since that's merely an argument over definitions wherein federal antitrust laws and state laws to prohibit "price gouging" aim to ultimately serve the same end of reasonable prices for consumers, although one from the perspective of marketplace competition and the other from directly protecting consumers from ridiculous price inflation during crisis events.

The fact is, the United States, the federal government, the state, the deep state, our Uncle Sam, etc. does indeed have law(s), regulations, statutes, etc. that protect consumers from greedy asshats/entities attempting to set the price of goods, services, and/or commodities which overcharge, inflate, fix, gouge, etc., which antitrust law includes but is certainly not limited to:

* The Sherman Antitrust Act - 1890 bipartisan law enacted to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply, among other regulations
* The Clayton Antitrust Act - 1914
* The Federal Trade Commission Act - 1914

As to Stucki's nonsensical statement that such law to prevent "price gouging" would be unenforceable and is somehow a "liberal" ideology, witness deep red Texas where Hurricane Harvey spawned multiple actions against entities who engaged in price gouging during the crisis, and it's not remotely a "liberal" Texas Attorney General who is doing the enforcement.

As for the enforcement of federal antitrust law to protect citizens from greedy entities:

Antitrust Enforcement and the Consumer

"Many consumers have never heard of antitrust laws, but when these laws are effectively and responsibly enforced, they can save consumers millions and even billions of dollars a year in illegal overcharges. Most States have antitrust laws, and so does the Federal Government."

...

"The law does not condemn all agreements between companies, only those that threaten to raise prices to consumers or to deprive them of new and better products. But when competing firms get together to fix prices, to rig bids, to divide business between them, or to make other anticompetitive arrangements that provide no benefits to consumers, the Government will act promptly to protect the interests of American consumers."

https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/800691/download

And since Stucki is an "old dog" seemingly averse to cracking a book or learning a "new trick" or a damn thing from anyone, it would behoove him mightily to at least take the time to read a concise pamphlet and discover something that might mitigate his ridiculous practice of posting "conservative weenie" (props again) bullshit in the comments section of your most excellent blog that he trolls regularly with the same repetitive misinformation in monotonous fashion. :)

Sigh.

I wasn't talking about the errors in your comments but rather the errors of your ways, as I clearly stated.

Would you like to try again?

How convenient. Right above the chart I linked to is a link to the retail prices of the last 10 years...

My only connection to honey prices would have been be at the retail level. I recall they took a big jump when all the news hit about the bees dying, but it may have been a temporary phenomenon.

Liz M.

Sorry, I reviewed, no errors found!

Here are the last 10 years of of wholesale honey prices.

Could you please point out the 300% overnight increase?

It is only YOU who has no credibility here.

But, there is a simple exercise you might decide to entertain. And, that is to go back over your comments from the beginning and carefully read all that you have wrote.

Perhaps, only then you will see the errors of your ways and realize the benefits of correcting them ...

Yeah, that "necessary" thing belongs in the same area of the Lib lexicon with "fair/unfair" and the rest of the plethora of 'feel good' adjectives.

You need not remind me that the principles of the science of Economics (aka 'the way the real world actually works') have no credibility with Dems/libs. It was ever thus, and I don't really expect it ever to be otherwise.

Certainly it would be possible to adjust the tax code to forego the 2% of all fed. income taxes collected from the bottom 50% of U.S. taxpayers. I've never intentionally disputed that, nor have I ever even advocated against it.

My only objection to the std. Dem/Lib shibboleth of "tax cuts for the rich' is the implication that cutting fed. income taxes for the only people who pay fed. income taxes is somehow unfairly depriving the poor of their fed. income tax cuts. They already received their share when they were virtually exempted from the whole program.

Unfortunately, your credibility here is at zero and going backwards.

But, you know that and, sadly, it won't affect your contributions.

About 3 yrs ago as I recall, something wiped out about three-quarters of the honeybees in the country. Overnight, the price of honey went up close to 300%.

Where were you and Kick and the state "anti-gouging" laws then??

Isn't it time that White America had a turn? We need a movement for White America to show it's power!

Careful, there, buckaroo...

C. R. Stucki [6] -

If that were remotely true, then we certainly wouldn't need a minimum wage or anything, right? Unfortunately, it's not true. Luckily enough, Union membership is on the rise...

Heh. Couldn't resist.

Balthasar [7] -

Well said. Even Paul Ryan eventually abandoned his Randian "the safety net is a hammock" idiocy...

C. R. Stucki [8] -

Balderdash. I've explained to you previously how "you can only cut taxes for the rich because they are the only ones who pay them" is nonsense. Everyone down to almost the poverty line pays federal income taxes, and there are MANY MANY ways to adjust those taxes to benefit the lower three (or even four) quintiles of wage-earners. That's if -- as you do not -- you start from the premise of "let's lower taxes on the middle class and working poor" and not "let's provide $X trillion in tax cuts.

Sure, if you want to cut an enormous amount (in absolute value) of taxes, you'd have to eventually cut wealthy people's taxes. But if you start from a different premise, you don't have to cut rich folks' taxes one thin dime. It's all in the priorities, not in the absolute value of the total tax cuts.

Just to throw one (more) example at you: "let's cut the tax rate for the BOTTOM three or four tax brackets by 5% each" would provide a whole lot of tax relief and barely impact the wealthiest taxpayers at all (it would impact the taxes they paid on the income they earned in those brackets, of course, due to the progressive nature of the brackets themselves, but it'd be a minimal cut overall for them, while maximizing the cut to those who top out their earnings in those brackets).

Argue honestly, and I'll take you more seriously. Argue "tax cuts for the wealthy spur investment and free up capital" and we can have a debate, for instance. But repeating "you can't cut taxes without slashing taxes for the top earners" over and over, and I'm just going to start ignoring your arguments, because it just ain't true, sorry.

Don Harris [16] -

Hell, yeah! And also, let's get a working wage for the cheerleaders, too! And let them unionize!

Sorry, got carried away... it's a long time 'til football season, I realize...

Heh.

[17] -

OK, I'll bite. What DO you name a kitten with no eyes?

ListenWhenYouHear [22] -

2024. That's my best guess. He'll be back...

C. R. Stucki [28] -

BZZZZZZT! "Thanks for playing..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging#Laws_against_price_gouging

As for federal/state, laws are enacted in jurisdictions that need them. Florida gets lots of hurricanes, has seen lots of actual price gouging, and therefore enacted anti-gouging laws. Seems in accordance with the Tenth Amendment to me...

nypoet22 [36] -

Excellent point, thanks.

C. R. Stucki [46] -

Or perhaps you could state your ideas in full, rather than weasel out of being proved wrong later on.

Price-gouging laws exist. You stated they didn't (or "it didn't"). Reality intervened, proving you wrong.

Admit it like a man, or like a liberal who concedes a point, rather than digging in to an increasingly-bizzaro-world interpretation, as conservative weenies usually attempt to do.

Are you sitting down? Are you ready for my ultmiate insult to your right/leftification of your own obvious error?

Arguing "there is no law" is somehow different than "there are no laws" puts you squarely in the camp of someone you'd probably rather not be compared to. Because, just like Bill Clinton, you are reduced to arguing over "what the meaning of 'is' is."

Ooooh... SNAP!

Heh. Couldn't resist, sorry.

-CW

Yeah, it's pretty astonishing to see speaker after speaker walk away from the job, that's for sure.

Interesting you should mention WRH, though. While writing this, I really wanted to add a reference (right after the Barry Goldwater thing) to one of his descendents -- William Randolph Hearst III, maybe, or even IV? I forget, he was one of the younger generation in the 1980s, and the SF Exmainer ran an editorial from him calling for the legalization of marijuana. This was in, like 1987 or so (+/-3 years). This was still in the "Just Say No" era, mind you, so it was an incredibly bold stance to take, at the time.

Even more ironic was that the original WRH was one of the seriously bad actors in the whole saga of marijuana (and hemp) becoming illegal.

But I looked into it, couldn't immediately find the editorial reference, and decided it was too much research for half a paragraph, at best, in the article.

Which is why you bringing him up is kind of eerie...

-CW

Please stop misquoting me. I said there "IS NO LAW" (singular). ."

I was clearly discussing U.S. federal law. I couldn't care less about state laws, foreign laws, etc. The individual state legislatures are notorious for passing meaningless 'Feel Good' laws that are de facto unenforceable.

If you'd stop "boo hooing" and wipe the tears from your eyes, perhaps you could read more clearly.

It always saddens me when Dems/Libs characterize the reality of economic facts which conflict with Lib ideology as "BS", but saddest of ALL is, it never surprises me.

Do itty bitty words "sadden" you? Is the "saddest of ALL" your lack of surprise? Well, boo hoo.

In addition, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that I'm a "Dem/Lib" and that you and I were having some kind of liberal ideological discussion about "the reality of economic facts" when in fact:

1. You said there were no laws against price gouging and that if such laws did exist they would be unenforceable.
2. I correctly characterized that ridiculous and utterly nonsensical misinformation as "bullshit" because it is a fact that there are price gouging laws in 35 states, including the one you live in.
3. You responded with the ridiculous confabulated comment I quoted above.

If you're reading "lib ideology" or anything more into our conversation than the simple facts enumerated above, then you have correctly characterized yourself as "sad." :p

As long as house prices rose in perpetuity, sub-prime mortgages were risk-free, because if the borrower defaulted, the house could be resold at a profit, and the original mortgage paid off with the proceeds. There was no risk to be masked, right?, or so everybody thought.

And damn near everybody expected that they WOULD appreciate in perpetuity, because nobody in the game had ever seen prices decline in his lifetime.

All that wisdom you know have is only 20-20 HINDsight!

@CRS,

that's exactly what you wrote, in [33]. poor allocation of resources didn't passively go unnoticed, subprime mortgages were solicited on purpose and their risk intentionally masked to exploit naive investors, even after insiders realized the mortgages would fail.

JL

It always saddens me when Dems/Libs characterize the reality of economic facts which conflict with Lib ideology as "BS", but saddest of ALL is, it never surprises me.

It would be illuminating for you to research exactly how many cases have ever been prosecuted under these state laws.

It would be illuminating for you to crack some books and stop posting BS. :)

It would be illuminating for you to research exactly how many cases have ever been prosecuted under these state laws.

Sorry, I should have specified FEDERAL law.

Okay... but that still doesn't absolve you from the utterly nonsensical and asinine proclamation that "such a law would be unenforceable" since there are dozens of such laws imposed in 35 or so states in America, including the one you live in. :p

:)

Nobody is saying "building and selling houses caused the financial crisis." It's not even true that the mortgage-backed bonds caused the financial crisis.

What caused the financial meltdown was lending mortgage money based on the erroneous presumption that there was no longer any such thing as a 'bad mortgage', because if the borrower defaulted, the house could always be re-sold at a profit, and the mortgage paid off with the sale proceeds.

Surely you understand the difference, right?

Sorry, no "idiotic', no "sarcasm". If nobody built houses for millions of people who couldn't (really) afford them, why did all those millions of houses end up being foreclosed, and why did the banks, the investors and the taxpayers lose $billions?

The "why they did it" is because everybody in the chain, the builders, the buyers, the banks, the investors, a couple presidents and most congressmen, all believed in the fiction that because the price of houses had not undergone a significant decline in any of those people's lifetimes, that they never would again.

To the surprise of everybody (except Dr. Burry, John Paulson, and Goldman-Sachs), it turned out that the laws of Supply and Demand had actually NOT been repealed!

The rest is history (but it's history that you and most Dems/Libs do not understand.)

Thinking about the principle of 'miss-allocation of resources', such as building houses for millions of people who couldn't possibly afford them, which created the housing bubble and the mortgage defaults, which in turn led to the banking/financial crisis or '08.

I’m sorry, but are you really taking such an incredibly idiotic stance or was this meant as sarcasm? No one built houses for millions of people who could not possibly afford them!!! Why would anyone finance a builder who stated that was their intention? The banks deserved to pay the penalty for their behavior, and lots went under while the biggest banks profited and got even bigger after the bailout! The banks should have never approved lots of the mortgages that they did. People who aren’t very educated about financial matters trusted the banks to tell them whether they truly deserved the loans they were given; and the banks failed to properly do that.

Don't know that I can think right off hand about any economic law that "causes harm", but if there is or are such, the most you could possibly do is transfer the harm to somebody else. If that constitutes a "defeatist manner", so be it.

Thinking about the principle of 'miss-allocation of resources', such as building houses for millions of people who couldn't possibly afford them, which created the housing bubble and the mortgage defaults, which in turn led to the banking/financial crisis or '08.

The results of that disaster would have normally been borne by the banks and those who invested in the mortgage-backed bonds. Instead, we bailed them out and transferred the losses to the taxpayers, but we didn't eliminate any of the losses, we just shifted them.

Sorry, I should have specified FEDERAL law.

Believe it or not, crazy as it seems to Dems/Libs, there is NO LAW AGAINST "PRICE GOUGING"!!!

Old man needs to crack some books.

https://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-transactions/price-gouging-laws-by-state.html

Such a law would be unenforceable, because "price gouging", like beauty, lies only in the eye of the beholder!

*LOL* If only you knew what you were talking about. :)

There are indeed a great meny economic theories in the world, (many of which are wrong), but there are actually some economic laws that really ARE laws,, (meaning you cannot repeal, or even avoid them.) For the most part, those are the only ones I choose to deal with here.

Believe it or not, crazy as it seems to Dems/Libs, there is NO LAW AGAINST "PRICE GOUGING"!!!

Such a law would be unenforceable, because "price gouging", like beauty, lies only in the eye of the beholder!

Nobody "controls the supply of jobs", for gawdsake! Anybody who wishes can create a job or any number of jobs, right?

Yes.

I realize that a utopian world is a wonderful dream, but we've gotta live in the world of reality! In the real world, the laws of economics rule, and utopian concepts such as "living wage" "fair/unfair", etc. scarcely exist.

If the lumber yard ordered in emergency plywood at premium prices and outrageous freight expense in anticipation of the hurricane and the hurricane never showed up, would the customers who refused to buy the high-dollar plywood be charged with reverse price gouging?

Re my [6], 2nd para. That principle is true of the price of ALL labor, skilled AND unskilled, (meaning both are set by the law of supply and demand.) It's just that for the unskilled, the supply is far greater, and the demand is far less, but exact same principle.

Worth noting that the wealthy campaign donors (who are "the ones benefiting from the tax cut"), were also the campaign donors at the time the tax being cut was originally enacted. Howcum their influence didn't help then?

Hopefully the GOP corruption that is being laid bare, step by step, will taint him for the rest of his life and destroy any chance of a political comeback.

Two words: Sealed indictments.

No further comment. :)

Sure enough, a huge tax cut "for the wealthy", because they're the only ones who pay the taxes in question.

Sure enough, same BS, different day "for monotonous trolls" because they're the only ones who comment on the blog in question.

Sure enough, a huge tax cut "for the wealthy", because they're the only ones who pay the taxes in question.

Sure enough, same BS, different day "for monotonous trolls" because they're the only ones who comment on the blog in question.

No it's not, it is the point, because Republicans want to pay for those tax cuts by slashing social programs (rather than by bringing down the cost of those programs by reducing the cost and improving the effectiveness of healthcare delivery, as the Democrats would do).

How, for instance, does the repeal of state tax deductions fit into conservative economic theory? Some Republicans admitted that the measure was put in for blatantly partisan reasons, not on the basis of any political principle.

When Chris (and all Dems/Libs) repeat the liberal shiboleth decrying "TaxCutsfortheRich", and I point out that there is no other kind of tax cut, because only the rich PAY these taxes, we're talking exclusively about the federal income tax.

Your [7] appears OK in its own right, but non-responsive, or "Non Sequitur" as the Latins say.

I understand the need for social programs to support those unable to support themselves, but that's beside the point of whether or not (income) "TaxCutsforthe Rich" are good or bad.

Allow me to decouple that hybrid: wages and taxes are not the same, save that both appear on the same paycheck form. Taxes are levied to pay for government.

Wages are not levied, they are due to the workers that have earned them. You'd apparently put all of the onus on the working poor to improve their wage situation, when in fact wages are affected by a universe of factors, including waivers of federal regulation, union power, comparative advantage (i.e., what other countries' wage basements are), industry collusion, resource allocation, local education opportunities, bus and train systems, and the world economy, just to name a few I can think of off the top of my head.

While it is true that no social system would be necessary if the free market were 100% efficient at providing sustenance to the elderly, crippled, very young, or very stupid, it became evident (particularly following the Great Depression) that the market did NOT provide for the non-employed, so a system was set up to be a 'safety net' for those unfortunates. It is that system that, in order to avoid taxes (i.e., social responsibility) the right has chosen to attack.

Unfortunately for Republicans, a pattern has emerged which allows us to track the viability of these competing philosophies: the last two Democratic administrations saw economic improvement over the course of their presidencies, the last two Republican administrations saw gradual economic decay. This administration is off and running to repeat the mistakes of its predecessor Republicans, despite assurances from Trump during the campaign that he was Not going to make those specific mistakes (cutting taxes for the rich and going after safety net programs). Too bad he didn't listen to his gut on that one.

Your ideology blinds you to the laws of economics and to an understanding of how the real world functions.

The price of labor (which determines the wages of the "working poor", to whom you refer), is determine by the laws of supply and demand, the same way the price of bread and butter in the grocery store is determined.

As long as people are free to leave any job where they consider themselves underpaid and offer their time and skills to other employers, NOBODY, rich or otherwise , has the power to control the price of labor in the marketplace.

The reason those "working poor" don't earn a "living wage" is because they don't have the talent or the skills to hold productive jobs, NOT because the rich people are too greedy to pay higher wages.

Keeping up with costs of living etc. and/or paying minimum wage as it was in the 1970's, min wage would be over $20/hour.

Once upon a time the job of Speaker of the House was THE plum job in DC, a job that many said was more powerful than the presidency itself. The Speaker is third in line to the presidency, and in complete control of the nation's expenditures. Past Speakers like Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Bob Dole, Tip O'Neill and even Newt Gingrich could, and did, negotiate with presidents of both parties on a peer-to-peer level. Even discounting the aggravation caused by the 'ungovernables', that's a lot of power to just walk away from.

But as Ryan (and Boehner before him) came to realize, the landscape of Republican politics has shifted. Republicans don't look to their leadership for cues anymore - that mantle has been picked up by Fox News which, if we're to believe one recent defector, has become a 'cult of personality' centered on Trump, who seems to take his own cues from the foreign-owned news network himself.

Indeed, not since William Randolph Hearst pushed America into the Spanish-American war a little over a century ago has a single non-governmental entity wielded so much influence over US policy making.

As it stands now, if Ryan really wants to influence the direction of the national debate on the GOP side, he needs to take the job of executive producer for "Fox and Friends". That would at least have more effect than his unheeded entreaties to his fellow lawmakers to 'work together' towards big goals.

Hopefully the GOP corruption that is being laid bare, step by step, will taint him for the rest of his life and destroy any chance of a political comeback.