Walter Frick — Welfare Makes America More Entrepreneurial

Research shows that when governments provide citizens with economic security, they embolden them to take more risks.

Opposite the popular view on the right that animals only hunt when they are hungry and the hungrier they are he harder they hunt, so starving the poor will motivate them to get off their duffs right quick.

The Atlantic — Business
Welfare Makes America More Entrepreneurial
Walter Frick

ht Mark them at Economist's View

British government getting ready to use water cannons against the very citizens it's stealing from

Britain has purchased a bunch of  water cannons to use on its citizens should they decide to protest the dismantling of their social safety nets or otherwise wholesale looting of their wages, pensions, education, health care and housing.

(Here in the U.S. law enforcement doesn't pussy foot around with water cannons. Police departments have tanks.)

This would be the first time ever that Britain has employed these devices. More humane, perhaps, than teargas and rubber bullets or outright head smashing with batons some would say. What's not humane or moral or just is the  policy of granting massive welfare benefits to the rich and big business in the form of tax breaks, privatizations and interest payments.

Let's also not forget the total immunity that is given to the financial predators (i.e. the entire class of finance capitalists) who are routinley caught rigging markets, trading on inside information or, blowing up the economy with outrageous speculative bets, leaving poor stiff working class British taxpayers on the hook. (Some of the very same taxpayers who will be on the receiving end of those water cannons.)

And, yes, the spending cuts and austerity "needed" to make the predators whole are nothing more than tax increases on the working class and poor.

But, hey, at least those downtrodden masses won't be dirty. They'll get a nice shower from the water cannons.

karoli — Obamacare Is Right-Wing Proxy For Social Security and Medicare

Despite all the sound and fury about Obamacare, here's the truth: It's not the prime target of the right. The real targets are Medicare and Social Security, as Rep. Barton admits in the video above when he says he wants "real reforms in entitlements".

Over the past couple of weeks, it's become apparent to me and many others that this entire showdown is not over Obamacare. The ACA is a convenient patsy because it is new, untested, and they've managed to poison public opinion around it over the past three years.
The real target is Social Security and Medicare. From a political standpoint, waging a war using those programs as hostage would be so wildly unpopular no sane or insane politician would dare choose that route. And so Obamacare has become the convenient stand-in, a cardboard stand-in for their real goals.

As Diane noted in her post here, the New York Times published an exposé showing how this strategy formed over the months since Barack Obama's re-election. As usual, it was financed and formed by the Kochs and their right-wing partners. But the Kochs are hardly the only players in this particular round of attacks.

Attacking the safety net from the 'left'

Billionaire Pete Peterson has been instrumental in creating a campaign to kill Social Security and Medicare that gives the appearance of coming from the left. His "FixTheDebt" campaign launched in 2011 was crafted to fool centrists and even those calling themselves liberals into believing there was a crisis afoot that must be fixed.

In many ways, Peterson's astroturf campaign has been far more insidious than the Koch effort, if for no other reason than the way they try to disguise themselves as "independent" and "centrist" with left-leaning roots.

Read the rest. The real rightist agenda and strategy exposed. "Disaster capitalism" as articulated in her eponymous book is the favored tactic of neoliberalism in attacking popular programs. Now they are going for the throat of the welfare state all out in order to replace it with the neoliberal "market state" run by crony capitalism to complete the process of enclosure through privatization in the name of "freedom" (theirs) and "efficiency" (in looting).

Crooks & Liars
Obamacare Is Right-Wing Proxy For Social Security and Medicare
karoli

See also

The Wichita Eagle

Rep. Pompeo: Shutdown is about substantial entitlement reform
Bill Wilson

In a wide-ranging interview, the Republican congressman from Wichita voiced his discomfort with the ongoing shutdown, while dismissing the Oct. 17 debt ceiling deadline set by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew as “not a magical date” and proclaiming that Republicans will agree to raise the debt ceiling when Democrats agree to reform Social Security, Medicare and the president’s signature health care law.

Eric W. Dolan — Progressive warns of ‘nuclear war’ if Democrats back safety net cuts

Progressive warns of ‘nuclear war’ if Democrats back safety net cuts (via Raw Story )

Progressive activists fired a shot across the bow of congressional Democrats on Wednesday, warning them to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or face a primary challenge. Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said Democrats would face a “nuclear war…