We don’t know exactly what Barack Obama is going to say when he fires up his teleprompters at George Washington University tomorrow. The color, we do know, however: it’s red, as in “red ink,” what Mitch Daniels at his speech at CPAC earlier this year called “the new red menace.” (I like to think that the invocation of the old “red menace,” the Communist, socialist one, was deliberate: it is, I would argue, apt.)
The substance of the speech, as ABC notes, is “closely held.” Everybody thinks that there will be at least pro forma acknowledgement that spending on such programs as Medicare and Social Security needs to be reined in. But the big O will also return to one of his favorite themes, a by-word from his 2008 campaign: “increased taxes on the wealthy” (that’s according to “White House officials”).
Here’s my bet: the operative word in Obama’s speech tomorrow night, the mantra that will be repeated endlessly not only by O but also by the left-wing commentariat, is “fairness.” You remember his campaign shtick: the Saddleback Church event, for example, when Rick Warren asked candidates John McCain and B.O. about taxes. “Define rich,” he asked. McCain tossed out an income of $5 million, which elicited derision. But the gravamen of his response came in the elaboration: “I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich.”
How different was B.O.’s response: What he was looking for, he said, was “a sense of balance, and fairness in our tax code. It is time for folks like me who make more than $250,000 to pay our fair share.”
“Our fair share.” That, as I noted at the time, is B.O.’s refrain. “[W]e will save Social Security for future generations by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.” It’s a small step from the invocation of “our fair share” to Obama’s call for a tax on “the windfall profits of oil companies,” a tax increase on capitals gains, elimination of the tax on Social Security tax, etc., etc.
The crucial point here is that what Obama is interested in is not increasing revenue but in promulgating redistributionist policies that make it harder for people to prosper economically. William McGurn, writing in The Wall Street Journal back then, recalled Obama’s response to ABC’s Charlie Gibson when Gibson observed that raising taxes led to decreased revenues: “Well, Charlie,” Obama replied, “what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”
“For purposes of fairness”: that means, “for purposes of economic egalitarianism.”
Economic egalitarianism is dysfunctional and catastrophic in growth-economies and growth-populations. Why?
Because the only economy where economic egalitarianism works is one that does not ‘build long term future-oriented infrastructures’. These are both systems..such as corporations/banks/industries..that amass wealth to build wealth into-the-future. And, infrastructures, such as transportation systems, irrigation systems, buildings, dams, factories…that are built by wealth, must last into the future, and generate wealth in the future.
An economy that does not amass reservoirs of wealth in kind or in infrastructures…has no capacity to support its future population. It relies on the natural ‘wealth’ of the environment. These are the old hunting and gathering economies, where people lived off what grew and lived naturally. They did nothing to increase the wealth of the land. When they had depleted the environment, they migrated elsewhere. These are the ONLY economies capable of ‘economic egalitarianism’..where no-one has any wealth.
However, in any society that lives for ‘more than the day’…there MUST be inequality of wealth generation and wealth accumulation. This surplus, beyond the daily consumption, is STORED into systems that enable the population to live into the future.
So- it is ‘stored’ in banks, which then dole it out in loans to small and medium businesses..to get them started and working in the future. It is ‘stored’ in actual structures such as roads, communication systems, irrigation systems…to enable goods and services to interact, to enable fields of food to grow.
It is ‘stored’ in research centres, in hospitals, in schools.
This means that this wealth cannot be distributed equally to everyone now living. Instead, a great deal of it must be kept back from current consumption and instead…STORED..in those systems and infrastructures for the future.
Obama and the Democrats are focused only on current consumption of goods and services. They encourage spending and consumer purchases. Then, their agenda is to take the profits from these consumer purchases..and ‘distribute’ it back to the consumer…to go out and buy some more. What is missing?
The requirement to STORE wealth and put it into the ‘not-now’ time period, to put it into savings for banks to make loans, into large infrastructures that last for 50 years..such as roads and hospitals and.. Obama and the Democrats ignore this ‘invisible’ aspect of the economy. How will they maintain and develop the future-infrastructure of the economy? They are indifferent; they borrow, borrow money to fund current consumer-spending, and totally ignore the fact that the ability-to-fund the future is now disappearing from the US society.
That’s what ‘equal distribution’ does; it destroys the society’s ability-to-fund the future.
What an excellent dissertaion!!! now, if only folks could fully digest it appropriately! The socialists machines working in the private sector have effectively destroyed the nations [private] sector reserves to maintain infrastructure and competitiveness for the level of population and into the future. The socialist machines of government in the public sector double whammy the private sectors abilities and the nations economic welfare at-large into the future.
The socialists have yet to lose a battle in their war to destroy American capitalism and the American form of democracy! Why? They understand the newer American generations perpensity towards their (socialists) number one weapon……GREED and anything for what is perceived as free! There is no political or social divide when it comes to this weakness and failure in spite of manys denials. Thats why the current ‘fix strategy’ of the government is welcomed smoking mirror regardless of so many rants to the contrary. Only a precious literal handfull are really willing to fix the government the right ways and suffer the consequences of their perpetuated failures.
“They understand the newer American generations perpensity towards their (socialists) number one weapon……GREED and anything for what is perceived as free!”
As long as 47% (& probably more) have no skin in the game, why would the “gimme” class ever vote for anyone who’d take away “what is perceived as free”? For THEM it IS free. Counting on “newer American generations” to do the right thing for the country was pretty much shown to be a lost cause in the latest budget battle. After all, a National Park might be closed for a while, not to mention all those women who died in the streets because they couldn’t get a non-existent mammogram at Planned Parenthood.
Excellent post! It should be developed into an article.
It was. It is called “Atlas Shrugged”.
Believe it or not – I’ve never read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ or any of Rand’s work. It’s basic energy-dynamics…in biology!
You can’t consume all your ‘energy’; the major portion of it must be stored in various ways, to enable the future (via eggs/embryos/seeds; via fat/muscles; via cell networks)…etc.
And, you can analyze different economic modes (hunting/gathering; horticulture; low technology to high technology agriculture; pastoral nomadic; industrial..etc..) and see how they have to accumulate ‘wealth’ and not use it all up during the current season(s) but invest it in future-oriented systems to enable the society to continue and prosper into the future.
don’t bother with ‘Shrugged – it’s basic thesis could be summarised in an article in American Thinker and lose none of the message!
Etab,
You dont need to read Rand, or really much else, to grasp the basics of how things work.
Back in my Fathers days, it was called COMMON SENSE.
Save. Invest. Plan for the future.
Often explained to me as a teenager with such infuriating comments as:
“Dont piss away everything the second you get it.”
“A good roof is more important than a GREAT leather jacket”
“Who’s gonna pay for that”
And my personal all time favorite:
“THEN what?”
Carrying this theme to the particular complexities of finance, civilizations and government is always an interesting re-enforcement (like reading Rand) but its still the same thing.
If, as you point out, it is essential to how the very cells of our bodies function, it is therefore an essential prerequisite to any system we create, to have any expectation that IT will function as well.
Envy, egos, re-distribution, revenge, egalitarianism….systems built upon these emotions will simply fail, just like square wheels, and lead balloons.
Self evident truthes and the like.
Why they are no longer self evident, I cant say.
Absolutely. Someone put it colorfully recently when he said “The rich do not hoard cash like squirrels hoard nuts. The rich have trees which produce nuts.”
And many of us who are not rich own an interest in those trees, thru stocks held in 401Ks, IRAs and pension funds. What’s going to become of us if the trees are destroyed by nuts like Barack Obama out of some mis-guided (possibly largely self-interested) notion of fariness? We’re going to become third-world squirrels again, that’s what.
You forgot to add that “It’s the rich that hire, the poor that get hired”, whether directly or through investing.
I wonder how many of the people contemptuous of those who are in need now actually know any of them personally.
I know of no one who is “contemptuous of those who are need.” The problem is that, if we don’t fix the budget by curbing spending, there will be far more people in need.
What will you do with the needy when the system collapses? When there are no jobs? No rich people to tax . . I mean, to do their “fair share?”
Let me guess; Shelley is so “contemptuous of those in need” that she never has allowed any of those people to live in her home while they look for work and get back on their feet. (I have and he wasn’t a relative or friend.)
Put up or shut up Shelley. And stop sneering at your betters, too.
..”she never has allowed any of those people to live in her home while they look for work and get back on their feet.”
Interesting to note, in my School District, if you DID do that, the School Systems requires the name, Social Security number and EDUCATION LEVEL of any adult residing in your home.
Council Rock School District, Bucks County PA, the Cult of the Superiority Complex.
With an AVERAGE salary of 100K, the Government Teachers Union demands you provide private, personal information about OTHER PEOPLE who you may decide to “help”.
All while they cry poor and demand more taxes every hour, thereby discouraging everyone from helping anyone, by keeping your disposable income at a minimum…
I mean, if you HAVE more than you NEED, why SHOULDNT you pay more taxes?
Typical lib—loves humanity, as long as there are no humans involved. I mean, ya know like, ACTUAL people are so, ya know, like…..yucky.
I wonder how many of those in need who have been receiving the fruits of my labor have ever considered Thanking Me for what I’ve been giving them?
I wonder how many of the people contemptuous of the high achievers in our society have ever achieved anything personally.
The ends do not justify the means. Need does not justify theft. I need a car. If you have two, I think it is only fair that you give me one. Need is subjective. And those who complain about these contemptuous people are always allowed to give up whatever percentage of their earnings they wish and give it to government or anyone else. Just do not steal mine and justify it by calling yourself virtuous.
And that matters how against this Democrat belief in slavery? I thought we fought a very bloody war over telling others that you have a right to their labor and property.
‘Economic egalitarianism’, also known as the Dalton Principle where ‘all should have equal wealth’ has absolutely nothing to do with helping ‘those who are in need’. Indeed, economic egalitarianism actually increases poverty because it rejects wealth-accumulation to prepare-for-the-future.
The reality is, that some of our infrastructures, such as houses, roads, hospitals..etc..require a wealth-input beyond the daily accumulation and usage. We have to accumulate more wealth than we use in our daily lives…so that we can build these larger infrastructures for the future.
It is also a reality that not all work produces the same wealth..unless you support paying the uneducated sales clerk the same as the skilled neurosurgeon. If you do – then, why would anyone bother to spend all those young years to work and study for those skills?
And are you aware that the genuinely in need are probably about 2% of the population. The 45% who pay no taxes are not in need of government support but many have learned how to live off the taxpayer while doing no work and providing no ‘wealth’ to help others.
Are you aware how much of our taxes go to support an elite bureaucratic class, those people who manage and distribute all our tax dollars. Heh, this set of govt workers get salaries far above those in the private sector, plus benefits and pensions unavailable to the private sector (and untaxed). So does our tax money really go to help the genuinely poor? Or does most of it go to those who live off the taxpayer, and to that elite civil service? Think about that..
People I know personally in need receive help from me – no government intervention needed. Government is the most ineefective and ineffecient charity ever.
The loafers, slackers, and government “workers” I know who think they are entitled to my hard-earned money receive my contempt.
The term” in need” means very little. Why the person is “in need” matters more. If someone was robbed, injured in an accident or their home was damage by fire or storm is one category of “in need”. Some junkie, drunk, or career criminal has no money that is another category of “in need”. It is offensive to consider them equal because one group is more or less blameless for their condition while the other group asked for it.
It is more offensive that the Federal Government takes money at the point of a gun (income tax) and gives to people that are clearly responsible for thewir own miserable condition.
Two stories:
I just happen to fit the legal definition of “disabled.” That means, if I wanted to, I could sit around on my a$$ all day and get paid by the federal gubment to do it.
I choose to work instead, to support myself on my own. I also support lots of useless parasites who are ABLE to work but CHOOSE not to do so.
Now, savor the delicious irony of that… I am probably more “in need” by reason of disability than many that are getting my hard-earned tax dollars sent to them by Uncle Sugar.
Has any of those freeloaders ever thanked me?
Second story:
I used to work at a foodservice supplier. We had a QA lab in our office. Frequently they’d open a #10 can (those are the big ones for restaurants), take a couple of spoonfuls out for testing, put a plastic lid on and set the rest out for whomever to take home.
One day we noticed a man out on the street with a “will work for food” sign. Since we had some of these cans of veggies handy, some of us took them down and offered them to him.
He turned us down. Demanded cash. He didn’t get any.
So forgive me if I lack what you consider the appropriate sympathy for freeloaders.
This is another true story — happened today.
My husband and I are currently remodeling our bathroom and have removed all of the old floor tile, in preparation for the new floor. Took out the old tile, piece by piece. We called the local Habitat for Humanity office (Jimmy Carter’s group) and asked them if they wanted the tile, as over 99% of the tile was unbroken and still usable. We would deliver it also.
They refused the tile and said they only wanted brand-new tile…. in other words, the whole idea of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle was an anathema to Habitat for Humanity. In other words, we should just go out, buy new tile and just hand it over to Habitat…
“I wonder how many of the people contemptuous of those who are in need now actually know any of them personally.”
It’s Obambi and people like him I hold in contempt, not the poor.
On the other hand, El Jefe is in need…of a brain.
I personally know a woman who would be considered in need. She was in a jewelry making class with me. She had never had anything more than a minimum wage job,
Actually, Roger, I do know exactly what Obama is going to say.
Here is what I expect to hear tonight:
— Obama Introduces a Subject within the Speech —
“Some would say”
“let me be perfectly clear”
“Make no mistake about”
“I reject the false choice that some would…,”
“I have ordered…..my team…to.”
— He will then Repeat as needed for new subjects —
Something deleted much of my post…
Her is my full prediction of What Obama Will Say:
— Obama Introduce a Subject on the Agenda —
“Some would say”
“let me be perfectly clear” [This is the place for obfuscation about the subject and any position regarding the subject.]
“make no mistake about” [Here is where the Exact Opposite of any of the things which are to take place are stated.]
“I reject the false choice that some would…,” [Again, reiterate quotations that No One has ever said followed by Him vs. an idiotic extrapolation of any Republican position.]
“I have ordered…..my team…to.”
— Repeat as needed for new subjects —
Something deleted much of my post…
Her is my full prediction of What Obama Will Say:
— Obama Introduce a Subject on the Agenda —
“Some would say”
“let me be perfectly clear” [This is the place for obfuscation about the subject and any position regarding the subject.]
“make no mistake about” [Here is where the Exact Opposite of any of the things which are to take place are stated.]
“I reject the false choice that some would…,” [Again, reiterate quotations that No One has ever said followed by Him vs. an idiotic extrapolation of any Republican position.]
“I have ordered…..my team…to.” [Doesn't matter what actions you fill in here, they aren't going to do it.]
— Repeat as needed for new subjects —
I notice a lot of similarities between Obama’s speeches and Nixon’s.
I agree. Obama seems to remind a lot of people of ex-Pres. Carter. He reminds me a LOT more of ex-Pres Nixon. (Yeah, I know Carter was a Democrat and Nixon was a Republican, but… they were both big gov types. Wage and Price controls, anyone??)
Don’t leave LBJ out of the big government list. Johnson started the “Great Society” this was I believe the first brick to hit the Black family and increase the illegitimate birth rate in the Nation and the Black family more significantly. He was the start of the Nanny State.
G W Bush is a big government guy also and no fiscal conservative. His Christian beliefs also seem to have compelled him to take money from tax payers and waste it in many programs. No Child Left Behind has has no positive effect on education and AIDS treatment in Africa are two examples of improper use of Federal tax dollars.
There is a lot of blame to go around. Now is the time to make changes, and not just window dressing.
Attempting to argue logically with these libs is pointless. They don’t think that way. They want MORE from the rich. How much more? They won’t say. They will say they want higher tax rates, but ask them how much of a person’s income should be paid in taxes, and they won’t say. They won’t say they want 50% of someones actual income because they know that the vast # of people would oppose that. They just want higher rates. Nevermind that with loopholes, and money shifting, they won’t see any additional revenue.
Shelley,
I wonder how many people on the take give a damn who is providing their sustenance as long as it keeps coming in so they don’t have to do anything other than exist to receive it?
Yes, it’s our old friend Punitive Liberalism again, entering stage left.
I’ve always maintained that the slogan “tax the rich” is one of the most brilliant political propaganda pieces in the history of certainly American politics, if not the world. Americans are conditioned, from an early age, to think of themselves as “working people” from the “middle class”. Wealthy people, those with millions or even billions, wear blue jeans and drink beer out of a can. I can remember reading an article years ago about an ad agency that was trying to appeal to wealthy people. They invited a bunch of rich folks to a focus group forum, and catered the event with the fanciest food and drink they could find, to make the rich folks feel welcome. I still remember the shock of the one guy in charge of the event, when he asked one of the rich guys if he wanted a particular beer, and the man responded, “I only drink two kinds of beer: Bud, and free”. A wealthy European acting like this would be considered eccentric, while one who acted like an aristocrat would be accepted, at least provided he actually *was* an aristocrat. Only in America could Arianna Huffington sell her share in the Huffington Post for $16 Million, sign a deal for a $4 Million paycheck for the next five years (or whatever the numbers were) and then turn around and assert that Americans, financially, are divided into the super-rich and “the rest of us”, and say it with a straight face and little challenge.
“Tax the Rich” can be translated thus, then: “We’ll raise taxes on someone else, and give you the benefits”. It never works, really, but the slogan itself is very effective. People resent those that are wealthier than they, and relatively few recognize that other, poorer people, resent *them*.
We don’t tax the rich. We tax “adjusted gross income minus deductions”. This doesn’t phase wealthy people in the least.
The ones who get hurt by excessive taxation, regulation and government growth are the working class in the private sector who are trying to enjoy life a little while building security for their retrement and helping their children along the increasingly difficult path to the fading American dream. These left liberal policies ensure that most of us will never break through to an easier life.
On the other hand, if you are a government employee you can enjoy every single dollar you make while you are working in your secure, low stress job – knowing that you are covered for life on the taxpayers dime. The only reason these public “servants” can get such a great deal is because the rest of us don’t (just do a thought experiment where the entire public sector is given the same kind of deal. All prices would have to rise accordingly – lowering everyone’s standard of living not to mention loss of private jobs overseas).
When are we going to wake up?
Since you wonder, Shelley, ask the people who deal with them every day in some official capacity. Ask a few grocery store cashiers if they have seen food stamp customers buying food the cashiers themselves cannot afford. At the other end of the scale, ask a family court, criminal court, or bankruptcy court judge how many of their plaintiffs and defendants seem to lack any sense of legal or financial reality. Ask some ER nurses and ambulance drivers about their frequent flyers. Ask landlords who have rented to Section 8 tenants. The hallmark of emotional burnout in people like policemen, nurses, doctors, social workers, parole officers and judges is their persistently negative view of other people. They didn’t have that attitude when they took their jobs, they got it on the job, and they got it from the frustration of trying to help people who define “help” as helping them avoid the consequences of their actions.
I practiced corporate law for 16 years, left it to find something I thought would be more fulfilling, and for the last 4 years I have been working in an undeveloped third world region of South America assisting in managing and developing health and education programs and projects. Talk about need, there is plenty of it here, and many people quietly live their humble lives asking for nothing. Unfortunately there is also plenty of what Jack Olson aptly describes as people who request or demand “help” avoiding the consequences of their actions. I would describe this as “want” masquerading as “need.” Many people want to do nothing productive, or even worse they want to engage in activity that is personally and societally destructive, then they claim to “need” help with free this or free that. It is not “need” at all, it is the natural and perfectly predictable result of the “wants” they have pursued. If not for the bright moments between these losers it would be very easy to take the negative view of other people developed by the cops, judges, and others who do the societal shit shovelling all day every day.
I’m looking for a little fairness for my kids. They haven’t received any real benefit from the federal government. I pay over $10k a year in property taxes to fund the local elementary school and I’m paying for parochial High School.
Yet, according to the National Debt Clock, they are $46k in debt. The fair thing to do would be to fix it so they aren’t burdened with our current rulers’ irresponsibility.
I am raising them to be smart enough to survive if there is a collapse and to leave if the government tries to collect it from them.
I can’t make myself watch Zero give a speech. I’ll come here to find out what he said.
And when the trumpets sounded, all would bow down to the image of Obamanezzar. And any who would not bow down, Obamanezzar would cast into a Fiery Fairness.
That’s good for about 5 days. Then what?
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/feed-your-family-on-10-billion-a-day.html
If the “rich” should pay more, maybe the poor should pay a little. About 47% of the people that FILE income tax returns DO NOT PAY income tax. Maybe it is time to make a minimum income tax. Something reasonable like 1 or 2 percent. Maybe it is time to end income tax credits” which is a nice term for welfare.
Its time for individual consumption taxes…1) for reasonable necessities say food, clothing, drugs, home improvement products, etc., and 2) one for luxuries such as second homes, more than two motor vehicles (AG Biz exemption) luxury clothing, jewlery, ALL personal and home electronic gizmos, public entertainment, etc.
Manufacturing, commodities producers and service business ‘classes’ would pay a flat-rate on the gross profit line according their determined class.
Everybody would pay their fair share and all the corruption of the current system goes away.
Gratuitous spelling comment: “… on such programs as Medicare and Social Security needs to be reigned in.” Reined, my friend. Kings reign.
Since almost no one seems concerned that that top one percent of earners has increased their share of the nation’s wealth from 24% to 34% since 1980 (at the expense of the bottom 80%), maybe a flat income tax of 10% on everyone, including corporations, would solve the problem. No write-offs, no deductions, no exceptions. Evaders would be forced to spend a weekend in a locked room with Donald Trump and a newly unemployed lobbyist.
How would you deal with those 45% plus who pay no income tax? The families on permanent welfare? How would you deal with the civil service unionites, who get most of their wealth via non-taxable benefits and pensions?
And no, Pareto’s 20% ratio of those who are earning more wealth is not ‘at the expense’ of others. You make it sound as if these people were actually talking wealth away from the ‘bottom 80%’. Not true. This ratio is, as I’m sure you know, essentially a natural law where 80% of energy/wealth is developed/stored by only 20% of the population. The 80% who are NOT making wealth are merely consuming it. Are you actually suggesting that the neurosurgeon’s wealth-making skills are depriving the corner store clerk from generating wealth?
Everyone should pay the flat tax. No exceptions.
I don’t know about other states, but California public pensions are fully taxable.
I defy anyone to explain to me why it is right that the top 1% of earners should be getting a much bigger piece of the pie now as compared to 1980. These are the folks who have outsourced our jobs, devastated our manufacturing base, and who don’t send their offspring to our wars. But they do have access to the corridors of power, and have used that access to game the system in their favor.
What we need to do is encourage them to employ here. Rational taxes can help do that. Make it worth their while, and they will employ.
- I defy anyone to explain to me why it is right that the top 1% of earners should be getting a much bigger piece of the pie now as compared to 1980.
Your Zero-Sum thinking would make that difficult.
However, if you acknowledge HOW MUCH THE PIE HAS GROWN during the last 30 years, it’s a pretty trivial exercise to figure out what’s happening here.
Those who excel at investment, entrepreneurship and financial management will ALWAYS earn and hold more. It’s what they do. Literally. In a growing economy, this isn’t a problem.
In an economy that has grown FIVE-FOLD, it is no surprise at all to learn that the number of individuals in the Top 1% has INCREASED. Between 2001 and 2007, the number of earners declaring > $100k grew from around 32M to around 50M. With that in mind, just do some simple math. With that in mind, it is perfectly natural and right that the Top 1%’s aggregate portion of the total wealth has increased. That their portion of total wealth has increased by ONLY some 50% is the real surprise here.
So forget the “pie” analogy – it’s tripping you up. It’s not that the same 10 people have so much more of some finite amount of wealth. It’s that there is so much MORE wealth to be had, and there are so many more wealthy people.
This is the reality that the collectivists’ Appeal to Emotion fallacy is designed to hide. And Americans have been swallowing that fallacy in greater numbers with each new generation.
Your pension, once you start to receive it, is taxable. But your contributions and the amount that the employer/govt kicks in as well towards that pension…and in many cases, the employer/govt contributes ALL…is not taxable. That amount being set aside for your future pension..which comes from the taxpayer…is additional ‘income’ for you!
As for ‘outsourcing’ jobs – I’ll put the blame for that squarely on the unions. Unions, after all, are massive corporations. BUT, they produce nothing! Nothing! They manufacture no goods, provide no services, make no wealth. Instead, they are parasites. They feed off the salaries of the workers – and in many cases, without the choice of that worker. They accumulate millions – and, in the case of the public service unions, they launder this money to political coffers: in particular, to the Democrats. Without the explicit permission of the taxpayers – whose money it originally was – or the workers.
Unions, in their greed, have so increased the costs of manufacturing goods in the USA – that industries have had to move overseas. The cost of their products made here in the US, because of the union’s demands for more and more and more salaries, benefits, pensions…can’t compete. China, as you know, moved in…and the unions shattered the US manufacturing capacity.
As for ‘piece of the pie’ – your analogy is totally wrong. The wealth of a nation is not static, but ought to be expanding as the population grows. And of course, it is not meant to be divided up equally ..as a pie. The economy is not meant to be consumed in its entirety! A massive portion must be retained and stored…to be put into long term projects. Stored in banks and used as loans. Stored in long term infrastructures like factories…
Oh – and stop with the emotional trip of ‘they don’t send their offspring to our wars’. Prove it. And also, show how this is relevant to the economic process of generating wealth.
Your thinking is farcically typical of an ignorant moderate, Tom: you’re upset about the rich getting a bigger cut of some pie chart, and then propose fixing it with the Flat Tax.
We’re all for the Flat Tax here. Try proposing it to some liberals and see how far you get. They – though not, apparently, you – know damn well that the current labyrinthine tax system is not fair, and they don’t mean for it to be. When they say “fair share,” they don’t actually mean “fair” or “share.” They mean that making more than 250,000 is not fair and people who make more should share what little they’re currently allowed to keep.
As for the pie chart, that’s indicative of how wealthy we’ve become as a society. Just ask yourself: Are you better off now than you were 30 years ago, when (to hear the left tell it) Reagan killed the American Dream? Of course you are, unless you have cancer. Would you go back to your family’s quality of life circa 1975 or ’80 if you could? Of course not.
The bottom line is, rich people generate most of the wealth in numbers, anywhere, any time wealth is being generated. Furthermore, everyone from Bill Gates from the panhandlers at the train station get out of bed in the morning to increase their share of the pie. Inequality (of fairly earned income) is therefore not the measure of a society’s poverty, but it’s wealth. There have been societies where the liberal dream of equality has been realized, societies where the rich only took a little more of the pie chart. They were called “communist” and their principal exports were nukes, bullets, and rubble.
i’ve ended up in the top 1% maybe half the years over the last 30. your comments are the same mindless blather that everyone throws out. A non-comprehensive list of items that make your rant irrationalstupid:
-the 1% is households, not individuals
-it’s a shifting group
-a bunch any particular year’s “members” are realizing some significant capital gain that might represent a lifetime of work
-most of the people in that group don’t have any connection to any activity you are so irked about. so far i haven’t outsourced any jobs (i’m in trucking), i’ve never met a politician above the level of a city councilman, never paid a nickle to lobby anybody for anything. I guess i’m guilty of not sending my kids off to war, so you got me there.
All i did was go to school (public), get a job and then dress out for the game every day for thirty years. i haven’t been particularly lucky, but then i haven’t suffered any severe misfortune, either. In other words, i’m an average guy who has not engaged in any self-destructive behavior and most people probably consider me OK to work with, as opposed to being the contentious dick you appear to be. most people who complain about how unfair life is unfortunately, upon further inspection, prove to be examples of how you usually get what you deserve.
Let’s see there anti-tom: you went to public school, got a job, worked all your life & think self-destructive, whining twits basically get what they deserve. Congratulations! By Sen Chuck Schumer standards, you officially qualify as “extreme”.
“most people who complain about how unfair life is unfortunately, upon further inspection, prove to be examples of how you usually get what you deserve.”
That is great. I will try to remember it.
thanks for the correction. Now fixed.
Homophones can be a bitch.
Bernie Goldberg pretty much made the same point last night on the Hannity program. He read a recent lead editorial from the New York Times that excoriated the GOP and the Ryan plan and bemoaned the “shocking unfairness” of Republican spending proposals. The editorial said that “Republicans refuse to look at the revenue side of the equation” which is Timespeak for “tax the rich.” It also pretty much said that the Republicans really want to see old people and children starve in the streets while “the rich” light their cigars with $100 bills ike the little guy in the Monoploy game.
Goldberg then said, “Make no mistake about it. These are marching orders from the Times to every mainstream media outlet in the country.” They are being told to demonize everything the GOP proposes while (presumably) praising any Obama proposal to skies. I believe that Goldberg hit it on the head. The editorials singing hosannas for the “Obama budget plan” have already been written. It doesn’t matter if all Barack Obama does is come out on stage and sing the score from “Bye Bye Birdie.” It will be halied as a “Bold New Plan for America.”
Remember, Obama is, from childhood on, basically anti-American, anti-capitalism, anti-wealth generating..and socialist. That is, he lives in the seminar room of words, words, words. He hasn’t a clue about how an actual economy operates. As has been said about him – he’s never so much as run a candy-store.
And something else he’s never done: he’s never developed a policy or program, never been accountable for any plan or agenda. All his life, he’s fobbed off such work to others – whether as editor of the Harvard Law Review where he left all the editing to others; as lecturer of law where he just followed the course outline; as community organizer where he just pontificated and told ‘the people’ to ‘go out and activate’; as senator where he merely voted ‘present’.
And now as President, where he delegates all decisions to others; where he dithers and waits and waits until he sees Who Is Winning…and then he jumps in and sidles along with them. Oh – and claims that it was My Idea all along…But, add to that – Obama loathes people who Do Things. He loathes the wealthy..for after all – they aren’t wealthy by luck but by hard work and skills. Obama is fundamentally lazy; he doesn’t work.
Obama lives in the rhetorical, virtual world of utopian words, where all he has to do is say: ‘Give up your ‘wealth’..and give it to others’..and, as he claimed (let me be clear)…the oceans will cease to rise and so on and so on. He has no idea of the hard knocks of a real economy, of the requirement for innovation, investment..and time and work.
Obama will stand aloof from the Congressional debates – he has no understanding of economics – and wait until there is a ‘winner’. Then, he’ll side with them. He is neither a leader nor does he have any integrity or principles. He’ll claim that the plan was..his. Just as he went to the Lincoln Centre the other day – to inform the tourists there that He, the One, had saved the Centre. For them. And their votes.
Obama, like all liberals, is a hypocrit. He may say give up your wealth – but being a wealthy man he would NEVER give up “his.”
“Obama, like all liberals, is a hypocrit.”
But Obama, like all liberals, is superior, not to mention deserving. It’s not like they keep it a secret.
Oh no, he might put the tax level back to the number we had in the 90′s…
And while Obama’s at it, can he also put the levle of fed spending back to the number we had in the 90′s…??????
Agreed. Well, I am glad to find common ground.
Liberals, do as I say and I will do as I please.
The rich pay far more than their share. Tell the freeloaders to start humping their weight.
“Tell the freeloaders to start humping their weight.”
Let me guess…..you plucked this priceless gem from a preview of tonight’s Obama speech.
Envy is a terrible basis for economic policy.
But it seems to be a tentpole for progessives.
It’s as if tearing down another is as satisfying as uplifting yourself.
Hey, left/liberals, how about starting your “social justice” with George Soros and GE, etc.? Oh, no, but they deserve to keep theirs because they’re your buddies.
Anything, other than the usual puff and fluff from this incompetent juvenile, will never materialize. Details are as foreign to him as fluent Xhosa.
He could not care less.
If I wanted to kill capitalism and still have plausible deniability…in other words, if I wanted to come into your house by breaking a window in the back of your house and then rob you blind…while simultaneously calling you a miser and a lout, I would have to dress up either as a cat burglar or a leftist Democrat.
I would commit a full-fledged fraud against you, saying your sprinklers were causing an ecological disaster, make up sports equipment graphs to “prove” it, and then force you to pay for “remediation” to my phony “Green Save the Earth” company , which is French for lying, scum-sucking, theft.
Then, I would appoint neighborhood “czars” from the HOA that I control to make you pay “fees” to maintain the bushes and shrubs of all your neighbors houses, because you live in the “appointed” home designated for “fairness redistribution assessments”.
When I snuck into your home each night, there would be the taking of your money and goods for my “bailout” payments for mine and all the neighbor’s automobiles, mortgage, insurance and credit cards. We use the term “bail out” because we are all under water and it is not fair that you are not.
Our neighborhood has been designated too big to fail.
I am also going to take money from your wallet for your own healthcare, you are going to be forced to pay for mine and you are probably going to lose the one you have that you like so much. Yo daddy and yo granddaddy had a 401(k) after all, therefore, you owe me.
And don’t start blaming me for any of this. This neighborhood had a pot hole on one of the streets four blocks away, so I inherited this problem when I moved in.
And, we have just passed a “home rule” that says you can’t hang your damn flag on Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day or any other damn day. It’s the wrong type of patriotism. Posters of Che or Mao are fine, however.
After all, it’s a free country. For some of us…it’s been a free ride most of our lives.
If the point is to “tax the rich” then why do liberals insist on an income tax. The rich aren’t out there working nine to five to get rich. They already are rich. Taxing income merely inhibits entry to the country club. If you want to disturb Mr. Soros and his gang then tax assets rather than income. I won’t hold my breath until that happens.
Good point, Doug. Clearly the Left is only interested in “tax the rich” as a slogan, nothing else. That’s why even though “rich” means “wealthy” their pols avoid taxing wealth. They aim their tax grabs at incomes instead and their dupes and the rubes don’t notice the bait-and-switch.
I’ve reached the point where I could support a tax on wealth. Let’s see the Kerrys, Kennedys, Gates, Buffet and Soros feel some real tax pain for a change.
“I’ve reached the point where I could support a tax on wealth.”
Gee, I’ve reached the point where I could support me doing the withholding instead of the IRS.
For just once I would like to hear a Republican — or even a libertarian — wake up and use this simplified example to illuminate the mathematical bait-and-switch about how the ‘rich’ must pay more:
Everyone has a 10% tax rate.
A man making $20,000/yr pays $2,000 in tax.
A woman $200,000/yr pays $20,000 in tax.
She earns ten times as much, and pays *ten* time as much in taxes.
But ten pct isn’t enough so lefties want her to pay at a %20 rate, which becomes $40,000 in tax, or *20* times as much tax on only 10x the income.
Then add in that Mr. 20k doesn’t actually pay *anything* at the end of the day, and the ratio between her tax bill and his approaches infinity.
So much for ‘more’ being fair.
Under a flat tax, the wealthy *do* pay more — in absolute dollars — in the same proportion to their income as everyone else. What’s not fair about that? The Big Lie is framing ‘more’ in terms of percentages rather than dollars, and the talking heads are too dumb to say it.
WHY WON’T ANYONE EXPLAIN THIS IN PLAIN ENGLISH?
It is time to stop stealing from the ‘rich’ and start taxing the deadbeats. Everyone in this society should pay taxes and this includes all of the Democrats, including Charles Rangel and John Kerry. The welfare class has no dog in the fight, so they are eager to steal the earnings of others, aided and abetted by the Liberals who prefer financial slavery to freedom for these people. This is nonsense. If these people are to avoid taxation, they need to be removed from the voting booths. I would like for Obama and the fools that hang with him to get the he** out because I have had a bellyful of ‘fairness.’ Life is not ‘fair.’ And it is da** sure not fair to steal the earnings of others so that some can sit at home and get fat watching television. I despise the Socialist/Marxist/Communist crud that has infected this nation.
two primary reasons that the 1% keeps gathering more: there are a lot more two-carrier professional households than in 1980, and the ability to capitalize income streams and generate financial returns is much more evolved than in 1980, which may have represented the nadir of that phenomenon over the past 50 years.
Obama is a complete ignoramus on economic policy. Tax the rich all you want, it will not make anywhere near a significant dent in the annual deficit. Do you think the rich are going to not react to higher taxes? In the 1930′s the FDR administration raised taxes sky high. The rich moved their money out of the country, so tax receipts hardly moved up. It’s even easier now to move funds across national boundaries. Obama and the Democrats are self destructive jerks. The Republicans are just plain stupid not to act like real men and face heroically the challenge of our time.
Taxing the rich is a bunch of hogwash, anyway.
Tax the oil companies, and they’ll just raise their prices accordingly. Their profit margin is fixed, and that ain’t going to change.
The only thing “taxing the rich” ever has achieved, or ever will, is to give the government more money that they can keep for themselves or share with their friends (like the oil company executives they golf with).
And, for every dollar in welfare benfits you hand out to the poor, there will be ten dollars going to the rich you just “taxed” (see Stimulus).
No matter how, you try and work it, the rich, and their buddies in the government, will come out on top, and the not-so-rich will get screwed.
Always has been that way…always will be that way.
um… re the point about revolving doors and folks going into high paid “jobs” after leaving the state employ…
does anyone care to consider how corporations are able to pay that kind of money – and why…..?
“does anyone care to consider how corporations are able to pay that kind of money – and why…..?”
Corporations generate money based on profits they make from selling either a service or product. They often hire ex-government employees, especially congressmen, as lobbyists. The money they pay these lobbyists comes from the sale of their service or product. There are companies that enter into unholy alliances with government in order to get benefits or advantages over their competition. A good example of this kind of cronyism is GE and Obama, or the Democrats and the finance industry, GMC and Obama, or the unions and the Democrats. “Make no mistake about it”, unions are corporations, except they sell their votes and campaign contributions for benefits, instead of services or product. Obama and the Democrats promote themselves as being anti-big business, but in actuality are very much in bed with certain big businesses and all big unions. It’s at a point where they are not ashamed to openly display it.
It is not just one side it is both who are in bed with the industries. Why is it that republicans were trying to strip the financial regulations if it is just the Dems who cow tow to their masters.
Thank G_d for offshore accounts and crooked bankers, but mostly, crooked bankers.
What ever happened to the normal concept of “fairness?” That is, every citizen should pay x% of their income to the federal, state, and local governments that provide us services. A citizen who makes $1,000 a year would pay $150 in taxes while a citizen who makes $1,000,000 a year would pay $150,000 a year or 150 times more in absolute value than the first citizen. Isn’t that what the simple definition of “fair” means?
But, in the USA, 40-something % of our population pays no income tax at all (full disclosure: I’m one of them) while 10% pay 70% of the total. That’s not fair! And still there are those who would take even more from that 10% while insisting that to do so is “fair” even while we all know that most of that money is wasted on the crackpot schemes of people who are having a good time spending other peoples’ money. It’s obvious that the whole scheme is fabulously UNfair.
What’s even more damaging to our republic is that those who pay no income tax are not stakeholders and therefore have no incentive to work for the betterment and prosperity of all of us. So, with a small number of wonderful exceptions, they don’t.
Thank you, I made the same point up above.
It’s so obvious — and so frustrating that neither Republican nor L/libertarian talking heads will ever frame it simple that way when they have a camera on them.
Setting the debate as ‘you earn more so you should pay more’ — with ‘more’ redefined as a higher % rate rather than ‘proportionately more dollars’ — and never getting properly called on it for some reason, has to be the biggest swindle of all time.
“It’s so obvious — and so frustrating that neither Republican nor L/libertarian talking heads will ever frame it simple that way when they have a camera on them.”
That’s because the Republicans are spineless cowards who are afraid of being called “heartless” by the left. “What? How can you force someone who makes only $20K per year to pay any tax whatsoever? Why, that is heartless! Better to take more from the “rich” than to take from someone who makes so little. But, what do you expect from those cruel Republicans?” They have no defense against the “emotion” card.
I’ve often wondered how things would be different if votes were counted in proportion to the level of taxes a person pays. Those who pay the piper would call the tune.
Of course that would not work, for many reasons that require no explanation, but it would be interesting to see the results of such an experiment.
Plutocracy is bad, but possibly no worse than what we have now.
You said it Buck. Loads of wisdom in your statement.
Did the Lord not tell us we are not to cut down any of the trees that bear fruit? Could it be because the people will suffer due to the length of time it takes to replace them?
Worth thinking about.
The deomcrat part – past and future slave owners. Furious at losing their slaves in the Civil War, they now seek to enslave the entire nation.
The “fairness” meme and the “justice” meme are devices the Left employs in service to the agenda.
“justice” is applied to everything, from food to climate.
Michele Obama calls people without a supermarket in their neighborhood “food refugees”. The UN climate crowd, the one that keeps meeting at exotic locations worldwide, eating and playing golf, would force “rich” nations to pay egregious sums to poor nations, would require countries like the US to pay Indonesia (for example) to not cut down its own trees.
You could get typer’s cramp writing about this crapola. It’s all perfectly insane and indicative of where our brainwashing and eddukashun have carried us over recent decades, to produce so many morons who think like this.
It all has nothing to do with anything resembling true fairness or true justice and everything to do with the socialist agenda of control, of destroying America as we know it.
The crucial point here is that what Obama is interested in is not increasing revenue but in promulgating redistributionist policies that make it harder for people to prosper economically.
Exactly.
Obama is now referencing his agreement last year (his hand was forced) to keep current tax rates as a “mistake”. Nancy (“nutz”) Pelosi is out there bemoaning the fact that elections have too much influence.
Make no mistake, this crowd is relentless and, having its nose under the tent of the power structure in DC, will not go quietly into the night, even after 2012 brings a Republican majority in the Senate.
It goes without saying that, as a whole, Leftoids are the least fair and least just Humanoids on the planet.
Egalitarian…. I do not think it means what you think it means.
“e·gal·i·tar·i·an (-gl-târ-n)
adj.
Affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people.”
Forcing one group of people to work for the benefit of another is slavery, and there is nothing egalitarian about it by any stretch, at least not when the term is used correctly.
The problem of course is that like many other words the left has chosen for its propaganda and rhetorical obfuscation efforts, the meaning that they breathe into it is almost the diametric opposite of what they word actually means.
The left takes a term that means one thing, begin using it to describe its opposite, and hope that the great unwashed don’t pick up on it. Some people use words to tell lies, the left goes one step further by lying about the words themselves. Lies within lies. The devil himself would be impressed.
But of course people do eventually pick up on their duplicity, at which point new words are fished out of the dictionary and used to obscure their evil intentions. Unfortunately the corrupted meaning of the words they have damaged often falls into common use, which is what I think has happened here.
Currently, about 50% of all taxpayers pay no income tax. This is intolerable and grossly unfair. Those who are on the dole have no empathy whatsoever for all of us who are taxed to pay the dole recipients.
Fairness for all taxpayers cannot be realized until every person who is required to file an income tax return is required by law to pay some minimum amount every year, regardless of credits and offsets. $100 or even $50 is enough for those at the lowest income level on the poverty scale to pay, provided that equitable graduated increases are required for those on higher levels of that scale.
I am not rich [in money anyway], but, I respect someone who through their own hard work – education, risk, being an entrepreneur, dedication, sacrifice, luck, and honest business practices ‘makes the grade’… and I believe they should be able to reap their rewards of hard work if they do become wealthy.
I am tired of the [failed] Liberals and Government turning this around to Demonize their “successes” and ‘wanting’ MORE then a ‘fair share’ of that success…just to ‘redistribute’ to those greedy and envious of that success.. As if they all got it handed to them on a silver platter…
Many ‘wealthy’ individuals are very ‘generous’ and give to many charities. So, why shouldn’t the wealthy be allowed to decide where they want their money to go? Why should the Government or anyone ‘force’ us to donate to charity cases, fraud and corruption… that is stealing?
So, yes – do define stealing…fraud, corruption and ponzi schemes..
Never mind ‘rich’ because according to the Government and many Liberals, anyone who is ‘responsible’, IS Rich…