truedigger3, December 14 at 8:51 pm,

I heard something the other day on one of the television news programs that there was money being taken out of the Social Security Trust Fund to help the unemployed under the Obama administration; not sure exactly how, but I have given up on Obama doing anything of long term benefit for the Majority Common Population.
 
I voted for Obama and thought Obama might be good for the country, but it is plain that he is involved in furthering the destruction of the social network support of the common population by following the Republicans like a savant.

It is truly sad that the United States as a nation can only have presidential followers that do not choose to use the power of the presidency for the benefit of the nation as a whole, as when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, but rather choose to represent the few corporate and elite capitalists.

Let’s put this issue in simplistic terms.

Profit is a private tax that we pay to corporations. Excessive profit to corporations and individuals is an excessive tax that we all pay for entitlements to wealthy elitists: mansions, luxury cars, designer clothing, parties, travel and all the excesses that come when you have more than what you need. We are all paying for that but we don’t get invited to the party. The difference is that instead of paying the tax to the government we pay it to businesses in the form of excessive profit.

This private tax, profit comes in many forms, for example: it comes in the form of low wages and/or diminishing wages, the lower your wage or income the higher your private tax to the corporations. Just think of it as for every dollar you’re underpaid it’s a dollar that goes into some CEO’s pocket or as a campaign contribution into a politicians pocket. Thus the obscene record profits, “private tax” revenue, which large corporations are making this year. I heard someone say that if minimum wage had kept up with inflation and cost of living that minimum wage would be somewhere around $18/hour. So if that were true and you work for $9/hour somebody is keeping your other $9. So is the income tax credit at the end of the year going to make up for extra $18,720 you would have earned? (9x40x52=18,720) No! You’ll come up short! We’re getting screwed my friends. Of course except for the tax collector, private or public.

Another private tax is higher living expenses which are reflected in higher corporate profits, for example gasoline. Has anybody noticed how gasoline prices are slowly creeping up towards $4/gallon? Where is the outcry? So here we get double wedgies, lower wages and higher living expenses. Where is all this money going? Yep it’s going to the top because I don’t feel the trickle down here.

Geez, people, when are we going stop behaving like cattle being herded to the slaughterhouse? It’s time to break the system!

Taxes=Taxes
Profits=Private Taxes

Wake up people, this is silly talk. Our problems are much bigger than taxes. Democrats and Republicans can’t help you. You will have to help yourself.

“JOIN THE REVOLUTION” - It’s time to do something…

Nothing changes until you Stand Up. We don’t have to live like this anymore. “Spread the News”

Read “Common Sense 3.1” at ( http://www.revolution2.osixs.org )

FIGHT THE CAUSE - NOT THE SYMPTOM

Re: By Dale Headley, December 14 at 7:49 pm ,

Social security, Medicare, and all other social safety nets are destined for the trash bin
of history because nobody wants to help pay for them.
—————————————————————————-

Dale,

I agree with most of your post except that what you said abaout Social Security.
Social Security IS ALREADY PAID FOR.
It has enough funds for benefits until, roughly , the 2040.  After that, small tweaks will keep the programm going for the forseeable future. Rolling backward some of Bush’s obscene tax cuts for the super-rich, instead of keeping them permanent, will do such that.
There is a very devious clever orchestrated campaign to cast doubt on the future of the Social Security program to make it easy to take away from the people.
People will not fight or care for something that is “not viable and has future”

,

Forget the middle, there’s the rich and the commons, as the wealthy have 98% of the wealth of the nation right now, stashed away, because they aren’t using it to benefit the nation, why would anyone think that government borrowing more money to give them will not be stashed away in like manner?  But, apparently the conservative Senate thinks it will, which is unimaginable and will bring further woe to the 70% Majority Common Population of the United States.

I agree with RAE, bring back the wealthy paying 91%.  What good is government except for to manage the ratios of taxes and the nation’s wealth to support the nations population, which can not be only corporations’ CEO’s, the wealthiest elite and wars for private wealth’s interest.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** *    *    *

“The higher one goes up the income scale, the greater the rate of capital accumulation. Economist Paul Krugman notes that not only have the top 20 percent grown more affluent compared with everyone below, the top 5 percent have grown richer compared with the next 15 percent. The top one percent have become richer compared with the next 4 percent. And the top 0.25 percent have grown richer than the next 0.75 percent. That top 0.25 owns more wealth than the other 99 percent combined. It has been estimated that if children’s play blocks represented $1,000 each, over 98 percent of us would have incomes represented by piles of blocks that went not more than a few yards off the ground, while the top one percent would stack many times higher than the Eiffel Tower.”

“Marx’s prediction about the growing gap between rich and poor still haunts the land — and the entire planet. The growing concentration of wealth creates still more poverty.” 

“To grasp the true extent of wealth and income inequality in the United States, we should stop treating the “top quintile” — the upper-middle class — as the “richest” cohort in the country.

*******

“More importantly, both the Rand and Brookings studies fail to include the super rich, those who sit on immense and largely inherited fortunes. Instead, the investigators concentrate on upper-middle-class professionals and managers, most of whom earn in the $100,000 to $300,000 range—”

“When pressed on this point, they explain that there is a shortage of data on the very rich.”

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Superrich.html

******

“
Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes. On his blog, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the numbers “truly amazing.”

Though income inequality has been growing for some time, the paper paints a stark, disturbing portrait of wealth distribution in America.

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1687330

********

The $250,000/year figure that Obama toots is not in any way the start of the Super Rich.  Only a Million and up could in any way be counted as Super Rich Elite Capitalists, and all the rest of the population is the 70% Majority Common Population.  It is amazing how that the Millionaires, Billionaires and Trillionaires are always left out of the Economic Scale when figuring taxes, and that they are always the ones that need tax relief while they are piling in the loot.  Give me a break.

Imagine what McCain would have done and consider Obama in this light. You might not be as impressed as you would have liked to be at this point - but consider the alternative. You’d all pretty much have nothing else to do with your time other than make comments on blog posts like this one while your non-existent unemployment benefits continued to never come.

By truedigger3, December 14 at 12:41

truthdigger3,

HAHAHA!!!  Really? Don’t you see the future?  The human race will die.  Talk about
birth control.  Putting condoms on the slaves will do little to free them from the
tyranny of the global empire.

By MaxShields, December 13 at 8:15 pm

Max,

You ignored the obvious 1000 pounds Elephant in the room which is the dire need for birth control world wide.
Planet earth cann’t provide decent life for 7 billions people and counting.
IMHO, this very urgent, but mostly ignored because it is not politically correct.
Overpopulation are pushing people to destroy the resources that sustained them, just to survive.  For example cutting down forests for firewood and may be an extra piece of land for cultivation, but doing that they are exposing themsleves to severe droughts,  severe floods,  potential mudslides and eventually starvation without external help which will not keep coming forever.
In the industralized world there are not enough jobs for all these people anymore, growth or no growth.!

I agree with Paul Miller (Dec 11) “...When the tax rate is 91 percent, people will look for ways not to be in the bracket.”

Precisely. When I was running my one man band I soon learned to carefully LIMIT my income so that it was balanced by my expenses with the result that little or no tax was payable each year. My standard of living didn’t change one bit from when I was an employee paying in the 30-40% bracket. I got really, really tired of being used and abused by governments who literally stole my money. The harder I worked the more they deducted to play with. I decided that if anyone was going to waste my hard earned dollars it was going to be me. At the end of ten years I was no further ahead and no further behind.

Of course, this approach requires a sensible, grounded philosophy of life. I didn’t need or want a million dollar house with swimming pool, a Caddy or BMW, Gucci shoes or world cruises. Let those who think they must have these things work their asses off to earn ridiculous sums so those at the government troughs can play. I believe that some of these pathetic souls actually think that “he who has the most toys when he dies, wins” and that they CAN actually take it with them.

I vote to bring back the 91% bracket along with plugging all the loopholes so that those, such as baseball players (of all the useless “professions”) who are paid $5-10 million PER YEAR. Ten percent of that would be a REASONABLE salary. All the rest should automatically go to charity, not the government.

“The problem is that the level of uncertainty in the economy is so high that investors and entrepreneurs—not buyers and sellers of stocks on Wall Street but actual investors who build or expand places of work and install new pieces of equipment and machinery in them—have lost confidence in their own ability to predict what a good investment will be.” —Moshe Adler, Truthdig Blog ‘Low Taxes are the Problem, Not the Solution’ Posted Dec. 11, 2010

What is “certainty” and “uncertainty”?

“Certainty” is the establishment of doctrine that can be relied upon to provide “certain” results, and “uncertainty” is a “Free Market Economy” that does not have established doctrine to provide Corporate Welfare and Corporate Socialism to provide the “certainty” of established doctrine.

Free Market Capitalism is “uncertain” when it is not supported by Corporate Welfare and Corporate Socialism, and Free Market Privatized Capitalism is what the Conservative Right-Wing EXTREMIST Republicans that borrowed and spent the U.S. Government into bankruptcy and collapsed the U.S. Economy with financialized Ponzi Schemes, that have continued from the time of Goldwater through Reagan, Bush I and Bush II to the present, have been singing the praises of and acting in the name of, Free Market Privatized Capitalism, and when what they have been preaching collapses, they NOW talk about “certainty”, rather than “Free Market Privatized Capitalism”.

“Certainty” in Corporate Communism with Corporate Welfare and the free ride of “certainty” at public expense and “uncertainty” of the American Populace, the 70% Majority Common Population is at an end for Privatized Capitalism.

Privatized Capitalism has no right to “certainty” at the expense of the American populace, the 70% Majority Common Population of the United States.  The populace have an “uncertain” existence in a creative and dynamic world and live hand to mouth with day to day “uncertainty”, and if Privatized Capitalism wants more than that they will have to provide it for themselves in the same way as the American Populace.

“Survival of the fittest” should be applied to Privatized Capitalism in the same way that Privatized Capitalism has applied “survival of the fittest” to the American Populace, and taxes should be applied to Privatized Capitalism in the same relative high manner “ratio wise” as the American Populace,  and that Privatized Capitalism be forced to get used to the same “uncertainty” as the American Populace, the 70% Majority Common Population of the United States.

Devon J. Noll, MPA, December 13 at 6:34 pm

You obviously did not read my comment. There are solutions but they don’t follow the one Mr. Adler is alluding to…which is do what we’ve been doing just don’t extend the Bush tax cuts.

That’s not the solution to a healthy and flourishing society. My proposal is the roll back our economics of growth and consumption. To do this with care, but to do it because we, frankly have no choice. Either we will plan carefully to reduce our consumption of resources and emission of CO2, or there will be an inevitable collapse which will be like nothing we in the US have ever experience, including the Great Depression.

This is not a pessimistic picture if we begin to realize that we cannot sustain the kind of economics that we religiously follow - regardless of if it is a liberal or conservative (whatever those terms really mean). In the US the holy grail is GROWTH and to get GROWTH Americans need to consume and consume and consume. To get that happening we need to have MONEY to BUY and BUY and BUY… (you get my drift).

But the resources required for all of this buying are limited and what it takes to make and ship this endless growth of products damages the environment that supports life on the planet. So our little woes about enough jobs become rather trite in the end.

However, with planning we can actually have people living lives of prosperity and meaning…on a community and individual basis and with a reduction in work hours, carefully adjusted we can begin to help provide jobs for the unemployed and underemployed while the OVERworked and highly stressed employed will begin to shift those countless hours of 60, 70, 80 hour (inhuman) work weeks become less and allow them to re-join their family, friends, and community.

Obviously there is much more to this. It is not a panacea (nothing is); BUT it is a plan and it can be a great improvement to the alienation most in this country feel on a daily basis. (Look into Herman Daly, Peter Victor and Tim Jackson to get a better understanding of this powerful and helpful alternative.)

By Devon J. Noll, MPA, December 13 at 6:34 pm
“Now, what is singularly missing are any workable solutions.”

You’ve identified our conditions all right, as well as wondering about the solutions. I think you identified one of them with the suggestion on returning to the 1950s tax rates. Now, without there being a period of extremely austere living, no solutions are possible. And that includes EVERY citizen. We need to rid the country of illegals to extent possible. We need to get the monies out of the off-shore accounts. We need to get rid of the two wars post haste. And the list of things goes on and on.

Here’s what Moody says about what we’re doing with the tax cuts:

Moody’s May Cut US Rating on Tax Package
Moody’s warned Monday that it could move a step closer to cutting the U.S. Aaa rating if President Obama’s tax and unemployment benefit package becomes law.
Moody’s estimates the tax bill could cost up to $900 billion.

The plan agreed to by President Obama and Republican leaders last week could push up debt levels, increasing the likelihood of a negative outlook on the United States rating in the coming two years, the ratings agency said.

I think we’re in a Humpty Dumpty circumstance, and all the king’s horses, and all the king’s men…and the gods, and the people are going to have a helluva time trying to straighten out this mess.

And furthermore, this B.S. being touted about getting everyone through college is a fruitless exercise as attested to by this article from “ChinaNews.net”...

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/jobs/Chinas-army-of-graduates-struggles-for-good-jobs/articleshow/7091033.cms

It is a remarkable achievement, yet for a government fixated on stability such figures are also a cause for concern. The economy, despite its robust growth, does not generate enough good professional jobs to absorb the influx of highly educated young adults. And many of them bear the expectations of their parents, who emptied bank accounts to buy them the good life that a higher education is presumed to guarantee.

“College essentially provided them with nothing,” said Zhang Ming, a political scientist. “For many young graduates, it’s all about survival. If there was ever an economic crisis, they could be a source of instability.”

Low taxes, high taxes, no taxes, so what.  The richest
1% of us hold wealth valued at $16.8 trillion.  That’s
$2 trillion more than 90% of us.

The tax burden on the richest 1% of us fell 36%
compared to what they would have owed in ‘77 while
families in the very middle of the income ladder
experienced a 7% increase in their tax burden.  So, let
the rich increase their profits by lowering their tax
burden but must it be done at the expense of the rest
of us?

If one holds, as I do, that our economics of growth are unsustainable and uneconomical, than pretty all that Mr. Adler proposes is problematic.

Employing people in a growth based economy is problematic and we can draw a direct correlation to the depletion of natural (and artifically cheap) resources essential to keep the consumer based economy going. Additionally there is just not enough meaningful work for the work-age population without significant reducing the work week and employing more people for less. We need to re-think our definition of prosperity in a world that is limited. Endless growth, which I suspect Mr. Adler sees as the premise of recovery is just not doable. So fixing infrastructure for the automobile is one example of investing in a deadend industrial economy. Mr. Adler and most neo-classical economists from academia have been trained in endless growth, and the economic engine of consumption. These are at bottom the PROBLEM. Sub-prime and the rest is all driven by this mantra. In fact, the failures, greed, etc. of Wall Street and the Big Banks are ALL premised on the same faith in endless growth and consumption.

So Mr. Adler’s prescription while somewhat Keynsian and liberalish, is really the cause of what we have. Until we face this dilemma, that we have an unsustainable economy that is quickly losing speed, and is veering toward global and ecological destruction, we’re never going to move the “ball”.

As Mr. Miller notes regarding taxes: taxes on electic income and investment can and is hidden from the Tax Man. Taxing income is problematic. Tax unearned wealth and you can in fact begin to slow the economy and create a different more human fulfilling, and less materialistically/consumer-based economy and thus a new found PROSPERITY.

Otherwise, Mr. Adler is just providing the other side of the same coin; and the problem worsens.

Are you sick and tired of fools expecting Obama will wake up and find himself and become our hero in time to save the day?  I sure am.  Nader has it nailed.  “Obama is a Con Man”.

This is now absolutely undeniable.  Flowery, feel warm inside populist speeches to the people are followed by instant subservience to moneyed interests, and passage of objectionable contrary legislation.  The Health Care Debacle was a slow motion disaster and a symbol of Obamas campaign promise betrayals.  The Bush Tax Cut Extension is a new bottom showing Obama is not afraid to reach ever lower levels of depravity.  Look at the outrageous face value of what this MF is trying to sell his subjects.  There is a ticking clock on the Republicans precious tax cut, their very reason for being.  Obama does not use this opportunity to pressure the Republicans for concessions.  Instead he formulates a plan with them that extends the tax cuts and throws in the sweetner of 5 million $ estate tax!  Furthermore, his team expects to get a majority of Republicans to vote for the bill and only needs a limited number of Democrats to go along with it for passage.  We have irrefutable evidence that Obama is a Con Man.  Everyone needs to get real about this traitorous SOB.

The times and circumstances call for unconventional action as the path open to us. We really need to shut the country down.

We all need stop paying mortgages so to bring the bankers to their knees. Same with all credit cards. Overwhelm the legal system. Break the economy.

We all need to stop paying health insurance premiums as to bankrupt healthcare insurance companies. Flood the emergency rooms and demand service. Break the system.

We need to surround the Supreme Court with massive rallies. Surround the building and shut it down. Pelt Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy with rotten eggs. Make it impossible for them to function until they realize that the ire of the masses demands the overturn of Citizens United.

Basically shut down the country. General strike on everything from healthcare to the minimum wage, It’s the only way.

Ahh! But we know that is not going to happen because just as our child president has demonstrated that he is a coward he is only a reflection of the country at large. “We the people” have turned into masses of wimps that can be manipulated and herded like sheep. We as a people are too cowardly to stand up for ourselves just liker our president. God forbid we rock the boat on the pathetic subsistence that is dictated to us by the plutocratic oligarchy.

Where is the moral equivalent of a man who can continue asking young men into an illegal war to die but can not imagine asking Americans to sacrifice? Sure the unemployed are among the most impoverished of us but so are those young men that spill their blood on the dirt of Afghanistan and Iraq. How can that not pain him more than the unemployed losing their checks for a few weeks? Why can the 99ers lose their unemployment and this president sits idly by and does nothing? How can he make a life or death decision in one instance and not make the other which does not ask for one to go spill their blood on a battlefield?

Not only have I lost faith in Obama but I’ve lost faith in my fellow citizens. Can someone reach the point where they no longer love their country? Can someone reach the point where given the resources to emigrate they would? Yes definitely, it’s been happening for centuries. That’s how most of us wound up in the Americas if we weren’t brought here as slaves or descended from the indigenous populations. Where to though? Canada? No, too close, you would still be poisoned by the toxic politics of the US.

Australia sounds attractive, far away with much more to offer than the US.

Yes Australia seems like the best country in the world right now. Or maybe Norway or Sweden, sure I’ll freeze my ass off but hey what the heck. You got to sacrifice something. Sacrifice, an alien term here in the US.

The 70% Majority Common Populace of the United States will be much better off if the government give away to the wealthiest in the nation is allowed to die.

The wealthiest of the nation have manipulated by hook and by crook through their lobbyists and bought DLC conservative politicians to abscound with 98% of the wealth of the nation, already; and they are NOT putting that money back into the economy, rebuilding infrastructure and making jobs; or the unemployment rate would not be consistently going up, therefore it would be suicide for the liberal Democrats to give any more of the nation’s money to the rich expecting them to help the populace, they won’t.  They have enough already to help with if they want to help.

The Professional Middle Class Republican toadies are no longer members of the Common Populace—they separated as a class and culture and are represented by the DLC, representing themselves as the Middle Class and taking away by all possible means, every last inkling of support for the common population and like a fire sale, routing it to themselves and the wealthiest of the nation.  The people must reject this type of government.

NO MORE GIVE AWAYS OF FREELY BORROWED MONEY from the communists in CHINA to the wealthiest of the United States, who have given the Chinese, Indians, and low economy foreigners the jobs the United States population had before the deregulation of all financial safety nets and the issuance of the NAFTA, CAFTA, and all other Trade Agreements that further deindustrialize and financialize the United States into financialization for the wealthiest and their toadies at the expense of the common populace, whose children for generations will be destitute paying this money back, because the wealthy are insuring that they are not going to be the ones who pay any of it back, it will be paid out of the sweat of the 70% Majority Common Population, who are not the Middle Class.

Bill Clinton said he didn’t know he was destroying the nation when he signed into effect NAFTA, but he did, he is a former DLC leader, representing the 20% Professional Middle Class that separated from the Common Population.  He knew what he was doing then, just as he and Obama know what they are doing now, which is not in the best interest of the common population.

Adler says that despite the Bush tax cuts, we still have high unemplyoment. Fair enough. But what do we have to show for the Obama stimulus, sold to us as perfect for all those “shovel ready” infrastructure projects out there?

For me it’s simple. Every dollar taken out of the private economy by government is a dollar that can’t be spent by a consumer, or used by a company to hire an employee.
***************

Rico, I like the way you think, even when you are wrong. Note: Nobody here thinks Obama’s stim pack has fixed unemployment.  But it has stopped the bleeding.

You forget one key factor of the 8 years of Bush. Those dollars given back to the wealthiest Americans weren’t re-invested.  They didn’t open the new businesses that opened, and they didn’t invest in them.  In fact, the money was as effectively drained from the system as if the Treasury had burned those billions in their official incinerators.

Look at your numbers a little differently. Take that $305/week the avg unemployed gets. That’s $15,860/year.

Now take the average tax cut for the wealthiest 5% of Americans—it averages out at $85,000/year.

Now $15,860 goes into $85,000 5.4 times.

It’s not hard to see that the $85,000 going to each rich person (5% of the population) could support 5.4 times that many people on unemployment—26.8%.  Since about 10% are actually collecting benefits, that means we are going to spend the other 16.8% beyond what we need to fund unemployment.

Thus when the heartless (and they are heartless) Republicans said they wouldn’t extend benefits unless something was cut, it never occurred to them that the most OBVIOUS thing to cut was raising the deficit to fund that tax break for the top 5%!

The title to this article begs the question so what is the solution?  So let’s go have
us a good ol’ fashioned sit-down strike… but how is THAT even possible when all
the manufacturing sector has been disappeared and the unions dissolved? 
Hmm…  seems like the sit-down found its new home in front of the fucking
television!!!!  So the potato head consumers need to find a new strike method,
frankly a new way to get rid of the corporate model.  Here’s a challenge to y’all:
stop buying anything that’s made in China or anywhere else outside the United
States!  I also extend this challenge to Sanders himself.  I’m calling him out.

Good old Senator Bernie Sanders.

Who did he support for Prez? Oh yeah. Never mind the corporate healthcare bill.

Kabuki Theatre at it’s finest.

So what does the good Senator from Vermont tell us to do?

Work with the Democratic Party.

Where progressive politics and movements go to die.

rico,
“For me it’s simple. Every dollar taken out of the private economy by government is a dollar that can’t be spent by a consumer, or used by a company to hire an employee”

Maybe this is your problem.  Something completely wrong you without question view as reality.  Government stimulus is well proven to work.  Dollars spent by the government enter what is called the Money Supply and are spent by the consumer, get it?  Pre-WWII Germany was probably the most potent example of government spending stimulating an economy.  How is it that you are blind or in denial of the most obvious facts?

Why say the uncertainty of which Adler speaks was caused by the subprime mortgage crisis, when we see a chain of crises leading up to it?  The primary crisis (as far back as I have traced it) began with the government’s decisions to expand credit, beginning in the 1980s, and greatly stepped up in the last ten years.  This caused a lot of funny money to be generated, which in turn drove the hypertrophy of derivatives, dubious mortgages, and middle-class equity borrowing.

During the same period we also observed the deindustrialization of the United States and increasing disparities between the income and net worth of the rich, and everybody else.  If the ordinary people are not making money, there is no one for businesses to sell to.  Hence neither low taxes nor stimulus spending are going to make a lot of difference.

Additional government intervention and regulation may well add to the uncertainty, because it will not be in response to broad economic conditions, which everyone can observe, but due to the inner workings of the minds of a few secretive, arrogant people who do not appear to know what they’re doing.  Who knows, from day to day, which way they will jump?

In any case, putting the U.S. on what used to be called a sound financial basis would be too painful for the inmate of any elected office.  So I suppose events must just take their course.

Of course low taxes are the problem: look at California. When the rich and the mega rich can get their tame poodles in the political elite to cut their taxes it puts the tax burden on the workers and the working poor. A burden they wouldn’t have to bear if those with the means would only pay their fair share of taxes. Instead they get tax lawyers to find ways for them not to pay their taxes. ‘The lights are going out all over Europe’ has become ‘The streetlights are going out all over America’. And all of it self-inflicted. Pathetic and tragic.

Conden:

“...we need less BS.”

Yes. We do.

Yes, we do need higher taxes on the richest people at the top; and we need to give the IRS the manpower and authority to go after the rich tax-dodgers and enforce a truly progressive tax code.  We need to tax capital gains, inheritance, and penalize corporations who outsource.  In fact, we need to get rid of the corporate model, in favor of worker-owned cooperatives.  The government can spend this new tax money on reducing carbon on a massive scale, creating high-speed national rail and local public transportation at low cost to users; single-payer healthcare, guaranteed housing, free college and/or vocational training to all, can be enacted, and local, organic, small-scale agriculture can be invested in by the government. 

We don’t need less taxes, we need less BS.

Big B:

“ridgid [sic] central control by a true government of the people is the only way out of this mess. Higher taxes, more regulation, forcing corporations to be reponsible citizens, is the only way to go.”

Please tell me you’ve been smoking.

The Obama tax proposal is that the United States “borrow [on CREDIT] 700 Billion dollars” that is “hidden taxes” that will accrue interest that is also “hidden taxes”, as a strategy to avoid raising taxes on the wealthiest 10% of the population; how is this practice construed to be a tax cut?  This Obama Proposal is NOT a tax cut. This Obama Proposal is a “tax increase” of 700 Billion Dollars plus interest.

Freddy:

“Yo, fuck Sanders, that backstabbing prick.”

Whoa big guy! Have a martini and chill.

Adler is certainly correct that uncertainty is unsettling to Wall Street and big business. But a tax increase isn’t necessary to eliminate the uncertainty.

And, needless to say, I disagree that the government’s ability to create wealth is equal to or better than that of the private sector. Yes we need infrastructure improvement and it should be undertaken. High college tuition is a straw man. Since when is a college education an entitlement that is suffering for funding? Whether or not it should be is an argument for another day.

Adler says that despite the Bush tax cuts, we still have high unemplyoment. Fair enough. But what do we have to show for the Obama stimulus, sold to us as perfect for all those “shovel ready” infrastructure projects out there?

For me it’s simple. Every dollar taken out of the private economy by government is a dollar that can’t be spent by a consumer, or used by a company to hire an employee.

I heard a talking head defend the extension of unemployment benefits by saying that ALL of that money will be spent on necessities by the unemployed and stimulate the economy thereby, which is quite probably true. He went on to say that the wealthy will stuff their tax cuts under a mattress and that money will be taken out of the economy thereby aggravating the current situation. Which demonstrates to me that he is clueless about how wealth is created.

Unemployment insurance is what, $350 a week? What is the ratio of the “insured unemployed” to those making above $250,000 in this country? Let’s say it’s equal. And let’s say keeping the tax cuts for those people allows them to keep $350 a week in tax savings. If you had a choice to spend the money now or invest it in a new employee who could help me make it worth $400 per week, what would you do? It’s a golden goose scenario. The unemployed guy has no choice- $350 is $350, period. But someone who has the flexibility to use that marginal $350 to hire someone will benefit the economy far better.

When viewed through lawyer logic, which is what
informs Obama’s thinking, the deal he struck with the
Republicans probably makes sense.

When viewed through the principle of social justice,
which is what informs most readers of this site, the
deal he struck with the Republicans is a cowardly
capitulation.

This episode has been more revealing on the state of
our political life as a country than any incidence
that has occurred in recent memory.

To have President readily admit that he has made a
decision based not on principle but on political
necessity, because of the “hostage-like” corner that
the opposing political party had placed him in, will
leave future historians/social scientist fertile
subject matter for many years to come.

Queenie:

“Up with protectionism! Down with globalization!”

So much for “We are the World!” And to think conservatives were worried about one-worldism. You sound like Pat Buchanan.

Of course America should return to Eisenhower era marginal tax rates.  But there is no political will sufficient to do it.  At the moment, the left wants to raise taxes on the rich and the right wants to raise taxes on low wage earners, the mythical 47% they falsely claim who pay no taxes now.  But good policy dictates raising taxes on everyone.  Only in that way will the government be able to provide civilized services and conditions for everyone including the disadvantage.

The Roosevelt-Truman-Eisenhower era taxes were just a part of a finely honed set of policies that worked well for America.  But gradually the New Deal governmental structure was dismantled, often with the collaboration of the left.  Amongst the first to go was Fair Trade legislation that eventually made it possible for Walmart and Asian made crap to displace smaller American stores and ship jobs overseas.  Then Kennedy lowered marginal rates.  (The importance of high marginal rates is not only to collect money, but more importantly to allow democratic leverage over investment decisions through the tax code.)  Finally under Carter deregulation began to be implemented while under Reagan contracting out government work became a fad. 

Without a net of policies mandating fixed reasonable prices, marginal rates high enough to convince companies to invest for the national good, strong rational regulations along with a motivated civil service there is not much use to just willy-nilly lower or raise taxes on any segment of America.

So I’m reading that this tax deal will give someone earning $50,000 an extra thousand.  It means that in exchange for peanuts, the Republicans get a foot in the door to dismantling Social Security and Medicare.  The super rich get to keep billions while the rest of us continued to get screwed.  It’s time for revolution, folks.

FAT FRED is no greater or lesser asshole than any other genius posting on TRUTHDIG. A transparent Federal Reserve would benefit us all. Anyone thinking the “gold sacks” Wall Street boys don’t collude and manipulate has been asleep a long time. True, Government can and should provide social benefit, but ours is compromised and rotten to the core. SOTEXGUY pretty much illustrated the nature of the MSM propagandist spin that ensures open discussion of real solution never happens. Tax? Less money is not more money. Average Americans are beaten senseless and living on the financial brink. The rich buy $5000.00 shower curtains. The greatest economy in the World has been destroyed by thugs wrapped in the American Flag. The only viable place for citizen action is major Campaign Finance Reform to remove $$$$$$ and revolving door placement of “corporate fixers” in key Government positions. The poster who voiced the reality that even if good policy was instituted the weasels in Washington would subvert it was spot on.

    FAT FREDS consistent opinion, that the less dependence the citizen has on Government the better, is borne out by our present reality. America can experience total financial collapse and the rich are unaffected while the poor lose everything and must turn to Government to survive. Wasn’t it Rethuglican Government that just used the lives of the unemployed as a bargaining chip? (Guess you non-voters showed them.)

      To argue Government finance and taxation is fantasy when honest Government has been replaced by a criminal oligarchy. GCC and the War (“occupations”) are THE actual drivers of our economic collapse. The finacial impact of the BP Gulf spill and the huge loss of revenue to the Wars isn’t allowed MSM discussion. You should note that the hogs are starting to spin Gen. Petraeus. Are you ready?

ff; f u

should people who have more pay more? that’s a tough
call, almost like saying from those to whom much has
been given, much is expected. we can’t have that. what
next, people doing unto others as they would have
others do unto them? it’s a slippery slope toward
caring for one another. happily, that will never happen
in america.

mrfreeze has it right.  The overwhelming proportion
of the income of capitalists is devoted to investment
in financial instruments.  Their guru, Friedman, said
outright that corporations had no business engaging
in socially beneficial acts.  They have no social
responsibility, being only responsible for making as
much profit as possible. To hell with a suffering
Main Street.

Giving the lie to some of Mr. Adler’s argument, the
expansion of debt and speculation that characterized
the US economy (and advanced capitalism as a whole)
during the 1960’s represented the main means by which
the system managed to avoid sinking into a deep slump
WHILE NOT enabling it to overcome the stagnation of
the ‘real’ economy.  A supporting truth of successful
capitalism is we create wealth by making things.  But
if more wealth is created by investing in financial
instruments, to hell with ‘successful’capitalism and
forget investing in research and development in the
‘real’ economy.

Obviously, Mr. Adler is not a Keynesian who said that
when a business cycle peaks and starts the downward
slide, one must increase federal spending, cut taxes
and lower short-term interest rates - to increase the
money supply and expand credit.  The demand
stimulated by deficit spending and cheap money will
thus prevent a recession.  (A little late for that
now, granted, but the principle does hold water.)

Eisenhower! Ah, one of the few honest men in government!

Not much good can happen today, with government representatives on the payroll of corporations! Of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations! The slime balls in Washington can’t even repeal DADT - the most idiotic policy in US history!

Yes, the entire system is upside down, now! Without a revolution, we (and the planet) are toast!

The Rethuglicans are not for lower taxes or deficit reduction or smaller government.. Those, along with things like the sanctity of marriage! .. the rights of the unborn! .. take my gun from my cold dead hands! and more are their talking points. Things they say to fire up or placate their base of voters.. depending on the day of the week (and the particular sleight of hand in play).

The Democrats have their own list of issue-based speaking, much of it in stark contrast to what the ‘other party’ is saying. Again, things which attract and motivate the core group of voters they pretend to represent. All the while they conspire to do mostly the same stuff as their counterparts across the aisle and especially to stay in office.

Comparisons between voters and what voters want or like or dislike, left or right, are continually graphed and discussed and hashed out in the media.. All pointless in my opinion because non-partisan polling almost always shows Americans largely in agreement over most everything! ... after all we are all Americans and face the same challenges and opportunities and want mostly the same things for ourselves and our kids. Though the talking heads rarely point that out.

One widening gap or difference between solid Republican or right-leaning voters and progressive Democrats is that increasingly the Democratic base isn’t buying it! .. while many Republicans are digging in and putting on the blinders about what their party is up to..

The fight over the tax code and tax rates for the very wealthy is just a game for TV (blogs too I guess).. The top rate will go up!.. or it will go down! The way things go will not change.. those in charge will tinker with the tax code in other ways to allow the same types of businesses and the same people to continue to prosper handsomely.. and for the rest of us to continue to pay for the party..

If the goal of either party or the President or the Fed was to achieve fairness in taxation (or to balance the budget) the IRS code would be a few dozen pages.. most everybody would pay the same rate and there would be very few exemptions or deferments or (make a list for tax-dodging) .. except maybe for the very poor. Anyway, that’s not the goal of those in charge..

Right now, I would say all the talk about the income tax rules for the super rich and the ‘death tax’ and all that shouting and tongue wagging is to distract us from a real answer.. an across-the board TAX ON FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS. That would raise a lot of revenue.. AND make it less attractive to be moving mountains of money all over the place all the time..

But for sure time is about run out for that chance.. since public anger over this Depression has been cleverly diverted to those Socialists in the White House, the rights for sexual freedoms in our military, the long-term unemployed not having money for a Christmas tree.. that dastardly Aussie-Swedish rake who has shown us our dirty underpants.. and did the younger Cyrus really take bong hits?!

So we won’t be really proposing or even talking about such taxes or assessments.. that would amount to real policy! (not just more talking and shouting) Policy targeting real problems.. and policy that could well raise revenue and reduce the deficit without further burdening the work of average Americans.

Adios!

The phony idea that lowering taxes will increase govt revenue is based on the deliberate mis-interpretation of something called the Laffer Curve.  Laffer made the fairly obvious graph that if taxation levels are 0% then revenue (from taxation) is also zero.  He then argued that if taxation is 100%, so the govt takes ALL your income, then revenue will also be zero—why work for nothing?

And clearly, when the tax rate is higher than 0% government revenue will be positive.

Yet, at some point, the dis-incentive becomes SO great that the revenue level falls again.  That point is called a Turning Point.

In the style of economists modeling, Laffer drew the curve as a smooth curve. This is normal when you don’t actually know the function describing the curve.  But then the GOP and Reagan and Laffer, in the GREAT DECEPTION decided that the Turning Point, as indicated on the arbitrary curve, was below 50% (at least 50% would be a logical inference).

THEY HAD NO DATA!  The Turning Point by all indications was much, much higher—I’m guessing between 70 & 90% (but that’s just a guess).

What happened was easily predictable.  Taxes went down and revenue went down and the deficit ballooned.  It has EVERY TIME taxes have been lowered.  As pointed out, it wasn’t the tax cuts that saved the economy, it was Volcker at the Fed, despite the tax cuts.

And the kicker was they KNEW it was a phony.  David Stockman, that same David Stockman, said so publicly and Reagan was FURIOUS.  Stockman said at the time “He took me to the woodshed” a metaphor for where fathers took mis-behaving sons to whip their ass raw in an attempt to beat some sense into them.  All Stockman did was tell the truth: Reagan’s tax cuts were a phony, always a phony excuse just to help the richest Americans.

Every time the deficit balloons the economy stalls and founders or even, as now, collapses.  And who pays? The tens of millions who lose their jobs.  I’ve been there and hope to avoid being there again.

Tax cuts to the wealthiest will sink us.  I’m not even convinced there should be tax cuts at all although I realize that those at the bottom of the income scale, and those on unemployment will be hurt the most.

The worst is, the tax burden won’t go away.  We already know that. It merely gets shifted to the states and local communities.  Soon we will have surtaxes to maintain our local schools, police and FDs, or our property tax rates will increase (as the value of our houses falls) to compensate.

For the wealthiest, these increases will be FAR offset by the windfall from the tax cut—-$100,000/year on average for everyone making over $1,000,000.  Since the local tax increases aren’t income-based, they fall disproportionately on those with less.

While Republicans, “Conservatives” and right-wingers rail against PROgressive taxation, they all seem to be totally in favor of REgressive taxation.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

Psychologically, lower taxes for the wealthy breeds complaisance. We learn through adverstiy by overcoming it. If taxes are raises moderately, it, counterintuitively, acts as an incentive. The wealthy strive to maintain or increase their financial holdings. When taxes are lifted they respond with new ideas and innovative concepts, some of which creates new jobs. IOW, they get off their fat butts and go to work.

If you feed a pig too much it will wallow in its own refuse.

The key is to find the level of taxation that spurs and not stifles the beast.

I want Bernie for President in 2012!

MontyPDX, December 12 at 4:58 am

Thank you for your effort and I hope to read more of your work here.

..................

I applaud Sanders efforts but regret that he chose to work with Democrats his entire career when, as a true Independent, he might have worked to grow third party presence in our legislature.

Taxes, whether high or low, must be used effectively and economically. Regardless of the rate for any class the monies collected are extravagantly wasted and the apparent source of government contracts is the amount the company in question gave to the campaign coffers of the people deciding upon those contracts.

Further, wars that waste millions per day, wars that simply cannot be won no matter how much profit we pour into the MIC, are killing our economy along with those hundreds of thousands of mostly innocent victims of our greed.

I think at this point everybody knows what the problem consists of:
taxes too low, two expensive wars, financial sector that makes Las Vegas look like a church bingo game, a corporate and moneyed class that dreams of bringing back serfdom, a Supreme Court that considers actual living, breathing, (non-corporate) people 2nd class citizens, a political class that thinks governance is pay as you go (no big check, no law that says everybody has to give you money), a media industry that considers the 4th estate what you get for selling out the public again when you already have 3 estates, an impending climate disaster that makes all the rest insignificant if not acted on.. well, 30 years ago.

The problem is that there is nobody left but you and me, scrambling to survive as the last holdouts in a sold-out world. We can’t depend on the government or the Democrats or anybody else to save the situation.

The question is this: Now that it’s up to us, what are we going to do?

I think at this point everybody knows (though some aren’t saying) what the problem consists of:
taxes at the top too low, two expensive wars, financial sector that makes Las Vegas look like a church bingo game, a corporate and moneyed class that dreams of bringing back serfdom and is well along in implementing that dream, a Supreme Court that considers actual living, breathing, (non-corporate) people 2nd class citizens, a political class that thinks governance is pay as you go (no big check, no law that says everybody has to give you money), a media industry that considers the 4th estate what you get for selling out the public again when you already have 3 estates, an impending climate disaster that makes all the rest insignificant if not acted on.. well, 30 years ago.

The problem is that there is nobody left but you and me, scrambling to survive as the last holdouts in a sold-out world. We can’t depend on the government or the Democrats or anybody else to save the situation.

The question is this:
Now that it’s up to us, what are we going to do?

“Through the 1984 election, the old guard earnestly tried to control the deficit, rolling back about 40 percent of the original Reagan tax cuts. But when, in the following years, the Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, finally crushed inflation, enabling a solid economic rebound, the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts.
***
It is not surprising, then, that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1 percent of Americans — paid mainly from the Wall Street casino — received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90 percent — mainly dependent on Main Street’s shrinking economy — got only 12 percent. This growing wealth gap is not the market’s fault. It’s the decaying fruit of bad economic policy.

David Stockman – Reagan OMB director

You know, FF, sometimes you just have to face reality.  The constant rising deficit, which began with Bush’s tax cuts in 2001, combined with total deregulation of commercial banking and investment banking in the years following the disaster of the deregulation of savings banking (remember the crash of ‘87? I do!) led to the whole modern financial crisis.

But let’s not forget THE SINGLE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR to the deficit: Bush’s wars.

The first, the Afghan War, was only necessary because Bush ignored EVERY terrorism warning from 20 Jan 2001, to 10 Sept 2001, so they missed ALL the signs that could have prevented 9/11.  Then, rather than committing to that war and FINISHING IT, they pulled the resources for….

The second, the Iraq War.  In this case, many said beforehand (including Jimmy Carter) that this war was totally unnecessary and wouldn’t achieve any of the stated goals.  1.3 trillion dollars later all it’s done is strengthen Iran.

That’s it, folks.  Had we not had these two wars, or even if we had finished the first properly and avoided the second, a MAJOR component of the collapse of our economy wouldn’t have happened.

Plus, it’s fundamental: You don’t lower taxes during a war, in fact, you have to raise them.  If it’s really a justified war (like WWII) people will accept it.  If it’s not, like Viet Nam, people will demand you stop it.

It’s not the only component, but it’s a far bigger one than the phony GOP canard that Barney Frank created the mortgage crisis (and he did while the Dems were in the minority in the House).

10 years have proven that tax decreases, especially to the richest Americans, don’t produce jobs.  No matter how FF slices it, the 8 years of Clinton with tax increases produced 22,000,000 new jobs.  The 8 years of Bush, with tax reductions, produced 1,000,000 new jobs.  So…how many MORE new jobs did the tax cuts produce? NEGATIVE 21,000,000!!!!!!

Taxes to high?  Fine stop the “money pit” wars in Afghanistan, and Iraq and secret war in Pakistan.  Legalize all drugs and release all those in jail and prison for possession of these.  Shut down the 800+ overseas military bases and see if you can think of 12 we really need.

MontyPDX - Don’t worry too much. Fat Freddy is an ass hole. He knows it. He also knows that we know he knows he’s an ass hole. He strikes me as the kind of guy I wouldn’t want watching my back in a good bar fight. So, generally, I ignore his diatribes.

Fat Freddy sarcastically asserts that progressively taxing the rich results in “higher taxes on the most productive members of society”.  Implied in this is that taxes make people less productive and that productivity is necessarily good.  However, nowhere does Fat Freddy define what he means by “most productive” or provide any examples to support his supposed truism.

Consider two people: Jonas Salk and Rupert Murdoch.  Salk developed the vaccine for polio and effectively eliminated a crippling disease that was one of the most feared plagues of the 20th century.  For this work Salk obtained no patent or great personal wealth though it did lead to a medical institute, which he ran.  Rupert Murdoch, on the other hand, used his personal wealth to create a media empire, (Fox etc.) which has dispersed a virus of propaganda and crippled the intellects of half the nation.  Which of these men has been most “productive” in terms of providing something valuable to our society? 

Also implicit in Fat Freddy’s diatribe is the idea that government is inherently evil and has no capacity to do good.  This ignores the vast array of agencies and programs, which make a prosperous, healthy, and civil society possible.  The National Institute of Health, for example, does the great bulk of basic research, which our medical industrial complex refines and converts to create vast personal wealth for its CEO’s and investors.  This is done through a system of patents, which are protected by legal apparatus of the federal government.  Without patent protection, Bill Gates computer programs would have been immediately copied by everyone and distributed freely, reducing him to the status of the average Internet freeware developer.

And then consider the Internet itself.  It is a product of government sponsorship and taxpayer support, a technology without which Fat Freddy and millions of others would be reduced to writing unpublished and probably unpublishable diatribes like Ted Kaczynski.  So, Fat Freddy can thank the government for the opportunity to reach hundreds or perhaps thousands of readers with his pungent, profane and intellectually crippled invective.  Unlike his nemises Moshe Adler and Bernie Sanders, Fat Freddy will undoubtedly inspire a mass movement that will abolish the Federal Reserve and free ordinary people to thrive in the absence taxation and government, just as they do in Somalia.

It should be obvious to anyone with at least half a brain that some of our best
days for most Americans were when marginal tax rates were very high and
some of our worst days (now) are when marginal tax rates are very low.

So with all this evidence, what’s the problem in implementing the solution?

The very rich don’t want to pay higher taxes and their money controls our
lawmakers.  In addition, their money funds a very successful propaganda
campaign (Fox News, Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly) to dupe the peasants
into supporting their agenda.  It’s working.  Even on this site numerous
comments from those who have been propagandized by the very rich
pathetically spew the nonsense they have been duped into believing.

I believe the charade is so well entrenched at this point that the only way out is
for the whole thing to implode.  Too low taxes on the very rich will have
destroyed our country for everyone but a lucky few.  Eventually, they too will go
down with the ship.

Now that we have heard the most recent ravings of our local libretarian lunatic Fat Freddy and his wonderful world of no taxes, no laws, and no oversite, where the rich will drag all of us less fortunate shlubs up from our primeval ooze to live a life of luxury and decadence. You know, the kind of life people lead in other libretarian utopias, like Somalia and Nigeria.

Now that we have that bullshit out of the way… ridgid central control by a true government of the people is the only way out of this mess. Higher taxes, more regulation, forcing corporations to be reponsible citizens, is the only way to go.

All other roads will lead to anarchy or feudalism or facism. We are just too far gone for childish and nieve solutions that have proven in the recent past to be just plain wrong.

It’s amazing there are people out there who still think that Reaganomics will still work. Oh it worked all right. It did exactly what it was supposed to do, redistribute wealth back to the few from the many, and make sure that the many will never have the wherewithall to ever rise up again. Kudos, it worked like a charm.

Well, Mr Adler, spoken like a true Collectivist/Socialist. Yes, we need more government jobs, and higher taxes on the most productive members of society. We need to rob from the rich, and give to the poor. Have you ever heard of the Broken Window Fallacy?

Meanwhile, JP Morgan has cornered the copper market, and it wasn’t even covered on the evening news. How did they manage to do that? Because taxes are too low on the rich? Wrong. All of the trading markets are heavily manipulated by the government and a handful of large investment firms and banks(like JP Morgan). They use techniques like high frequency trading, front running, and naked short selling to manipulate the prices of commodities and stocks. More and more people are beginning to realize this, which is why nobody wants to borrow or invest. Just buy the fucking dip, you fucking idiot. Anybody can make money. When you devalue the currency, the prices of stocks go up, and the government and the Fed, and all of the world’s central banks have been devaluing the shit out of their currencies. What does that mean? Higher prices for the poor and Middle Class. You can raise taxes on the rich as much as you want, but as long as they have access to cheap, easy money, they will continue to get richer, and we will continue to get poorer. But you keep listening to economists like Pauly Krugnuts. He’ll steer you right.

Today, I saw Shiela Bair on CNN talking about taxes. She’s the Chair of the FDIC. What the fuck does she care about taxes? She can’t even properly liquidate the failed fucking banks. People like you, Mr Adler are blinded by the belief that the government can do “good”. It is impossible for the government to do good, even in a democracy. I don’t care if you have 535 Clara Barton(s), Ghandi(s), and Sister Theresa(s). They will all eventually be corrupted with power, and will do anything to maintain and increase it. It is the very nature of government. The ability to initiate force on other members of society with no fear of retribution. Look around you. What do you see. Now, tell me again, that if we just had the right people in governemnt, and the governemnt was truly “by the people, for the people”, we would all be happy little clams.

Yo, fuck Sanders, that backstabbing prick. Ask him what happened to the “Audit the Fed” Amendment in the Financial Reform Bill. He had an opportunity to provide real transparency in banking and government, but being the spineless jellyfish that he is, he caved, after a meeting with Bernanke and Geithner. What’s wrong Bernie, did they scare you with their little “Flash Crash”. Go the fuck back to Vermont you spineless, Socialist prick. Don’t worry, you’ll get your 6 1/2% VAT next year, jerk off.

If lower taxes are the solution to our economic/labour problems in this country, why have 10 years of the GWB tax cuts done little or nothing to create jobs here in the U.S.? There have been numerous articles and institutions who have documented the actual loss of jobs during GWB’s administration.

But let’s cut to the chase shall we: American companies exist for only one purpose which is to maximize shareholder/owner value (al la Friedman). There is no “magic” incentive that businesses have to create jobs because of lower taxes in and of themselves. Please, if someone cares to connect those dots, I’d love to see them.

Bailing out the Bankers, Fighting Twin Wars, Covering up the Mortgage mess, etc., etc…. has been expensive..

There is a growing realization among those that control our country, not congress or the president, that more money is needed. But where to get it?

Convieniently forgotten, in this financial Catasrophe, is the convervative mantra, that cutting taxes, is good for the economy, and creates jobs.

However, the conservatives also believe, creating deficits seems to be a bad thing for government and for jobs.

The contraction would seem to be that cutting taxes creates, jobs but also creates deficits. Then, it follows nicely that raising taxes, cuts the deficit, but also destroys jobs, which raises the deficit yet again.

The final analysis is, that they are f’ing crazy..
And don’t have sense enough to see that the whole conservative view of the economy, is what got us here in the first place. To still believe in it now, provides convincing evidence of how F’ing stupid conservatives and some progressives are.

In ancient times Conservatives were called, Republicans, and Progressives were called Democrats.

But people became so P’OD at both parties they tried to change their name, as a way of hiding from their past misdeeds. But nothing has changed, they are stil the same old, backroom, deal making crooks.

Yet it’s that very coruption, and deal making that have caused the mess we have now. That enabled the top corporations of this country to pay virtually no taxes, export jobs overseas by the millions, provide tax incentives for companies to move production overseas as well, allow companies to co opt federal agencies who have lost the ability to regulate industries they are mandated to watch….... etc., etc., etc..,

It’s really doubtful that either party, has it in them to do the right thing for this country. They screwed up, and now they want the people to bail them out, so they can continue governing this country just as they always have. With incompetance and greed, and no reform.

And tax the hell out of companies that take their production overseas. If their shareholders scream bloody murder tell them to reduce the CEO’s billion dollar salary.

Do NOT buy China-made crap. Put tariffs on foreign made goods.

Circle the wagons - this is war!

Up with protectionism! Down with globalization!

Effing fat chance.

AT LAST AN ECONOMIST THAT CAN SPEAK TO A PROBLEM IN PLAIN ENGLISH AND SIMPLE
LOGIC…WE HAD A GOOD ECONOMIC SYSTEM UNTIL UNCLE MILTY FRIEDMAN CAME ALONG
AND SAID IT WAS UPSIDE DOWN…AND WRONG..INTELLECTUALS HAVE TO BE VIEWED WITH
SUSPICION BECAUSE THEY DON’T GET ALOT OF FRESH AIR..AND ARE GOOD AT
FANTASY..THAT’S HOW THEY SURVIVE…