The Lovitz Curve
Socialists absolutely hate the Laffer Curve because it takes as its starting point the assumption that under real-world conditions a completely collectivist economy (in which there is no personal reward for working) will always stagnate to the point of complete paralysis. Unfortunately for the haters, the history of communist economies largely confirms Laffer’s assumption; one only need look at what happened in the Soviet Union in the ’20s and ’30s, and China in the ’50s, to see that productivity collapses and the economy implodes when you outlaw individual rewards for labor (which is what a 100% tax rate would do).
Similarly, the Lovitz Curve is going to be a rude awakening for the Obama campaign. He and his strategists had thought that they could amp up the class warfare rhetoric to the absolute maximum and still count on unquestioned support and unlimited donations from the Hollywood elite. But Jon Lovitz’s game-changing rant brought them crashing down to Earth; turns out that the wealthy liberals have acquired a taste for luxury, and their guilt-assuaging support for the proletariat has a limit. Obama unwittingly crossed that line, and he learned the hard way that the curve’s drop-off in RASH is steep and pitiless as you approach Leninhood.
And what holds true for the Hollywood elite almost certainly holds true for hypocritical wealthy liberals from San Francisco to the Hamptons. The Obama campaign may begin to see those big liberal donors suddenly making themselves scarce if he keeps demonizing the 1%.
Will Obama heed the harsh realpolitik of the Lovitz Curve? Or will he throw caution to the wind as he tries to whip up the underclass into a scapegoating frenzy?
As we’ve seen, as long as Obama says the money is going towards the support of GLBT marriage, Hollywood will open those wallets right back up.
… and EXACTLY how was YOUR marriage damaged by any of the marriages between men and men or women and women anywhere in the US?
Please be explicit.
Thank you!
So the damage has to come within five minutes of the event? I suppose it does when dealing with short-sighted people.
With gayness being made so hip, the culture (particularly the youth culture) is embracing every aspect of gay culture. In the eyes of today’s youth, there’s nothing gays have to clean up, fix or answer for. This is dangerous and stupid.
My ex wife left me and got engaged to a woman.
Please save the straw man: no one is saying that, no matter how many times you ask the question. It’s a larger issue, about the nature of reality, and how dangerous and stupid it is to let a small minority define that reality, and then suggest that to not be fully on board with that peculiar view is tantamount to Jim Crow.
With those tactics, one can and does bully people into silence, but does not change their minds.
Hey, look! A red herring!
I’ll answer your question with a question.
Why, when we have civil unions, should you want marriages.
Here is what civil unions offer:
Tax breaks
Financial benefits
Societal recognition of your commitment
Personal avowal of your commitment
Here is what Marriage offers:
Tax breaks
Financial benefits
Societal recognition of your commitment
Personal avowal of your commitment
Validation of your union by religions, specifically Christianity.
So the only thing that civil unions dont offer is recognition by Christianity as valid. Christianity sees homosexuality as a sin and therefore it is impossible in christianity to enter into a covenant between two people and God if those two people do so in sin. Therefore, it is impossible to marry gay people to each other in Christianity.
Trying to pass gay marriage is thus basically just trying to force churches to recognize marriages between gay people. If they had to recognize them they would then have to perform those marriages if a gay couple who claimed to be christian asked. If they refused to do the marriage both the media and the government would come down hard on them and they might lose their tax exempt status, making it impossible for them to keep their doors open. Therefore, they would have to choose between either offending the state and ceasing to be a functioning church, or offending God by sinning through sanctioning a condemned practice.
It isnt that Christians hate gays. To the contrary, I am christian and I have several gay friends, and many christians I know also have gay friends. I love my gay friends as much as I love my straight friends, but for me to support gay marriage is for me to act in defiance of the very God that I believe in and I cannot do that. He has told me that I must act charitably towards all men, and so I support whole heartedly civil unions. Heck! Give them a bigger tax break than straight couples, I dont care. But I cannot support gay marriage, so, on behalf of all christians, please stop trying to force me to violate my religious principles.
There is no benefit of marriages over civil unions for gay people, there is only persecution for christianity. To be pro gay marriage is not to be pro gay. To be pro civil union is definitely to be pro gay. But to be pro marriage is simply to be anti christianity.
Please, STOP.
And please, for the love, do not reply saying that it is possible to be a practicing gay and to be christian. You may believe that Christ exists and is your savior, but if you are living contrarily to his explicitly stated commandments then you have not repented. If you have not repented his Atonement cannot cleanse you of your sin. So yes, as a gay, you can believe in Christ, but you cannot be saved by him, and therefore you must pay the penalty for your own sins. Therefore, you are not “Christian” if you are a practicing gay.
If you are gay and you don’t act on it, but instead you live a celibate lifestyle or marry a woman and only have sex with her, then that is different, you can aboslutely be a Christian.
And PLEASE dont use that it is difficult to have gay feelings and live a straight lifestyle as an excuse. It is no more difficult to be attracted to men and not act on it than it is for any given straight man to not give in to his sexual urges. Its a well known fact that most men find it much easier and more in line with their sexual tastes to sleep with as many women possible who are as sexually appealing as possible and that it is incredibly difficult to be faithful to just one woman your entire life. Like, welcome to the greatest challenge of manhood. Being a gay man, you are not suffering anything us straight guys dont suffer the equivalent of. Monogamy requires just as much sexual self repression as living a straight lifestyle as a gay man.
Matt, I’m always surprised that intelligent people fail to do that little bit of research before making a nearly entirely untrue statement. Here is an independent analysis of the more than 1,100 federal laws that only pertain to married couples. Most notably, they are related to tax benefits, health insurance benefits and social security benefits, though there are many others.
Sorry to burst your cleverly-hidden prejudicial bubble, but facts are facts: http://www.factcheck.org/what_is_a_civil_union.html
can I borrow this?
“… and EXACTLY how was YOUR marriage damaged by any of the marriages between men and men or women and women anywhere in the US?”
Agreed – so the government shouldn’t change marriage.
The liberal logic on gay marriage is astounding. The logic is “everything is fine, gay marriage means nothing, it’s really not that important so we must change marriage.”
plusafdotcom
… and EXACTLY how was YOUR marriage damaged by any of the marriages between men and men or women and women anywhere in the US?
Please be explicit.
When you justify the actions legally of the unjustifiable when even true nature, not warped liberal nature, has its limits. It seems that what certain people want is to be noticed and not necessarily for the naturalness of it.
But, (pardon the pun) the beef I have is that if this is SSM is made legal it will be forced to be taught in schools as just as natural as a marriage that can produce offspring naturally. Which we all know is not correct.
So, How are you going to teach that gay marriage is natural? What age? Do the children being taught that gay marriage is natural realize that they themselves came from a coupling of a man and a woman and not a man & man or even a woman & woman?
Marriage as an institution is harmed when it is bastardized and made more insignificant by liberals. Why do people have to attack marriage? What threatens them about it & why do liberals have a tendency to punish those who are married or is seen as punishment by people who’d like to get married with higher taxes?
Is it because liberals see that single people especially single women have a tendency to vote more liberal than married people, specifically married women? Why does it seem that the left wants to try and stack the deck in their favor with visibly unnatural specifics by calling them natural and natural happenings that are obviously not caused by humans.
The human tragedy is the liberal mind by trying to turn nature up-side-down.
HERE IS ONE REASON for the deficit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gwWaKkV6RM
“Or will he throw caution to the wind as he tries to whip up the underclass into a scapegoating frenzy?”
Isn’t “whipping up the underclass” the point? Van Jones let the cat out of the bag when he said something like “top down, bottom up, inside out”. Didn’t Mrs. O just recently tell a bunch of donors that it’s going to get scary, but that’s what it takes for “change”.
I mean, really, what’s the use of ginning up a bunch of Cloward-Pivenized Orcs if you can’t whip them up and unleash them on you enemies (remember BHO did use the word enemy?
I think a comment of mine just got eaten, but — Yeah, OsoPardo. And the fun would be pushing Obama as far to 100% as possible (unleash the OWS and the Peggy Josephs!) and watching him pander accordingly on all the boutique issues he’d need to redeem himself.
And then there is Nancy Pelosi’s daughter.
Then there is the tipping point process: If there was plenty of time between now and early November, it would be possible to experiment slowly, and carefully increase the virulence of the class warfare rhetoric by small increments, and observe whether the campaign donations from the 1% are still increasing or not.
But there isn’t plenty of time, there is only less than 6 months left, and this careful experiment is not even remotely practical, for a variety of reasons… So, it is more likely that our masters of the rhetorical manipulation will push the pedal to the metal, and thoroughly alienate an electorate that has been systematically insulted from the beginning. Remember the Nobel piss prize, the stimulus, the beer summit after accusing the cops of stupidity, and on and on, until the pipeline, the open mike with Medvedev, the so-called “evolution” on marriage theory, and God knows what’s next?
Am I the only one who notices the coming off of the wheels?
Professor, you’re on the outside looking in.
Those inside the inner circle only really see each other, and their most devoted sycophants. Rather like the song “Home on the Range”, they live in a place
“Where seldom (make that “never”) is heard, a discouraging word,
And the skies are not cloudy all day.”
Inside the echo chamber of the progressive leadership (Washington, academia, and media) anything coming from outside is disregarded as the venting of bigoted, stupid hicks; their view of everyone outside of the ruling class, as per Codevilla’s essay. They also believe that what those hicks are venting about is irrelevant because they can always count on the support of “the faithful”, which they believe trumps everything else.
The problem is that there may not be enough faithful left to lash together enough of a coalition to overcome the large number of voters who are simply fed up with this lot’s arrogance, ineptitude, and hostility (bordering on outright malevolence). And the situation Zombie describes is one in which they may have finally succeeded in alienating not just a group of supporters, but a critical part of what has been up to now their own propaganda arm.
Of course, no matter what they do, I suspect they’ll always have Sean Penn. But please, nobody tell the President that he has only the SECOND most colossal ego in the Universe.
cheers
eon
Where’s the “I AGREE!!!” button?
Eon,
Returning from Los Angeles International from flights to Asia, I have often noticed somewhere in the corridors leading to the customs a window which rather looks like a mirror to the travelers. Behind that “mirror” there probably is, in a darken observation room, some security officers looking for passengers acting nervous, or in some other way untypical, as a possible clue to some mischief. From the viewpoint of these security officers, they are outside looking in, as you state. There are many indications that the thought process of the libs is more transparent to the conservatives than the other way around, as if there was indeed the semi-transparent mirror you suggest between the two. If this is the case, when the tipping point is reached, things will suddenly switch, as if the profile of the Lovitz curve was in fact evocative of a tsunami wavefront, because they could not see what was coming.
Whoops! Returning to Los Angeles!
Zombie, GREAT analysis. Have you thought about doing a similar analysis for Romney? Would be illuminating.
Then, you could overlay the Obama and Romney curves, and see who got the last Laffer.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
I agree, GDI, and almost spewed coffee all over the keyboard while reading it. I would offer one small criticism, though. It seems to me that the vertical axis should be oriented on the right side of graph, such that the Lovitz curve proceeds LEFTWARD towards Lennin. This might seem Barrackwards to convention but, given the subject at hand, would a better visualization of the concept.
I wrestled with that very issue when designing the Lovitz Curve, but came to the conclusion that I needed to keep it as ultra-simple as possible to make it clear and instantly understandable. I pruned down the design to the minimum, and decided to keep the traditional orientation and direction of the x/y axes, because to fiddle around with them would have ultimately just confused people. I’m weary of the whole left/right dichotomy framework anyway, so I don’t mind violating its directionality in a graph.
If Obama was a one-issue pony, this might be enough. However, since Biden forced his hand by forcing him to “evolve” on the issue of gay marriage, Obama has collected something like %15 million from Hollywood. The Hollywood left is all aflutter about this recent pandering to one of their fondest desires, and there are many more that Obama can pander to (illegal immigration, for starters). Hollywood is far from ready to throw Obama under the bus.
Yes, a good pandering on the boutique issues probably pushes the curve to the right. Ha, it would be fun if we could get Obama demanding 99% taxation and watch him pander accordingly on immigration, affirmative action, bailouts, union handouts, sensitivity to Muslims, Jew-hatred, the evil of college entrance exams, trans-fats, global warmening, etc etc. Release the OWS! Raise an army of Peggy Josephs!
Wait until the Occupy morons start surrounding their Mercedes and calling for their heads! Remember Prince Charles and Camilla? Coming after OUR rich soon.
As much as I hate the Hollywood left, I could get on board with the Occupiers if they were the target.
Remember your flea collar.
Please refrain from calling idiots morons. Us morons have measurable IQs. Remember the proper description of an OWS member is idiot.
RE: Prince Charles and Camilla. These Limo Liberals are playing with fire and are too stupid to realize it. They feel very avante garde and “edgy” by egging on this class warfare. It makes for interesting cocktail party conversation. They are essentially slumming for fun and enjoyment. The riotous fools that buy into this game are unaware it’s supposed to be just a game. They believe it’s real and take it seriously. They expect the rich libs to willfully donate everything they have to the “masses” They won’t of course and this will facilitate riots which may get out of control and consume, (aka kill) the rich libs. They will then cower like the disgusting, idiotic, immature weaklings they are, for the sensible middle class to save them from the wrath of the “proletariate”. I say, let the rioters kill the limo libs first, then eliminate the occupy morons. It’s the duty of every patriotic American Citizen to maintain a personal arsenal with thousands of rounds of ammo for just this eventuality. I do.
You do not need thousands of rounds of ammunition unless you are blind as a bat or the worlds worst shot, when you eliminate one or more of the rioters you take their weapons, and yes they will have them, plus all their ammunition, your only problem is how to carry all your new weapons and ammunition acquired from good shot placement something from Walmart with wheels and a lockable lid made of plastic would be nice.
I normally carry two weapons along with 4 extra magazines, a 40 caliber compact M&P and a 45 full size M&P, so with all the magazines loaded I have 71 rounds total this is stopping power so then I merely go and take the weapon(s) and ammunition of the rioter and add it to my collection, since they are in a mob mentality and I am a trained Viet Nam Era Vet everything works well for me but the others not so much!
Well, it had to happen sooner or later — enough former allies get thrown under the bus that the backlash begins.
Are we lucky enough to see the backlash rise and swell in time for the election?
On second thought — never mind luck. Obama has more than enough hubris to bring this upon himself.
Yet they hate Cheney regardless of his support for gay marriage. It was never about gay marriage it was about politics.
The Left’s act was never about politics, it is about hate.
The peak of the Lovitz curve is on the short side of 50% at 35% federal tax, if I recall correctly the video that I saw. He’s been all over the place saying similar things. He adds 11% state tax, so 46% total, then he goes on listing other taxes.
Silly people.
This election will be won after the class riots when the Pres. declares a state of emergency.
The press calls for calm, reason and obedience to national authorities.
The Pres. wins reelection on rigged computers.
The RNC challenges to the supreme court, which doesn’t hear the case until unnamed conservative Justice goes peacefully in his sleep and Justice Holder is sworn in.
SCOTUS declares the Pres. the clear winner.
Update: SCOTUS upholds Patriot Act III provision for Pres. to retain executive powers indefinitely.
This sounds extreme, but consider a more realistic scenario. The election is the usual 53%-47% split of a typical presidential contest, with Obama getting the short end of the stick. Holder detects racial bias in several close states and directs the feds to impound ballots there, saying that the DOJ will do its own recount. Obama now comes out ahead, and the Dems also have enough senate seats — one third plus one — to stop Obama from being impeached. What’s to stop this? The only obvious check on presidential power in the constitution, short of armed revolution, is impeachment followed by conviction in the Senate and the two-term limit. I don’t see Obama being convicted in the Senate no matter what he does. How many affirmative-action blacks are there now in the civil service? I suspect there are more than enough to carry out this sort of vote-counting palace coup by Obama and Holder.
Watch for one or more newly-formed (or newly bought by outsiders) polling groups that consistently show Obama with a solid majority of “likely” voters before the election. This sort of phony polling (perhaps set up or supported by Soros) will help give Obama and Holder the political cover they need to seize ballot boxes and launch the coup.
I see a slightly different scenario. Obama wins the election, carrying every state that doesn’t require photo ID to vote. Business gives up hope, millions more lose their jobs, gold rises to $6000/ounce, and gasoline to $20/gallon. Obama cuts military spending deeply and increases welfare benefits. Tanks appear on the streets of Washington. With the cameras switched off, Allen West is elected Speaker of the House, Obama, Biden, Kagan, and Sotomayor are impeached, and the Senate convicts ten minutes later, all by unanimous vote.
Within days, President West shuts down all government functions not specifically required by the Constitution. Congress passes the 28th Amendment, restoring the Gold Standard and repealing the 16th, 17th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments*, and West gives each state an ultimatum: ratify the changes, become a territory, or secede (“there’s the door” in his words). Some states can’t decide, splitting into pro-West and anti-West factions. This could lead to civil war, if the liberals hadn’t disarmed themselves with gun control.
* States may collect income tax, hold elections for Senator, and allow women, the indigent, and 18-year-olds to vote. They just won’t have to.
Now that‘s thinking outside the box.
Hey, have the price of gold go up to $9000 to $12,000 and now the US government’s gold holdings are automatically enough to back up the dollar with gold (more or less, depending on exactly how you decide to define the amount of dollars in existence) without going to the trouble of making it official…
Yes, only men should be allowed to vote. Look how rationally they govern.
Err, the real question is how rationally they vote. Even if the answer is not very rationally, the question then is whether it’s more or less rationally than women. Actually, just because in the past the only type of voting test the authorities had the wherewithal to put in place was by category — are you over-a-certain age, male, female, property owner, etc. — that doesn’t mean that today, when we want to be more picky about who gets the vote, we still have to stick to these stone-age methods. Imagine a long, computerized voting entrance exam which anyone can take but not everyone can pass. Remember, the real threat to the US is not Obama but all those people who voted for him. We can vote Obama out of office — maybe — but those voters will still be registered for the next election, and the one after that, and the one after that, and …
>>Err, the real question is how rationally they vote.
I was hoping no one would notice, so permit me to dance a little.
Leaving governance (including voting) entirely to men wouldn’t do us any good either. Men’s weakness is the best-and-the-brightest trap. We can bring about world peace through mathematical formulas! That’s why I know male electrical engineers who think Hillary would make a great president.
Dave is really not here maaaaan…
I’m not sure any of these views are particularly extreme.
Whether Obama fans rigging the recount or the military standing up for the Constitution, I can’t see Obama losing with 50% on the dole, with the Pres. ruling by executive fiat and getting away with it, Holder skating through treasonous misconduct, the rule of law dissolving (contract law done away with by GM, and equal protection only for the right race and party affiliation), the Supreme Court half-bought, with Trumka calling out class rioters and Sharpton (and all the Jackson clan) calling for race riots, a national press envied by Goebbels, Fox News being purchased by G. Soros (okay, I made that one up) — with all that, I can’t see the election going to anyway but for Obama.
And I can’t see things getting any less despotic short of a military coup.
Headlines: Holder Holds All Cards vs. Sun Rises to West
I can. One or one hundred thousand more baby mommas married to the government and on the dole in California, Illinois, or New York doesn’t add one more vote to the Obama column in the Electoral College.
Laying off two million federal bureaucrats devastates the economy of Maryland and northern Virginia, untouched by the recession until now. These states revolt against Allen West and attack Washington DC. Against little resistance, they seize the White House and Capitol and find them deserted. On the President’s desk, there’s a signed Act of Congress ceding the District back to Maryland and moving the nation’s capital to Fort Knox, Kentucky. Gold gaps up to $15000/ounce as investors wonder who’s in charge of the Federal Reserve, but drops back to $9000 on the news that Ben Bernanke has been fired and replaced by Ron Paul.
Ahhh. Sweet dreams.
Kentucky would have to agree to that move and cede the land. The Constitution states that the Seat of Government of the United States shall be outside the jurisdiction of any state, formed from a parcel of land ceded by one or more states, not to exceed ten square miles in area.
It does not say ten square miles; it says ten miles square, which is one hundred square miles. The original District of Columbia was ten miles square, including land that has been ceded back to Virginia.
That is not gonna happen because if there is any disturbance anywhere much less a call for martial law it would only be if whole cities and states were having this kind of disorder, even in the Flicker or Twitter or Facebook age it ain’t gonna happen.
Sure there will be problems that might flare up but nothing requiring calling out of the National Guard (which is a Governors call to make) then and only then could a plea for armed forces be asked for at the federal level (after the National Guard can’t solve the problem)!
Lets all face it that will not ever happen because most people are too lazy to even change the channel on their television without using a remote! They might make a lot of noise but in the end they don’t do anything and that is one reason for the widespread obesity in this country…a bunch of lazy asses doing little if anything using as little effort in even doing nothing, it is disgusting!
Here’s a more succinct Jon Lovitz quote that applies to his view of Our Nero Zero’s class-warfare rhetoric.
RE: “Socialists absolutely hate the Laffer Curve because it takes as its starting point the assumption that under real-world conditions a completely collectivist economy (in which there is no personal reward for working) will always stagnate to the point of complete paralysis”
If you want equality of results, go to Cuba: Everyone lives on 50 cents a day.
If you want an oligarchy of government/business/banking, well, start in the USA and go to over half of the world governments. Pay attention to Argentina, Venezuala, Russia, Zimbabwe (50 cents a day plus cholera, black death, diamond gulags, smallpox, etc.),Bolivia, etc. to see where we are headed.
I’ll give a number to the peak tax rate of the Laffer curve :
Low 20s. As in, 21-24% top marginal tax rate. Government revenue is the highest then.
And state/local taxes have to be included in that number. So if the Federal Government wants the top rate to be 24%, there is no room for another 10% tacked on by California or NY.
This was known even in the middle ages, in both Europe and India. Tax rates above ‘two tithings’ always saw peasants migrate to another empire/kingdom.
How often can people repeat the same errors?
I’m not saying that the 70% number is true; all I’m saying is that some lefty economist back in the ’80s supposedly did a study (the goal of which was probably to undermine Reaganomics) and announced that 70% was the perigee of the Laffer Curve. I just cited (not endorsed the validity of) that study to introduce the concept of a lopsided curve that matched the pro-Leninist slant of the Lovitz Curve.
“70% was the perigee of the Laffer Curve.”
I think you meant apogee. Perigee is an orbit’s closest approach to the Earth while apogee is its farthest point. /nitpick
Actually, neither “perigee” nor “apogee” is correct. The right word obviously was “apex”, which just slipped my mind. Ooops! Thanks for pointing that out.
Yes, but I do like “apogee”: It implies that something is in orbit–probably those tiny little Hollywood minds.
We did an experiment: The peak income tax rate under Carter was 70%, and when dropped to 50% under Reagan, the income tax paid by the top 1% increased. It increased again when the peak income tax rate dropped from 50% to 35%.
Also keep in mind that due to the magic of compound interest rates, a lower tax rate leads to higher growth, and thus, over time to higher net worth for the country, and to higher proceeds as the government gets nearly a fixed share (~19%) of that income.
I saw a study of countries around the world showing that total taxable income peaks at 25% taxation. If you go much lower, government lacks the resources needed to maintain law and order. Total tax revenue (the Laffer curve) peaks at 45% taxation. Not surprisingly, developed countries cluster around the 45% mark, even though 25% would be the best deal for their citizens.
There’s an issue you’re not considering, actually several. First, almost no one in America considers that they belong in the 1%, or that they are in it. People in this country have a serious case of “stuff envy”, so that if you tell a person they’re rich, they’ll tell you about a friend or acquaintance who has more money than they, and they’ll insist that “he’s rich, I’m middle class.” This is constant, and neverending.
Second, wealthy Democrats tend to not be productive people, though I’m sure there are some. They’re trial attorneys who get rich off of their cut of the damage awards they get for their clients, they’re high profile actors and musicians, or they inherited the money. Typically you don’t find someone who started out with nothing, built up a company until it was a multi-billion dollar concern, and he’s a Democrat. Not if he wants to stay in business…except maybe if the business he’s in, close ties with government regulators can keep competitors from threatening his market share, now that he’s big and they aren’t. Maybe, but it’s probably pretty rare.
The third trick is that rich people don’t get taxed the way the rest of us do. The best example I can think of regarding this phenomenon is the Dutch rock group U-2. What, you say U-2′s Irish? Well the members were born and raised there, yes, but the corporate headquarters of the group is Holland, and that’s where they pay their taxes, because Holland only taxes artists at the rate of 15% of their income. How many people do you know (artists even) who can move to Holland to be “tax efficient” (that’s how The Edge refers to paying as little taxes as possible)? Not many people can, but the wealthy, of course. So most of Obama’s supporters who are part of the 1% no doubt are certain that while they advocate for higher taxes on that idiot down the street who has the large SUV and voted for Bush, well *his* taxes will go up because he’s a moron, but I have a good tax guy, and he’s assured me we can get a write off on that solar panel company I’ve invested in, so we won’t be hurt much at tax time.
The thing is, Obama’s trying to raise taxes to pay for things we don’t need with money he doesn’t have. The new taxes won’t get him the revenue he seeks, it’ll be the Republicans’ fault, and he’ll go back to the well again.
Spot on.
but I have a good tax guy, and he’s assured me we can get a write off on that solar panel company I’ve invested in, so we won’t be hurt much at tax time.
Exact;y that is what happened in the late 70′s when Carter tried the Solar experiment and spent all kinds of money subsidizing solar water heating and other solar related technology, it was great for me because many individuals were investing great sums of money to put panels on their roofs to provide water heated by the sun at a considerable cost. It also needed to be inspected by a federal official, and part of my job was not only to provide permits for other to do this but state that what they had done would in fact be OK with the federal officials, it got so bad that I had one company beeping my pager every 30 to 45 minutes asking me to inspect their work and get a permit for their work that I said hey dude, I only want you to call me once a day and at that time you need to give me a list of addresses where you have completed your work and I will then look at it and then get a permit for your job! luckily by about 1980 this fad was gone as there were no longer the incentives from Jimmy Carter… but now we have Jimmy Carter TWO making sure all of us not just individuals wanting a taxpayers subsidy , but individuals who happened to have given money to the goon we now have in the white house some funds for …a re-election campaign or in the case of Solyndra an election of the worst president ever in our nation.
Yep the Democrats are still doing the same old tricks except even costing our country more, I believe that Obama is doing it all full force because he knows he will not get re-elected and is doing as much damage as possible regardless of the Constitution or even the laws of our land!
lovits has already toned it down. He said it was just comedy. Yeah he says his friends agree that taxes are too high but,what got this started was just comedy. I guess he doesn’t want to alienate his hollywood buddies or get blacklisted for speaking out against the boobama
No I do not think it was merely comedy, Obama has raised the progressives thievery and lawlessness to a tipping point, his comedy was what he really feels and even though he does not want to appear politically incorrect with the first BLACK president he still means it and will most likely not vote for Obama or even Romney and just enjoy his current station in life.
So he says it was just a joke then at least he was thinking it, and before action there must be thought, with the exception of breathing or your heart beating do you really do or act on anything without thinking about it first? Well apparently he thought about it and he feels or thinks that he is taxed too much already and is threatened by his taxes going up further, and is he currently earning large sums that would make him one of those taxed more so than the others?
It is telling and I think that with the anticipation of a Billion dollar campaign it will probably be much less and I hope it is more like 200 million at best but we shall see shall we not?
Our founding documents refer to the fact that we constituted a government of limited and enumerated powers so that we all could “enjoy the blessings of liberty”. This implies that there is a Liberty Curve, where too little government has less liberty just as too much government does, but for different reasons.
People understand the Laffer Curve, but it shows us how to maximize government revenues. But having maximum government is different than having maximum liberty, and we all should know that critical difference.
The Laugher Curve is no joke. Promoting larger government revenues by reducing strangulating taxes is a game for fools, because it works. What does government do when it has more revenues? Just shoot me, right after you’ve shot yourself in the foot.
The point of taxes in a free society is not to maximaze government revenues.
Quoting: “And what holds true for the Hollywood elite almost certainly holds true for hypocritical wealthy liberals from San Francisco to the Hamptons. The Obama campaign may begin to see those big liberal donors suddenly making themselves scarce if he keeps demonizing the 1%.”
Ain’t gonna happen, Zombie. The Hollywood Left and all the other socialist lefties out there are in the tank completely for this president, and nothing…and I mean NOTHING is going to stop their financial and electoral support for him. To quote Mr. Krauthammer, we think they are stupid (which they are), but they think we are evil. And, they think we are intellectually inferior, and must be corrected by our betters.
Just my two cents. But I think we should get behind taxing the wealthy-exempting business owners at 70%. Why not?
We know the left is where the wealth resides-Hollyweird, trial lawyers/firms, unions, foundations, Congress, academia, Wall Street and MSM (did I miss anyone??). They want to pay more so why are we, on the right, fighting to protect their money? And for the Buffett crowd create a wealth tax on all their assets here and abroad at 70%. No more gettng by on their distributions….
The left beats us over the head with the money they save by lower taxes and donate that money to left wingers in DC to hurt us more. What kind of suspension of disbelief do we live in over on the right?
I say tax ‘em and tax ‘em high. Tax union dues at 90%. Tax foundations and charities with political ties at 90%. Tax the entertainment industry at 90% including pro-sports. Then turn around and tell the American public that the extra money from the left will be used for welfare, illegal immigrants, medicaid and job training for those on welfare.
Blotto, you’re making the classic mistake of confusing wealth and wages. Yes, they have wealth, but most / all of it doesn’t result from wages.
They’ll get behind Hussein Obama all the more vociferously. He’s the high priest of their religion, combining in His Person the race card, the cool card, the marxist card, the [closet] homosexual card, and the moslem card. Best of all, he loathes America and wants to castrate her as fiercely as they do.
How can they deny Him? Like rats, they will “raven down their proper bane.”
Yes, Leftism is a religion in many aspects, and one that verges on being a cult at times.
Verges?
Verges.
$40,000 per plate dinners tell me the Hollywood elites aren’t ready to give up yet.
“21. Rik
$40,000 per plate dinners tell me the Hollywood elites aren’t ready to give up yet.”
To someone who just made $5,000,000 on there last movie (which was a bomb) that’s the equivalent of someone making $50,000 a years spending $400. In return, all your “friends” think you’re “one of them” and you continue to find work. Not to mention you got a great meal at George Clooney’s house and had the POTUS sucking up to you. IOW, this was chicken feed to most of these folks. The real test will come further down the line when things are looking bad for the Obozo, and he asks for more money.
Hey if the contributions now to Obamas campaign are like those of Joe Bite Me the vice president and second idiot in charge (of something, not sure what it is though)the Billion dollar campaign will be the several million dollar campaign, and so we will now all see will we not…his shine is dull and the newness has kinda worn off, nice to play with every now and then but mostly put back in the closet until the next new thing comes around!
No he is sinking and yeah we will give a little rope but you are the Titanic and you are gonna sink just like in the movies, here’s your parting gift!
Hollywood may stay in the tank, but I think the size of the giving has already dropped. Yes, they love Obama, but they also know their houses have dropped in value and the mortgage hasn’t. The hatred for flyover values may dance in the forefront of their brains while they talk about the election with their friends, in the back of their minds their selfishness is saying, “not so much cash this go round.” I predict only 50-60% revenue out of Hollywood compared to last election when all the counting is done.
I would only add that the Hollywood elites may also be finally, FINALLY, getting the message that not only will government take your money, but it will waste it too. From Solyndra, GSA, and “shovel-ready” jobs that didn’t exist, to an $800 billion “stimulus” that stimulated nothing. Government has an uncanny knack for wasting billions of dollars and these same liberals are seeing that it DOES make a difference when the government is wasting THEIR money. It’s great being a liberal, until you realized that you’re being played for a chump, just like the farm animals in Animal Farm.
This is a very typical Progressive/Communist move and it occurs to me as I remember my history that actors, comedians and the like were among the first to be killed or sent to re-education camps by Lenin. Along with newspaper people and anyone capable of swaying public opinion were shipped off to Siberia or other parts east of Moscow. I can see the entire northeast as a prison camp.
Ouch this sucks must not be really great to be in Hollywood pr a so called STAR anymore, that just makes you a target and useful idiot perhaps Jon Lovitz is more than the first to get it, and possibly the reason for the low turnout and also the rants against Obama!
I do not think Obama does anything he is not told to do. How much was raised for the 2008 election? A billion?
This class warfare is just one part of a larger agenda. If the left gets enough people who want something for nothing on the government sugar tit, then the left will be in power. Envy is a very human trait, and this world system uses this to wage war between groups.
You have stated Zombie, you do not believe in G-d, or not sure it exists. The left attacks everything G-d has ordered humans to do. If you do not work, you do not eat. Do not desire your neighbors things. Do not go into debt. Do not spoil the child. Marriage is between a man, and a women, and the family is a shelter from the world system. All of these examples are under attack strongly now for 50 years. We have sown the wind. We will now reap the whirlwind.
Obama is following an agenda. An agenda set up by the father of lies, and humans do his bidding for money, and power. The father of lies hates humans with all his spirit, and is very smart.
Clarification: do not go into debt is a guideline, the rest are commandments. Bad things happen when you take on debt, but doing so is not a sin. The borrower is slave to the lender, so debt should be avoided if at all reasonable, but it is not a sin to borrow if you need to.
I agree it is not a sin to borrow. I do think it is a sin to bankrupt a country gaining control over people.
Rothchild did not care who made the laws. He wanted control over the money.
The next time you visit a movie theater give the attendant $1 for your ticket and explain “I’m poor and I’m sure George Clooney wouldn’t want to take money out of the mouths of my children” and see it you get in.
This is an interesting piece, and it triggered several thoughts pingponging around in my head.
1. In addition to the Laffer curve, it is useful to be aware of the Rahn curve. This plots government spending (as percent of GDP) against GDP growth. All modern developed countries are on the “down” side of the Rahn curve, so any time they increase the size of government, it negatively impacts GDP. This, along with a recent OECD report, is a death knell for the “balanced” approach to reducing the deficit proposed by the Dems.
2. The Laugher curve is already in effect in France. There are 300K French ex-pats living in England and the election of Hollande has caused more to explore this possibility. One thing those evil rich people can do is — leave.
3. Hollywood liberalism goes back a long way. Remember McCarthy investigated Hollywood folks for being communists. He was vilified but, in many cases it turns out he was right. Many of these folks are touchy-feely creative types who have no business sense and no idea of how the real world works. Good fortune is a major part of their success. While business leaders may be hated, no matter how rich movie stars (and sports figures) are, people tend to love them. So, they get to have the benefits of being in the 1% without the public disapproval.
“Remember McCarthy investigated Hollywood folks for being Communists.”
Actually, no, he didn’t. That was HUAC;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee
Senator McCarthy, as Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Government Operations Committee of the U.S. Senate, investigated alleged Soviet infiltration and sympathizers within the U.S. State Department and Defense Department. Hollywood was not within the purview of the subcommittee’s investigative brief.
HUAC’s hearings on Hollywood in 1947 were chaired by Representative Edward J. Hart, (D-NJ). Which is why I’ve always been amused by Hollywood types vilifying Republicans over HUAC, the blacklist, & etc.
Of course, progressives have always had their own reality.
cheers
eon
HUAC, 1937-1964, created and controlled by Democrats, in their continuing attempt to create a Western Soviet.
Thanks for that. I have been a victim of the progressive rewrite of history.
A tax rate of 100% may sound tempting at first.
Human impulse, in other words, human instinct, takes the gray out of the gray science. Reagan vs. Lenin is a good way to frame it, cuz Other People’s Money (OPM) comes right from the gut, or maybe rat from the gut is a better phrase.
Frederic Bastiat put it best in his essays: people will always prefer avoiding risk and sitting around on their dead asses… in other words, collecting OPM. It’s easy, feels good, and gives the recipient a sense of righteousness.
The trouble with Laffer is that his theory worked. Trickle down economics was widely derided as bullsheet in the 1980s, but after Reagan and Kemp put it into policy good numbers popped off the charts. The trouble with politics is, try to convince a voter that, on balance, net net, risk and work are good for him and his prosperity. Especially try to convince him this when socialism, always going by another name, is taught to him in school, in the movies and on TV shows, just about everywhere. So little or no mention is made of the Reagan Boom that lasted until 2008. FDR is still thought of as a great prez, greater even than Ron. That’s a problem, a very, very, big problem.
When reality is lost, so is opportunity.
It worked for Reagan, because the nominal marginal tax rate at the time was 70%, nearly twice as high as it is now. And the effective tax rate was even higher, because inflation kept pushing people into higher tax brackets. (An entry-level secretary was shocked to be in the 40% tax bracket on her very first job after graduating school.)
Today, the top marginal tax bracket is around 40%, and inflation is relatively contained.
You can’t keep cutting taxes forever. Even Laffer himself admits that there’s a point beyond which cutting taxes no longer expands the economy significantly; it just lowers revenue. More than likely, we’ve already reached that point:
Note that the Bush tax cuts did not generate the kind of economic boom that the Reagan tax cuts did. Probably that’s because we have long since moved to the left of the Laffer Curve peak.
The Laffer Curve is not a rationale for “starving the beast”.
The Compliance Industry is as large, monetarily, as all US corporate net profits combined.
Compliance cannot be measured by cost-of-goods-sold, inventory, sales, or profits, yet capitalist metrics are the only tools we have to measure this alternative economy.
I have he same problem with the Corruption Curve as I do with the Compliance Curve. No economist has adequately calculated a predictable metric for ‘post-productive’ Industry.
Socialist economies use ‘money’ for Party power, not to deliver you a washing machine. Thus, ‘conservatives’ keep getting blindsided and ignored.
Compliance curve oh would that mean stuff like disposal fees or environmental upkeep pr any other name that a regulatory agency came up with by executive order of the agency directed by the President? No fishing here or there or no keeping certain fish less than a certain size or weight, no killing a deer during certain times even if a menace or anything like that…it seems there is either a state city or federal law against anything you might do and Obama and Holder seem intent on only enforcing those things that affect white people.
There is one problem with this approach do not try to enforce the laws against those rednecks in Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky, these might be the 13 new original states or colonies, and the rest of the nation can kiss our butt.
By the way most of the military are trained and stationed in the aforementioned states along with the weaponry…good luck liberals, you will need it, hey do you know how to catch a fish and prepare it to eat, or kill a deer and to do the same, when there is no food at the store what will you do?
Of course the Laffer curve is not a basis for “starve the beast”. But there is little doubt that we are on the down-side of the curve; i.e. increasing taxes moves us farther away from the optimal tax rate. This is reinforced by the Rahn curve, which suggests the optimal government size is somewhere below 20% of GDP; total government in the U.S. now approaches 40% of GDP. AEI has looked at solutions to debt crises and found that reducing spending can produce a lasting solution whereas increasing taxes does not. Similarly, OECD finds that solutions to government debt should be at least 85% spending cuts.
The Rahn curve is a different story. I was speaking of the Laffer Curve and its focus on tax rates.
You can’t add together Federal tax rates and state tax rates, because each state has its own income tax (or maybe none, in states like Nevada). You choose which state you want to live in. Live in Nevada, and you pay no state income tax. You can’t choose to avoid Federal law.
Note also that economists can’t agree among themselves at what rate the peak of the Laffer Curve takes place. Some say it’s as low as 40%; others say it’s as high as 70% (which is what it was when Laffer came up with his theory), others take a position in between these.
AFAIK, no economists that the current top Federal marginal rate of 35% is too high to discourage investment. (That’s the lowest it had been since the 1920s, and yet America wasn’t exactly starved for investment and innovation in the last 90 years.)
Looks like the entropy curve in a two-state system. Claude Shannon would approve.
Best compliment I’ve had all year!
Indeed!
If we just had folks who know what they’re doing, like JP Morgan running things, then we’d be all set, eh?
We do, Dwight. Not J.P. Morgan, to be sure, but the next best thing…Goldman Sachs.
Talking sense to the Left about the most effective tax rate for obtaining maximum government revenue is futile. The Left is not interested in taxing for revenue; the Left is determined to impose the highest possible tax rate as PUNISHMENT.
Give that man a cigar. You rang the bell.
Sinz54 wrote: Note that the Bush tax cuts did not generate the kind of economic boom that the Reagan tax cuts did. Probably that’s because we have long since moved to the left of the Laffer Curve peak.
That’s because instead of ALSO cutting spending, (deficit) spending increased, negating any gain.
There’s one thing about the Laffer curve that most people don’t understand (possibly even Laffer): it’s not constant. It changes with a nation’s changing economy, personal outlook, and possibly a dozen other things. In good times, the “optimum” may be 35%. In bad times, it may be 15%. Things like inflation can totally distort the equation, as can such things as war and natural disasters.
I think the Lovitz curve may also vary with changing perceptions. Expect the words from Hollyweird to change if the nation as a whole begins to diss not only O’Bumble, but the Hollyweird “elite” as well.
A tax rate of 100% may sound tempting at first …
Why stop there?
Comrade, If you owned two houses would you give one of them to the party ?
Yes comrade I would !
And comrade, if you owned two automobiles would you give one to the party ?
Yes comrade, of course I would !
Comrade if you owned two suits would you give away one of them to the party ?
Well comrade, no, I won’t !
How come comrade, don’t you support the party ?
Yes I do comrade, but I do own two suits !
Lovitz could be a closet conservative.
By claim of of being an obama voter would make this torpedo of a rant that much more lethal. It would also enable him to continue to make the Hollywood social rounds without too much flack.
Many folks are surprised when they accidentally discover conservative elements in their inner intellectual landscape. This is delicious poetic justice, because Claude Shannon, recognized for the practical merit of his information theory, is the guy who first postulated that the quantity of information was a measure of the degree of unexpectedness in the message. This means that Lovitz is now a great source of information. God bless that messenger!
I needed to look up “sycophant” used in a passage above. I didn’t know how to pronounce it or exactly what it was despite the context. Lo and behold “the Free Dictionary” online http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sycophants has beside my look-up word, “Enter To Win Dinner With Barack.” Hmmm. All that first name comfort. So I clicked, not for dinner but to see the speel. My computer locked up for over 5 minutes. Just as I got ready to Task Manager it, it comes alive with, “Contributions will not necessarily increase your chances of winning.”
In Obama’s world, contributing effort never increasing one’s chances of winning. Yet giving him money…hahahaha! You’ll do better to give it all away to 8-years old car washing youth in your neighborhood, if you’re just going to give it away. They’ll only wear off your car’s paint. Obama, however, will SPEAK while he takes your money. I know you don’t want that.
Another new one for me: “Speel” is in fact “spiel.”
That word showed a picture of Sylvester Stallone. Strange thing that free dictionary.
Actually, Zombie, most economists tend to agree, and practical reality has proven that the optimum rate in the Laffer curve is to the left of the 50% mark, somewhere between 25 – 35%. So I’m wondering if that may apply to the Lovitz curve too, or is the Hollywood crowd more masochistic than the average?