Q: “On a more theoretical level, if I make $100,000 performing brain surgery, and another $100,000 picking the right stocks on the internet at home, why should my brain surgery earnings be taxed at a higher rate than my stock earnings?”

A: Because the $100,000 you earned picking the right stocks came from those companies making profits and thus having already paid income taxes on the (pre-tax) profits. As a shareholder you are entitled to your little piece of those profits (that’s why it’s call a “share”). So you should not be taxed again in order to take your own money and move it elsewhere. It’s like taxing your use of an ATM to withdraw cash from your own savings account (which is also post-tax money).

This whole topic, going back to Charlie Gibson’s original question to Obama and Clinton (who didn’t answer it any better, by the way), is basically an Laffer Curve question. When Obama said “maybe it will and maybe it won’t” he should have been pressed to list an instance since JFK’s administration when it didn’t happen. He can’t do it, period.

Costco proves you can be a profitable low-cost retailer while also paying workers a decent wage. Some of their stores are Teamster organized, but most are not.

You must read this article from the NY Times about Costco. With great quotes from their CEO, who cares about his workers and thinks over the long term. And revealing quotes from Wall Street pricks, concerned that this is a company in which “it’s better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder.” A great illustration of the good and the bad in business today.

Sorry I wish I knew how to embed links in my words, but I don’t:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/business/yourmoney/17costco.html?ei=5090&en=8b3103305fea6d68&ex=1279252800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1121705296-Q4tqPzmKJ9sYl9Q2a0xDYA

The post-USA SE Asian genocide is so obviously on your party’s doorstep that for thirty years you’ve just covered your ears and said ‘i can’t hear you’ whenever the topic is broached, but that’s apparently not enough to have taught you anything, as you’re all for a replay.

I’d recommend you study global headlines from 1975-1980 to see what to expect, but i doubt anything there would connect for you if it hasn’t already. But there is a thing called ‘reality’ and it really exists, and you can’t spin it away.

As far as your WalMart DVD, yes, there’s quite a propaganda campaign out there, well-organized and well-funded, trying to ruin the company.

Would you answer one simple yes-or-no question honestly for me? If WalMart were to unionize tomorrow, and keep everything else exactly as it is, would this huge, expensive, dedicated ”public interest” smear campaign against it continue, or not?

And when did we give the Iraqis “our word” that we would continue to occupy their country until… no one willing or able to opposes our presence in the country is left standing?

The arguments against Wal-Mart are many, but they aren’t being made by Democrats. H. Clinton was on their board for years. In the context of a hollowed out, post-industrial economy, however, you’re right: many people do depend on cheap import prices to get by. But those lost prices come at a tremendous cost, a point illustrated well by the DVD of the same name (Wal-Mart: High Cost of Low Price)