Wow.
I should have known my efforts to post something that would make all of us more reflective and grateful while at the same time challenging us to think about how imperfect this hot mess of a country currently is would all fall apart. It is the idealist in me that I thought I'd try.
Rousseau, thank you for reminding the forum of Opportunity Costs. That is week one of Econ 101, Samuelsson style.
Makers vs.Takers, really?
Have you noticed that there has been quite a bit of wage stagnation in spite of low unemployment rates?
That last round of tax cuts, I think 80% of the benefits went to corporations and the top 1%. And you want to know the dirty little secret of why the tax cuts keep going to the economic tip of the iceberg? There is not much available to cut for the true wage earners that pay a higher proportion overall of their income in total taxes than the ultrarich. But if we just give them more, something will drip down to the rest of us eventually, right? Isn't that the classic libertarian eCON fairy tale? And once the deficit blossoms, OOPS! we did it again, we can't afford you and your little people needs among the poor and infirm and pure wage earners. Time to cut, cut, cut.
I think when you are waiting for things to trickle down, there is a lot of evaporation and/or diversion somewhere along the way. I like science too.
Comcast and those other companies that announced those pretty little bonuses, it is just a tease. Here today, gone next year. A permanent wage increase makes a real difference. Our economy is driven by consumer spending. You want to grow this economy, put money in the hands of consumers, permanently, not on a whim. You want a business to grow, a business needs demand. Excess supply of goods or services sits on the shelf absent demand.
I can't remember if Walmart did the same with the bonuses; I am not sure if they had another stock buyback. It is all a shell game. What happens when the board and it's company execs execute a stock buyback?? Supply and demand say the stock price goes up. How many of your local Walmart associates share in that wealth do you think as stock owners?? And those boards of directors, it is always an incestuous club of sorts, chummy and cross-pollinating across sectors on each other's boards. They are taking care of each other. And don't forget Walmart announced all of those Sam's Club closings within weeks of the tax cuts going into effect this year. Easier to throw around a few bonuses with a reduced workforce.
And don't forget, I am sure the SEC and the IRS and FASB have all eased something, regulations or direct oversight. Rules? BAD. Until, wait, you can't let US fail, can you? I am reminded of an Op Ed cartoon that ran in my local paper when Bush and Paulson scrambled hard to safely crash-land the economy with the bailout after the Lehman failure. The artist simply declared we are all socialists now.
But then again, the ultra rich can be so generous, whatever they have a passion for. You never know how or when they might share their wealth by virtue of their benevolence. Let's take Alice Walton. A few years ago, she set up a free art museum, probably in Bentonville, not sure anymore. I used to joke she ran out of walls in her homes, nowhere else to put it!! What's a girl to do? And now I am having flashbacks to the Christmas card photo showing Jaime Dimon's kids jumping on, maybe more like leaping across, the white living room furniture with a Picasso or something hanging over the fireplace.
Sorry, I have tried to be more nuanced in the past. I could not resist.
I am sure that Alice's museum is gorgeous and much needed in her part of the country. I am sure that the organization is dynamic in it's collections and outreach efforts because it is so far removed from the big A Art world in NY, Chicago, LA, etc. and will be transformational for so many who visit it. I do not underestimate the power of art to transform a life. I may even visit it someday.
Makers vs. takers...
I really like C-span. Especially on the weekends, although the hearings have been a hoot lately.
A few years back, one of the programs I caught, probably during the week actually, was a panel hosted by Cato or AEI. They were both represented regardless, as well as some venture capitalists, philanthropic interests. It was a panel discussion. One of the more illuminating points made was that these free-market types, research and experience shows, still relies on the government. A lot of venture capital money won't go anywhere without some of the basic science research legwork done first. And they said that is usually the bailiwick of the government.
With a living organism, health is not merely the absence of disease, but the wellness and thriving of the organism in homeostasis..
Our economy is not in homeostasis.
It may be an older book, but I highly recommend any of you check out David K. Johnston's Perfectly Legal. Written over 10 years ago I'm sure, it still has valuable information that would be insightful in today's climate. It is a very thorough examination of how the tax system can work and has worked and how it evolved to a point.
Primary source materials are very revealing. I saw Brian Lamb's interview on Book TV after I read the book. I think in the interview as well as the preface, Johnston explained that his research included studying the recorded history of taxation, like ancient cultures even. You are not going to get it all in his book, but he used the Congressional record as well, I think when Congress was debating income tax in the teens, like so last century. It was pretty amazing to read a brief outtake of the floor speeches, where Republicans suggested to tax the wages of a worker was immoral or something like that. Better to tax capital. I think they even went a little biblical too. But I haven't read it in forever, so read it yourselves and see.
And isn't there some myth about the Reagan and including the EIC in his sweeping tax reform?? Not sure. But funny how those primary source documents turn up in the oddest places and are illuminating.
After my dad died in 2011, my mom went through a lot of the old papers he had. They included some tax returns from the 1920s before and after his parents were married. And there it was, on a much simpler form. She gave us copies. Back in the 1920s, there was such a thing as the Earned Income Credit for the wages of ordinary workers.
My dad's parents were both immigrants. He liked it when he heard that I said of him that he never forgot what it was like to grow up poor and hungry during the Depression. He was grateful for all of the opportunities he had through hard work but also lots of support. He was quite successful for someone that started public school in first grade not knowing a word of English. (He had one of those "lazy" immigrant father's, broken English nothing has changed right? But he escaped the Tsarist slaughterhouse of an army so...) Got injured at 14, dad got cancer, started working full-time at 16 to support his family, and completed high school, his BS and his MBA at a very prominent school over 19 years through night school--all of it at night. And once he was successful, even before he was a corporate officer enjoying the benefits of stock options in the Reagan 80s, his take on taxes was he was grateful he was successful enough to pay them. He thought he owed it to his community and this country.
I should have known my efforts to post something that would make all of us more reflective and grateful while at the same time challenging us to think about how imperfect this hot mess of a country currently is would all fall apart. It is the idealist in me that I thought I'd try.
Rousseau, thank you for reminding the forum of Opportunity Costs. That is week one of Econ 101, Samuelsson style.
Makers vs.Takers, really?
Have you noticed that there has been quite a bit of wage stagnation in spite of low unemployment rates?
That last round of tax cuts, I think 80% of the benefits went to corporations and the top 1%. And you want to know the dirty little secret of why the tax cuts keep going to the economic tip of the iceberg? There is not much available to cut for the true wage earners that pay a higher proportion overall of their income in total taxes than the ultrarich. But if we just give them more, something will drip down to the rest of us eventually, right? Isn't that the classic libertarian eCON fairy tale? And once the deficit blossoms, OOPS! we did it again, we can't afford you and your little people needs among the poor and infirm and pure wage earners. Time to cut, cut, cut.
I think when you are waiting for things to trickle down, there is a lot of evaporation and/or diversion somewhere along the way. I like science too.
Comcast and those other companies that announced those pretty little bonuses, it is just a tease. Here today, gone next year. A permanent wage increase makes a real difference. Our economy is driven by consumer spending. You want to grow this economy, put money in the hands of consumers, permanently, not on a whim. You want a business to grow, a business needs demand. Excess supply of goods or services sits on the shelf absent demand.
I can't remember if Walmart did the same with the bonuses; I am not sure if they had another stock buyback. It is all a shell game. What happens when the board and it's company execs execute a stock buyback?? Supply and demand say the stock price goes up. How many of your local Walmart associates share in that wealth do you think as stock owners?? And those boards of directors, it is always an incestuous club of sorts, chummy and cross-pollinating across sectors on each other's boards. They are taking care of each other. And don't forget Walmart announced all of those Sam's Club closings within weeks of the tax cuts going into effect this year. Easier to throw around a few bonuses with a reduced workforce.
And don't forget, I am sure the SEC and the IRS and FASB have all eased something, regulations or direct oversight. Rules? BAD. Until, wait, you can't let US fail, can you? I am reminded of an Op Ed cartoon that ran in my local paper when Bush and Paulson scrambled hard to safely crash-land the economy with the bailout after the Lehman failure. The artist simply declared we are all socialists now.
But then again, the ultra rich can be so generous, whatever they have a passion for. You never know how or when they might share their wealth by virtue of their benevolence. Let's take Alice Walton. A few years ago, she set up a free art museum, probably in Bentonville, not sure anymore. I used to joke she ran out of walls in her homes, nowhere else to put it!! What's a girl to do? And now I am having flashbacks to the Christmas card photo showing Jaime Dimon's kids jumping on, maybe more like leaping across, the white living room furniture with a Picasso or something hanging over the fireplace.
Sorry, I have tried to be more nuanced in the past. I could not resist.
I am sure that Alice's museum is gorgeous and much needed in her part of the country. I am sure that the organization is dynamic in it's collections and outreach efforts because it is so far removed from the big A Art world in NY, Chicago, LA, etc. and will be transformational for so many who visit it. I do not underestimate the power of art to transform a life. I may even visit it someday.
Makers vs. takers...
I really like C-span. Especially on the weekends, although the hearings have been a hoot lately.
A few years back, one of the programs I caught, probably during the week actually, was a panel hosted by Cato or AEI. They were both represented regardless, as well as some venture capitalists, philanthropic interests. It was a panel discussion. One of the more illuminating points made was that these free-market types, research and experience shows, still relies on the government. A lot of venture capital money won't go anywhere without some of the basic science research legwork done first. And they said that is usually the bailiwick of the government.
With a living organism, health is not merely the absence of disease, but the wellness and thriving of the organism in homeostasis..
Our economy is not in homeostasis.
It may be an older book, but I highly recommend any of you check out David K. Johnston's Perfectly Legal. Written over 10 years ago I'm sure, it still has valuable information that would be insightful in today's climate. It is a very thorough examination of how the tax system can work and has worked and how it evolved to a point.
Primary source materials are very revealing. I saw Brian Lamb's interview on Book TV after I read the book. I think in the interview as well as the preface, Johnston explained that his research included studying the recorded history of taxation, like ancient cultures even. You are not going to get it all in his book, but he used the Congressional record as well, I think when Congress was debating income tax in the teens, like so last century. It was pretty amazing to read a brief outtake of the floor speeches, where Republicans suggested to tax the wages of a worker was immoral or something like that. Better to tax capital. I think they even went a little biblical too. But I haven't read it in forever, so read it yourselves and see.
And isn't there some myth about the Reagan and including the EIC in his sweeping tax reform?? Not sure. But funny how those primary source documents turn up in the oddest places and are illuminating.
After my dad died in 2011, my mom went through a lot of the old papers he had. They included some tax returns from the 1920s before and after his parents were married. And there it was, on a much simpler form. She gave us copies. Back in the 1920s, there was such a thing as the Earned Income Credit for the wages of ordinary workers.
My dad's parents were both immigrants. He liked it when he heard that I said of him that he never forgot what it was like to grow up poor and hungry during the Depression. He was grateful for all of the opportunities he had through hard work but also lots of support. He was quite successful for someone that started public school in first grade not knowing a word of English. (He had one of those "lazy" immigrant father's, broken English nothing has changed right? But he escaped the Tsarist slaughterhouse of an army so...) Got injured at 14, dad got cancer, started working full-time at 16 to support his family, and completed high school, his BS and his MBA at a very prominent school over 19 years through night school--all of it at night. And once he was successful, even before he was a corporate officer enjoying the benefits of stock options in the Reagan 80s, his take on taxes was he was grateful he was successful enough to pay them. He thought he owed it to his community and this country.