This is more/less a repost from two comments I’ve made on other blogs (“Warren Buffett hates himself and if you’re rich, he hates you, too” on SASOC, and Why I Will Not Vote for Newt” on ROAR, and since I’m sure I’m going to have to post it again when some idiot starts quoting Michael Moore again, I thought I’d post it here.
The “Fair Share” Liberals (a key distinction here from other liberals) that wish the most for the days of the 90% marginal income tax rate to return seem to be the clueless and ignorant on how the government “sells” favorable tax rates to encourage and support investment, and even more clueless and ignorant on the impact of globalization. They don’t see math, they only see “fair”.
Take a look at any chart that shows historical income tax rates vs. capital gains tax rates during the 90% years vs. now (http://www.ctj.org/pdf/regcg.pdf, for instance).
Two questions:
2) Are the rich really paying 90%?
3) Was the U.S. in a different competitive climate in terms of investment dollars and industry 50 years ago vs now?
“Fair Share” Liberals that long for the tax rates of the 1950′s fail to consider for even a second that the conditions which allowed those rates to exist – specifically the government and industry’s lack of global competition and a much slower velocity of world cashflow at the time – would literally wipe out entire industries overnight if they were reintroduced today.
Their hate of capitalism and their refusal to let simple math interfere with their social agenda prevents these kinds of liberals from seeing exactly where their utopian ideals will send this country, which is exactly where they send virtually every single private enterprise they get their hands on – into the ground.
I say “fine”. Tax us at 90% and transfer all the wealth we make “back” into the Fair Share Liberal’s idiot hands. We’ll have it all back within a year anyways, because as smart as they think they are they can’t resist the salaries = safety and consumerism = bliss bright shiny objects that we put in front of them. Each and every time we do, they hand their money over to us like mindless zombies. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic.
“Fair Share” Liberals will trade the bulk of their lives away for those shiny objects not just once, but for years, and when they finally wake up and clue in that they’ve wasted 10, 20, 30 years of their lives doing so yet again, they’ll whine and scream and riot in order to try and get at least some part of their life back.
Personally, at this point I hope we’ll have some sort of Galt-like lesson waiting for them that will hit hard enough so that they finally realize that this is what you ultimately get when you choose a life of entitlement and dependency – nothing – and that’s nothing but “fair”.
It’s fair because it’s nature, and it’s fair because it is how nature keeps in balance. Those who adapt survive, and like the great poem goes, when you bargain with life for a penny, a penny is exactly what you get when you choose ignorant bliss and slavery over your own human potential.
Fear not however, “Fair Share” Liberals. We have a federal election coming up and a whole new set of bright shiny objects will be on their way soon.
Excellent points about the impact of the global markets.
Liberals literally fail at basic economic concepts — see http://tinyurl.com/2cvlrdq — and their ineptitude is helping to destroy this country.
They don’t even see the most obvious elements of human nature, such that if you raise taxes at all — and especially to something silly like 90% — that people’s behavior will change!
I worked at HP / Compaq for 17 years and did countless financial analyses on sourcing decisions. The biggest issue for us sending tons of business to Singapore was the tax rate, not the labor rate. We could compete closely enough with the labor rates because of the logistics costs, but you simply can’t compete with dramatically lower corporate tax rates.
Thank you.
It’s sad that the point has to keep being made. I keep hearing that more and more that it’s the tax rate and not the labor rate – it makes sense because the tax rate would be dealing with the revenue side of the company, which should, obviously, be quite a bit greater than the cost side of the company.
As I stated in a similar post over on the other blogs, the worker punching holes in a circuit board has the luxury of not having to think – at least moment to moment – about the impact of a competitor who perhaps just built a plant in their state or worse, just moved their plant overseas. When those things happen hard decisions have to be made – do you keep the company going and keep the jobs that you have, or do you let it tank when both customers and investors move to the company providing them more favorable returns whether it be financial returns or simply a just as good, yet cheaper, product. “Fair Share” liberals have the luxury of not having to deal with those stresses or solving those problems, and yet only after they reap the rewards do they turn around and decide to start judging those hard decisions from some utopian moral high ground. It amazes me.
Exactly.
I’m more and more convinced that what this country needs is the junior high level Junior Achievement courses taught to everyone — including 100% of politicians. I taught those for years and the kids quickly pick up on key economic concepts, even things like supply & demand and the elasticity of demand.
One lesson used an example of a bike manufacturer who had the option to outsource some things but it would cost some jobs. The kids hated the idea. Then I added an economic reality: Oh, by the way, your competitor will outsource and dramatically undercut you and then all your employees will lose their jobs. They quickly saw the light.
Agreed. My arguments here do not mean that I ignore the social part of capitalism that is in many ways lacking. What I find annoying is that instead of a discussion on whether, say, marginal income tax rates should be 90%, or 80%, or 35%, and how exactly could those rates keep or improve our competitiveness both locally and internationally, it becomes this “you’re not paying your ‘fair share’” argument that turns into a useless battle over some fictitious moral high ground. Voters, then, vote stupidly one way or the other and policy, in effect, (and even perhaps the country itself) goes nowhere.
Great points all around. We’ve entered into a time of envy and jealousy, which is not what made America great.
What amazes me is that the greed exhibited by Wall Street and their lapdog regulators is entirely a Democratic party creation, specifically Bob Rubin, Bill Clinton, and Barney Frank.
These are the men who dismantled the safeguards (e.g., Glass Steagall) that kept the animals from destroying capitalism through reckless speculation. And now here we are, with another Democrat, Barack Hussein Obama, who is milking the 2008 collapse for all it’s worth as he attempts to cure the patient with Marxism.
Some Hollywood screenplay we’re living in.
Hey Sasoc,
Thank you for the compliment. It’s nice to see you here, especially when your writing is so much better than mine.
“Some Hollywood screenplay we’re living in.
Isn’t it? I keep thinking about how this is going to be looked back upon 10 or so years from now. We may slightly differ on where we place a lot of the blame. Personally, I think the governments we have just exacerbate and personify the problems we hold en masse as the electorate, and for too long we let too much slide. What we totally agree on, however, is that the “Hope and Change” was never going to be what it was cracked up to be and that the “anybody but Bush” crowd were being served up a big plate of b.s. (with a side of kool-aid) at the time.
Curious – on a 1/10 scale, how certain do you feel that Obama will be outed by the Republican contender?
No global competition? So you’re saying there was no global trade back then? Oh, then I guess Smoot-Hawley DIDN’T do the damage right-wingers said it did. Either tarriffs do damage, or they don’t.
The fact is, it worked find because those high tax brackets acted as a great incentive to invest their money instead of buying toys. The economy chugged along just fine until Reagan came around.
“Hand our money over to ‘us’”? My, aren’t we delusional. How much money do you personally get, exactly, when someone buys an Iphone? Hey, if you guys invaded my country, you think I’d hesitate to use American-made guns to shoot you with?
Galt-like lesson..LOL. Reminds me of something I heard:
“There are two books which have had a huge impact on American civilization..Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is rife with surreal concepts, empty heroes, and encourages readers to enter a fantasy mindset that leaves them incapable of dealing with the real world.
The other involves orcs.”
So you’re saying there was no global trade back then?
I didn’t say that, you just filter that way so you can set up yet another of your shallow, strawman arguments.
“There are two books which have had a huge impact on American civilization..Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
No doubt you loved “Lord of the Rings” and no doubt “Shrugged” is well beyond your reading level, so once again you’re talking out your ass with zero original thought and zero knowledge of the subject matter you’re attempting to talk about. Who else’s opinion are you going to borrow and make your own?
Regardless, it’s obvious that your objective here is once again to troll and snipe. Either have something constructive to offer here, or leave.