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@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Larry,
I never called Buffett a criminal.
All I pointed out was that he has a huge vested interest in keeping taxes high.
Obama agrees with him on this.
So do dems in both houses.
(Obama and dems for different reasons, of course.)

The whole idea of ”just modify the law to take care of this problem,” involves getting Obama and enough dems out of office to even make that a possibility.

Hi Aqua,

First I want to thank you for a very constructive comment.

Here’s the way that I look at it. There were really two arguments for the Reagan tax cuts. First, there is the whole supply side thing, which we have been beating to death for months. Let’s put that one aside, for now. The second is the “starve the beast” theory. I think that you’d agree that that hasn’t worked. Or maybe you’d say that things would have been even worse, had the beast not been starved. But that would be like me saying that the economy would have been even worse, had it not been for the sterling stewardship of Barack Obama.

So I’d maintain that, not only has supply side theory been discredited but also that the “starve the beast” theory has been discredited.

So how about approaching this from the other direction? Raise taxes to cover the full extent of government spending. Don’t just raise taxes on the rich; raise them on everyone (albeit on a sliding scale, consistent with progressive taxation principles). Declare a war; raise taxes to pay for it. Institute a new entitlement. Raise taxes, as well.

I think that this would have a much greater impact on controlling the beast than tax cuts have had. We cut taxes and then just borrowed the revenue that was lost to the tax cuts. No pain for anyone, except for our children and grandchildren. If we’d raised taxes, there would have been howls, screams, and protest movements (Tea Parties to end all Tea Parties), the likes of which we’ve not seen to date. We’d actually come to a national consensus on which wars were worth fighting and on which entitlements were worth instituting and which roads were worth building and how much education was worth paying for. And so on.

Most importantly, we’d stop accumulating debt.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

@Cary: #60
The USA is not a democracy. It is a republic. Why would the media keep calling it a democracy?

Hi Aye (#113):

The rich benefit from government to a far greater extent than the poor. This was Elizabeth Warren’s point. The degree to which the government contributes to one’s financial success is multiplicative, the higher you go on the economic food chain. The rich SHOULD pay more, because they OWE more to government, not simply because they can afford to pay more.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

@ Larry
I don’t mean this to sound condescending, honestly, but did I miss the “starve the beast” phase? I haven’t seen a government agency shut down or a program ended due to lack of money. As for funding governemnt to its full extent, I think government is too full already. Do we really need 40 or 50 czars and a staff for each? If Reagan could look into the future and see what happened because he appointed one czar, he would no doubt do an epic face palm.
I want to take power away from the feds and give it back to the States. That is the way our republic is supposed to work. 50 independent petri dishes of democratic experiments to see what works best.

By the way, I agree, taxes should be raised during time of war. The bill should be specifically written as a war tax to cover all expenses of said war and be immediately terminated upon cessation of hostilities. I like this idea for no other reason than to see what cowards on the hill would have the guts vote for it. National defense is the one true function of the feds.

The American dream. Work hard, start your own business, be successful, make a profit, have lazy squatters protest your success.

Unions at one time had a big impact on workers rights, but have since been the driving force in the economic meltdown. You break your back to earn a dollar, gladly give a portion of it to the union, who has PAID employees called Union Bosses, and yet you gripe about having to pay taxes? All I have seen from unions is More pay, less work…. it is no wonder the companies are packing up and moving away. I live in a right to work state and absolutely LOVE IT! I took my job and agreed to a certain wage for doing a certain task and if I or my employer decides that more or less work is needed for more or less pay then we talk about it and we either both agree or we end our relationship. cut out the middle man who is too lazy to get an actual job so he depends on my paycheck to feed hm.

A quick note to all you OWS crowd… WE, The backbone of America hear you, and we would be out there protesting your protest but instead we are going to our jobs and trying to help the economy and not just cry about it.

I picked this up from Jim Hoft’s site:

Another Blow to Obamanomics… 2 Anti-Keynesians Win Nobel Prize for Economics

Failed Policy: The Nobel Prize for Economics goes to two Americans who have separately exposed the flaws in government stimulus spending. For a Keynesian president, it’s the Anti-Peace Prize.

When President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize during his first year in office, detractors said it was for doing nothing.

That can’t be said for Thomas Sargent of New York University and Princeton’s Christopher Sims, whose macroeconomics work has been of invaluable help to central bankers and other economic policymakers, and for which they now share this year’s economics Nobel.

Sargent’s discoveries in particular echo the rationale Republican leaders in Congress have presented in opposing the massive Democratic stimulus spending during the first two years of the Obama administration — that such spending seeks to give the economy nothing more than what House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan over the weekend aptly called a “sugar high.”

As the New York Sun pointed out Monday, Sargent has also criticized Obama’s stimulus policies specifically. It pointed to an interview a year ago in which he called the calculations of the Obama Council of Economic Advisers “surprisingly naive for 2009.”

According to Sargent, “They were not informed by what we learned after 1945″ regarding fiscal policy. He suspected the council “was asked to do something quickly, and they did what they thought was ‘good enough for government work,’ as some of us said during my days at the Pentagon.”

Craigslist had this up, an offer by ”Working Family,” a progressive political party, to PAY people to be at the various Occupy Wall Street demonstrations!
$350-$650/week.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/help-wanted.php
Click the ad to make it big enough to read.
Or see it on Craigslist:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html

Seems as though some of our unspent stimulus money is going right into this!
The organization run by current White House political director Patrick Gaspard is paying far left activists to continue the protests against Wall Street. No wonder Barack Obama supports the far left protest movement!

@Liberty60: If you hate the status quo that much, I do not understand why you do not attend a TEA Party? One would think that smaller government, less taxation, and an end to career politicians who love crony capitalism would be just what you are talking about.

Hi Mata:

You can either give the government control to take care of the fiscally stupid, and punish everyone. Or you can educate the public so that they can better available themselves of a very good system that is open to all.

This is a slogan with which no one would disagree. As such, it’s a straw man.

Are you seriously arguing that the top 1% have not prospered, as a result of the tax cut regimes, while the remaining 99% have not stagnated or backslid? While the country went from a position of steadily declining debt (relative to GDP) to a position of steadily advancing debt, with no change at all in the slope of the spending curve, which has always tracked upward with GDP growth which has always tracked upward with population growth?

I’d like you to make the case that the bottom 99% have benefitted objectively from the Reagan and Bush tax cuts, in terms of either income or wealth. I’d like you to compare and contrast the degree of benefit to that of the top 1%.

That’s what OWS is about. Tax policies which help the top 1%, do not help the bottom 99%, and which have been the major reason why debt pay down abruptly shifted to debt accumulation.

P.S. You attack my source (an economics blog). I found the blog to be credible and they used Congressional Budget Office data. Perhaps you can directly refute this. I’ve seen similar data presented in many other formats/venues/etc. I provided the link because it was handy and, as stated, credible.

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#if-you-arent-in-the-top-1-then-youre-getting-a-bum-deal-15

Hi Nan: I read the Craig’s list ad. You make it sound like they are paying people $350 to $650 to be bodies at the protests. That’s not at all what the ad says. You don’t think that there are any paid/salaried leaders in the Tea Party movement? You think that all the leaders are volunteers?

Hi Aqua: It’s terrific that we can find common ground on at least one issue, i.e. in times of war not only should soldiers sacrifice, but the rest of us should sacrifice, as well, in terms of paying more taxes to support the soldiers and pay for the war.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

Larry W: You attack my source (an economics blog). I found the blog to be credible and they used Congressional Budget Office data. Perhaps you can directly refute this. I’ve seen similar data presented in many other formats/venues/etc. I provided the link because it was handy and, as stated, credible.

I’m not sure why you put the onus on me to “refute”, Larry. As I’ve explained, if you just want to talk income, the stats show that you are incorrect about an unusually large or increasing gap of the 1% compared to the 99%, as the Wolff statistics show. I further already provided you with another Wolff study that actually incorporates all forms of “wealth”… via liquid assets, or other not so easily liquidated assets.

I suggest that the blogger you hang your argument on provide the CBO studies that show what they used as a measure of “wealth”. The onus is on him, or you. I notice that blogger chose not to. Therefore, what CBO statistics are they using? Income? In which case they are incorrect and cherry picked. But no viable explanation of CBO measurement – nay, even what they are “measuring” – is provided… most likely deliberately. Generalities fly better as talking points than indepth examinations of reality. “Wealth” is no longer just income for average Americans. Hasn’t been for a few decades now.

I’d like you to make the case that the bottom 99% have benefitted objectively from the Reagan and Bush tax cuts, in terms of either income or wealth. I’d like you to compare and contrast the degree of benefit to that of the top 1%.

First of all, one would have to assume you are correct in your accusation that tax policies shifted benefit to the top 1%, and left the other 99% with no opportunity to engage in the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. A logger can own a 22″ chainsaw and table saw, just as every other citizen can. But even if everyone has access to the same tools, that doesn’t mean that everyone is productive with those tools. What you are suggesting is only the top 1% have access to those tools, and I reject that conclusion unequivocally.

Nor do I get the constant revisiting of the nation’s demise since Reagan with you. Life doesn’t revolve and spin around any single POTUS, who has (post FDR, thank heavens) only 8 years in office. All fiscal policies via legislation are at the mercy of the Congressional majorities… of which, I have repeatedly pointed out, have been dominated by Democrats for approx 30 out of 39 sessions since the FDR years. If you want to complain about fiscal policies, you’d better start owning up to your own party’s involvement via their legislative choices, not to mention their economic draining entitlement programs.

But let’s leave your selective nonsense, and address what you are asking. Fact is, according to the Wolff stats in the original graph I posted (which is based on income), the lower 99% did better under both Reagan and Bush than they did under Clinton – and most certainly under Obama today. Man oh man… that’s gotta hurt.

The second study was addressing net income and wealth via all assets, as the Wolff study shows. Again, I have to refer you back to the original thread I linked above, where I re-posted that graph. For the past three decades, the amount of citizens also vested in evil Wall Street – whether by individual choice, or by nature of their employment benefits of 401Ks or pensions – has increased. They, just like the evil rich, are subject to the benefits when Wall Street and the real estate market does well… and the pitfalls when the market falls and the real estate market plummets. Along with the “tools” comes the ability to accidentally cut your hand off if you don’t know what you are doing.

Unfortunately, this is what all too many people have done in the past 2 to 3 decades… become professional consumers and hoarders of the latest/greatest of everything…. even when they could not afford it. They were issued credit cards, and abused that. They used their homes as piggy banks, and abused that. Had they been totally dependent upon paying cash out of pocket, and not been granted credit – supposedly a form of faith for individual responsibility – it never would have happened.

I don’t consider everyone between a fiscal rock and hard place a victim. Some are, some aren’t. This is where you and I differ, I suspect. When one manages their money well… ala refinancing their home and dumping the cash out into improving their home, and not taking off to Hawaii on a vacation… they are likely to fare better than when the cash is squandered unwisely. The ACORN examples are filled with those who, whether deliberately or because they are economic idiots, abused those financial tools…. most especially their 2009 poster child, Donna Hanks. What a joke they picked her to represent the plight of normal Americans. She is the perfect example of the individual irresponsibility and stupidity that contributed mightily to this real estate mess to begin with.

But the fact is, the lower 99% have had increasingly great opportunities to available themselves of increased wealth via assets. Because many did not manage that increased wealth wisely is not the fault of the system. It is the fault of the individual.

I fully agree that most are not necessarily well versed in money management. As I said, we could embark on a more viable discussion as to whether the public school system, stressing tolerance and sex ed over PE, history and basic economic classes, has contributed to the (perhaps) unintentional ignorance of so many in money management. It’s not a major insult since Congress and the elected elite are prime examples of those who do not manage money well. Nor is it intended to be such. I really just get tired of so many blaming the system and our nation’s opportunity simply because some dumb dumb thought he had a wealth cash cow, blew it by not being visionary and level headed, then demanding that they were victims of the very system and tools (investments, credit etal) that enabled them to become more cash wealthy over the decades.

As I said, it’s sorta presumptuous for you to assume the mouthpiece role for the OWS. There is no cohesive message, save of “I ain’t got enough, and it’s too hard to get it”. There is no union leader, no Adbusters, no Family Working Party leadership of these that are owning up to the fact that the “debt accumulation” of individuals is due to that individual’s choices – willingly accumulating that debt with nary a thought as to how they’d pay it off when the cash cow’s teet went dry. Instead, they just point out that everyone’s over their head in debt – ignore who put them there and how – then demand others pay for their poor choices via redistribution of wealth.

The OWS bears no resemblance to the Tea Party… either in their complaints and solutions, or even their courtesy in peaceful redress of grievances.

Mata sez: You can either give the government control to take care of the fiscally stupid, and punish everyone. Or you can educate the public so that they can better available themselves of a very good system that is open to all.

Larry W sez: This is a slogan with which no one would disagree. As such, it’s a straw man.

Common points of agreement are now strawmen?

I wholely disagree. Larry, this is exactly what the OWS and lib/prog/Euro-socialist divide is all about. Nothing less.

Either the bulk of the cash is turned over to the government – absconded according to ability to pay – and redistributed to the fiscally stupid according to their need…. or you educate joe blow to be wiser with the opportunities for wealth available to every man, woman and child in this country, and how to wisely use these tools.

Not to mention, instilling a bit of common sense and discipline wouldn’t hurt…

Hi Mata (#127): You paint such an exaggerated picture and, yes, it is a straw man, in this context. The whole 1% vs 99% thing is simply about tax policies and deregulation which have provided huge benefit to 1% and harm to the remaining 99%. Wall Street took away 20% of the entire economy, which hurt the bottom 99% disproportionately, while the tax policies helped the top 1% disproportionately. This is what OWS is all about. And it has has NOTHING to do with lib/prog/Euro-socialism.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Larry w: The whole 1% vs 99% thing is simply about tax policies and deregulation which have provided huge benefit to 1% and harm to the remaining 99%.

Larry, this conflicts with your exaggerated and vague argument. Were this only about taxes, it would be confined to whether the income gap has notably changed over the decades because it would only be focused on income wealth, not other measurable forms of wealth.

You have already been shown that today’s 1% to 99% wealth concentratration has varied little since the 1920s in the the graph above. Therefore your continued argument is still founded on utter error.

Again, what you think the OWS is about seems to bear little resemblance to what the leaders/organizers – comprised of lib/progs and overt socialists – have to say. But hey, if it floats your pontoon…. have at it. LOL