Ickle firsties!

…unless they’re so rich that they can afford to set up heavily-fortified compounds to keep out the locals.

Gee. Now why ever would rich people feel that they need to be in “heavily-fortified compounds?”

Surely they don’t fear the poor? Or is it a belief that the poor have special cooties or something?

Maybe if they treated the poor with humanity, they might not have to fear those who aren’t rich.

Bullseye.

Thanks PW.

After they off-shore’s capital and jobs, I think they also invested huge amounts in credit default swaps. In many cases these CDS’s were in the paper economy. There was no tax incentive to invest in real stuff either in the US or abroad.

Great piece. Nothing wrong with taxing the rich a bit, we’re just rolling back their good time that they got under Bush.

Musn’t punish the achievers who got us to this point, though.

Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Oba

But there’s no reason to suppose that taking a tiny sliver of the incomes of the top 1 percent will reduce all that much of their ardor to invest, innovate, and hire in the future. Yet if this tiny sliver means affordable healthcare for a far larger number of Americans, who will be able to get regular checkups and thereby stay healthy and productive, the positive effect on the American economy is likely to be far greater.

Per his appearance on The Ed Show today, Jello Jay agrees.

I always get a kick how Repubs also try to use their “incentives” arguments, one of their faves. They’ll say by taxing higher brackets more, the “risk takers” and “highly skilled” amongst us won’t be trying to become rich anymore.

Don’t know about you, but if I’m going to take home $975,000 this year, but next year higher taxes will take me down to $920,000, I think I’ll still be feeling pretty comfortable. In fact, I’ll try even harder to make even more to make up for the taxes difference.

Pretty illuminating chart here:
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

Most Repubs agree that the 50s and 60s were good times economically, but don’t realize the top tax rate was over 90% for over a decade. Now 90% seems pretty high to me, but a few more percentages from where we are now will not effect these people hardly at all, yet will have tremendous positives for the country as a whole, which in turn also benefits that upper 2% of wage earners.

Like so many of the the Repub arguments, they simply don’t stand up to even elementary scrutiny.

I remember when Reagan pushed his tax cuts for the rich of America by saying that it would make them invest in their companies.

Well, St. RayGun’s words were apocolyptic… the words were all Stock Man, and if I were no smarter I’da been Laffering my way to the bank… my patience was Taxed, my income wuz Cut and soon I found myself singing “That’s just the way it is”…

Some things will never change.

They keep threatening to leave… when did Americans become dependent on the Rich? How did Rugged Individualists like we are become the servants and dependents of their Betters; do Americans really believe they won’t be able to survive unless they are willing to give up everything to our nouveau aristos who will leave us all to suffer if we don’t give them what they want. Now?

I say let them go, the sooner the better.

Whining useless contemptuous thieves.

The rich are lucky they are only be taxed to help support the system they profit from. The alternative is the guillotine.

The rich have, by definition, more money than they know what to do with. This is the underlying cause of the current housing collapse, following a bubble fueled by too much demand for not enough investment. Taking away their unproductive money will help stabilize the economy.

The foundation of Reaganomics, that the wealthy will invest their tax-cut savings and produce jobs, is false. Investment does not create jobs, demand does. The rich do not create a demand for goods and services equal to what they cut from the middle class. If they did, they would not be rich, their back yards would be stuffed with all manner of useless crap from trying to spend all they make. It’s our Christian duty to save then from the enormous effort of having to search for the few good investment in a swamp of hucksters.

Wait PW are you saying the rich won’t go all Galt on us? Just imagine the effect on the economy if they leave. No more Chrysler,Savings @ Loan, Airlines after 9/11, bank bailouts.
Think of the money we will save with National Healthcare right now we pay more but don ‘t cover everyone. Imagine just how much more productive the American worker will be without so many sick days caused by waiting until they can’t ignore a problem anymore and go to the emergency room.
Or they infect all their co workers or if they work fast food all their customers. No more wars for oil and oil companies.
No more $36 to every $1 of leverage for hedge funds, no more Payday loan companies!
Maybe now we can pass some government regulation of the food industry right now I have lost track of all the food recalls.

I recall that in the Clinton years there was a huge investment in internet stocks, aka the “internet bubble”. Clinton increased taxes on the rich to pay for his programs and to balance the budget. It worked. The internet bubble was, in fact, a huge investment (by the rich, mostly) in internet startups with record numbers of IPO’s. Those highly taxed rich folks did not seem to have trouble in those times finding money for such investments in spite of their taxitus horribilus. The rethugs would have us believe that those overtaxed rich folks would be one step away from the food pantry if such levels of taxation were resumed. I believe that Krugman recently wrote that the total Bush tax cuts over the last 8 years would supply the required increase in funds for universal health care for the same period.

well, those are the most excellent 3 points i do believe i have read ANYWHERE, anytime.
you nailed it PW!

The foundation of Reaganomics

I wonder Who Really had their hand up Regan’s ass controlling him?? He was not from old money!! That is where all this BS comes from, behind the scenes they are manipulating the system for their PROFIT!
We would be much better off if we went back to the tax rates of just after WWII 90% for an6ything over 650K a year… Seems to me Our Country would be able to pay for the things the People of this country want like good Health Care!!

http://www.blacklistednews.com…..8211;.html

A Reverse Darwin led Crony Capital system where the Alpha Chimp is to connected to fail is not what Ayn Rand wanted. Our Elite class has no expertise besides constructing financial Ponzai schemes.
We would not miss them. Harvard MBAs who manage companies with no expertise in the companies they manage are part of what got us here!

(Reverse Darwins are people who like Bush should be stocking shelves at Jewel if Merit mattered. But they are protected from social downward mobility by their Elite connections.)

(Crony Capitalism is when friends give their friends inside deals to make money and shun outsiders even if they have better ideas/product.)

Alpha Chimp = Bush

Agreed everything started to go bad with the lowering of taxes.

Opps that linky expired… http://www.blacklistednews.com/

Ha Joon Chang (a student of Stiglitz) in THE BAD SAMARITANS, refers to the decades following WWII as the “golden age of capitalism” (except for a decent recession in ‘49) when we had very high tax rates, import tariffs and other protectionist policies which encouraged and supported American business and industry. We also invested heavily in education at that time. I came from a poor family but went to UC Berkeley for less that $50 per semester. Then there was the huge influx in colleges due to the GI Bill. Those times were pretty good for US business. Of course CEOs were not pulling 400 times wage earner’s pay away from shareholders at that time. Who knew?

In order for the “Going Galt” theory to have any validity wouldn’t it require that during the period from 1928 to 1988 there be an obvious lack of U.S. investment activity, innovation, and general economic growth?

It wasn’t Reagan, but the first time I ever thought a President should be tried for treason was Bush 1. It happened when I found out his administration had proposed, fought for and enacted tax breaks for corporations to build factories outside of America. It was just the final step down the slippery slope as far as I was concerned.

Not only should taxes be raised on the top 1 percent to pay for health care. All tax subsidies, tax breaks, etc should be rescinded for foreign based manufacturing that would not break current treaties, with the implicit warning that more ‘protectionism’ may be coming down the line for American businesses that move jobs outside of the US. The funds should be redirected to subsidize and encourage a new growth of manufacturing and production in the United States.

Watering the roots is almost always more effective then trickling down. And any of the exceptions to that almost have certainly already been trickled down on enough.

Most Americans have had enough of paying for the Greed is Good Era for the Wall Street/Investment crowd.

The problem is when they leave they’re taking our money with them.

The rich don’t invest in companies, they invest in securities. As we’ve seen in the Wall Street meltdown, they aren’t the same thing.

Taxing the Rich Will Make Them Go Galt! Um, No

I keep saying, when we use terms like “we are going to tax the wealthy” we are creating non starter, we are hurting ourselves and it’s counter productive

the wealthy’s taxes were lowered, marketed as some kind of “investment” that would return (according to reagan and bush) more then they cost

which anyone with a brain understood, if you give money to people with more then they will ever spend they will NOT spend more money, conversely if you give money to people who don’t have enough they WILL spend

SINCE those “tax investments” were OBVIOUSLY couter productive, rescinding that “economic investment” is NOT “taxing the wealthy”, it’s redirecting that failed investment to more productive strategy

we really need to stop calling this “taxing the wealthy” and need to start calling it “returning middle class assets that were given to the wealthy”

Thanks for the Bush 1 nugget….nothing like a little help for our friends…

The rich don’t invest in companies, they invest in securities. As we’ve seen in the Wall Street meltdown, they aren’t the same thing.

nor do they invest more when they have fewer expenses, if they already have more funds then they will ever spend adding to that surplus changes nothing, gates does not invest more since he was given 50,000 dollars extra in middle class assets, nor does buffet

one thing is certain, when taxes are used as economic incentives there really has to be restrictions in place where that money is going to be invested

that by the way is exactly what a windfall tax is all about, if you don’t want to pay the windfall tax then simply re-invest those funds…this makes everyone happy

but no, of course

since most of the top 1% of income earners make their income from passive investments that have little to do with them doing any direct work they will not change their work level at all no matter what their top tax rate.

remember during America’s strongest economic time and periods of manufacturing output – the 40 thru the 70’s the top tax rate was 70% – yes 70% and the rich still worked just as hard to get richer.

Actually, the top tax rate was over 90% for much of that time. Handy dandy chart here (1913-2003):
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

There’s some great food legislation coming down the pipe.

Tax income and investments progressively.

Maybe we should do away estate tax – leave that as the remaining loop-hole, let’s see how many are willing to jump through it.

so let em’ “go Galt”………….
we’ve been “going Galt” for over 8 years now.
my mom taught me that “we all take turns”!

seems to me it’s high overtime for someone else’s turn by now.

They already took it, and jobs and all the rest. Trillions upon trillons of dollars in a neverending stream of money, money, money, much of it right out of our pockets (have you seen the productivity vs wages charts since 1979?)

I’d be happy if whatever loot they haven’t already offshored were confiscated. Or taxed into oblivion. Whatever. I’m just tired of hearing every fifteen minutes that if you tax the rich they’ll pack their bags and go somewhere they’re welcome, in a huff, or as PW says, they’ll “go Galt” and won’t spend their money on all those lovely investments that produce “jobs.” They aren’t doing it anyway. Their “investments” got us into this mess.

The question is, are Americans such dependent wusses that they can’t get by without the love and ministrations of the Masters of the Universe? Have we really fallen so far?

They are not organized enough to leave. They only want to go where the rest of “their kind” are found. “Their kind” speak English, want to drive to the Hamptons, be seen at events at which cameras will promote their images to magazines and other media, everywhere the USA, but mostly in NY.

They ain’t gonna Galt. No way.

even at that rate they still payed a far smaller percentage of wage to tax then the middle and lower class

the wealthy spend a far smaller percentage of their wage then the middle and lower class, that unspent wage doesn’t get re-taxed to local, state, useage fees

even at that rate they pay less

this is something the democrats miss, we actually could have a “flat tax” if consumption was included in that tax

in other words, take away local, state, school tax, useage fees and then fund charge that tax that would still pay for necessary government services, that would then represent a true flat tax and it would be fine, the problem is the “flat tax” is never represented in that form, they want consumption taxes which are obviously taxes on the poor

Your questions illustrate why I feel busting up BigMedia through antitrust legislation should be issue numero uno.

Blue Collar Americans understood the cause/effect of these issues for generations, until the carefully constructed plan to take over the message machine started bearing fruit for BigMoney. It’s always been that way to some degree, but in response to the 1950s-60s social upheaval, they decided to take it over all the way. It’s been in full effect for a couple of decades now, with Lush Limpbaugh, pretty much every major TV “news” outlet, the AP (recently), Fox Newz, etc. setting our national discourse.

Thus, we have Joe6Pack voting against his self-interest every election, and not understanding the issues he so strongly pontificates about, such as “trickle-down” being good for him. All part of the plan.

Look in other countries where the mass media hasn’t taken basically every aspect of most people’s lives. Just in Honduras today, the blue collared people might’ve just reclaimed their country:
http://narcosphere.narconews.c…..e-honduras

We’re making some inroads with this New Media, but damn, we got so far to go…

According to the most recent data (for 2007), the best-off 1 percent of American households take home about 20 percent of total income

Okay, so why aren’t these people aren’t hiring and and inovating and putting people back to work now. If they are doing so well now, and are frightened that they won’t be able to hire, or inovate or whatever if their taxes are raised….
My question is what are they doing now?

It would seem obvious that we need to shift the tax burden off of corporations and onto individuals, but to remove credits from use of debt which is based on over-leveraging (to hopefully get us back to real investment in companies).

Of course, this probably can’t be done overnight because there’s a lot of law on that issue and because all of these significant reforms need time to work their way through the world’s economy for us to know their real effects. The health insurance reform alone could take 10-15 years. But, as we do other lesser reforms along the way we should see their effects within a couple of years.

There needs to be a balance or kind of dynamic stability.

Right now companies don’t want to hire because they don’t know they can sell their products. That kills their stock value and it collapses. Money isn’t moving.

Preferable is for consumers to have cash, so companies will know they can sell their products and they’ll employ people to produce. If they can do that their company’s stock will be valuable and it’s price will rise.

What will change the minds of business leaders, so that they *believe* there will be customers for their products?

The stimulus doesn’t just inject cash into the system, though in a more severe emergency that is an option, it requires production which is of value. That pushes cash through the economy and it touches many hands. It also isn’t particularly inflationary since real production is occurring in exchange for cash.

What would cause the economy to work better without gov’t help?

If investors would put money into banks, so they could lend to businesses at low rates, then businesses wouldn’t require as much courage to produce and try to sell their goods & services. It’s still a matter of some faith that consumers will be there. How do they know consumers will have cash to buy?

It seems at time that ALL businesses are waiting, waiting for someone else to invest in production first. Nobody wants to risk jumping into the water until it’s been proven safe. There a sound reason too. Just because you’re paying YOUR employees and THEY will have cash to buy stuff doesn’t mean OTHER employees will have cash to buy YOUR products.

How do you ever know when enough of your potential customers have the cash and would be willing to buy your products?

Q: Is it enough for gov’t to create a good environment for business or is there a requirement for gov’t to push it along (to overcome the natural hesitancy of businesses to invest in employees and plant)?

Q: Is the cost of borrowing prohibitive?

Q: What is prohibitive if you’re not certain you’ll have customers?

Q: What uncertainty exists and can be overcome by natural business environment factors?

Q: What uncertainty can only be overcome by CERTAIN gov’t action?

Q: Would it focus lending better by RAISING interest rates, so that only those most likely to find these times to be an opportunity could get all the capital they might need?

It’s a tough time for a lot of people, but in this real world we should think about bigger concepts than just micro-issues of the day.

We keep hearing about how much the rich get in income, but no one has ever asked whether they do anything for the economy that even remotely comes near what they take out. In every case that I’ve seen the people getting the biggest bucks do it through the exercise of power, not through benefiting the economy. This is a point that should be made so that even if they do go Galt (if only), the economy won’t be hurt because they aren’t doing anything for it to start with.

Look folks the rich don’t just have more money than you do, they have more brains…and common sense. Do you really want to run them off? Not a good idea.
The rich create the jobs and the prosperity. Some of that prosperity trickles down to the rest of us. It’s worked perfectly for years now.
Instead of bashing the rich we should give them VIP treatment…except maybe for Paris Hilton.

PS-People in the bottom 50% of income pay only 3% of income taxes. That is a national disgrace.

I like removing the breaks for debt and therefore discourage over leveraging.