We in the middle class and below can only hope ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/economy/27policy.html?_r=1&em
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/economy/27policy.html?_r=1&em
Reagomics over? Defunct?
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In my opinion, I don't like taxing the wealthy too much. It is those with higher incomes who will invest their money in to new business ventures which in turn will create jobs. Low or middle class just do not have the resources or capital to create jobs.
Historically, manufacturing has been the backbone of many middle class incomes and there are very few lower income individuals capable of expanding or starting new businesses.
One nice thing about the wealthy is they want more wealth. One of the avenues to wealth is to have a piece of viable companies generating profits. Whether the wealthy choose to start companies or invest in existing companies, the influx of cash creates or at worst maintains jobs.
It is during tough economic times when you need the wealthy to show up. Placing high taxes and excessive restrictions on the rich, is tantamount to saying "We don't need or want your help". This is not the time to take what they have already earned in the form of taxes, but to invite them to the table and ask them to take a little risk and create jobs.
The top 1% pay the lions share of taxes yet use less than what they put in. We all use the same infrastructure equally. I travel the same roads,use the same water,sewers etc as the rich, yet my taxes are much less than what they pay. Most likely the top 1% will pay public school taxes and send their children to private schools. This frees up dollars for other students. The rich aren't all evil. They pay taxes and then go out and pay more for other services privately. It's not double dipping, it's double paying!
If you alienate the wealthy they might decide to ride this economy out. They have the means to weather this storm. I think the President needs to embrace the wealthy and ask them to invest in America again. There is a lot at stake right now and putting this burden entirely on the taxpayers shoulders isn't the most pratical thing to do.
Hey but what do I know. I work in manufacturing, and I see 100s of people everyday going to work. These people would not have jobs or food on the table if it weren't for some rich guy wanting to make more money.
We all can't teach,or work at the DMV. Service economies don't last.
We need a blend of manufacturing, construction, service, education and all the disciplines. This makes for the strongest foundation of any economy. Once you lose a couple of these building blocks the economy falls. We've watched manufacturing move off shore and we didn't care. We watched service jobs move off shore and we didn't care. Now we crippled construction and oops We're in deep ****!
I wish the President would work on the following;
Get the unions out of manufacturing. We need to be competive globally. The unions have only served their membership and have been missing the big picture for decades. We have enough labor laws, EPA and OSHA standards in place to protect the work force. Unions are obsolete. Collective bargaining has stifled production. Merit raises do more to raise product output than across the board wage increases. Unions enable the mediocre to live and hold back the hardworker.
Trades unions should go too. They should be replaced with federal licensing for skill and compentency. Testing of skills and knowledge in the trades will weed out the hacks and allow contractors to bid jobs with confidence and competively.
Teachers Unions need to go or be relaxed. Not all jobs should be protected with tenure. Teachers need accountability just like private sector jobs. I'm tired of 7% tax increases and declining graduation rates. I'm not sure of other states but in NYS teachers get healthcare for life, a good salary and zero accountability for individual performance. Money is not going to fix education, let's face it. A strong economy and strong families who participate in their childrens education will fix the problem.
Provided employee payroll tax breaks. Good Lord at least throw a bone to employers to keep them in business while we ride this storm.
Spend our tax dollars wisely. Our area is going to get a bunch of highway projects paid for by the Stimulus package. These projects were already scheduled and were going to happen whether or not there was StimPac money. Stim pac money has a stipulation. Projects must be "shovel ready" Great. Now we'll have nice smooth roads to go job hunting on. This is no stimulus for us. We were going to pave (and pay for) the roads anyway.Now we are just paying from a different checking account. Fecking Brilliant.
I' m too tired to carry on with what could be done better. Everyone on this forum has run into, or knows of situations we can improve on. I've read the stories about co-workers,bosses, mortgages, banks, insurance companies, service, post office,DMV, teachers, crappy products, the list goes on,and all of these stories tipped us to trouble ahead. We know what's wrong. We've always known what needs to be improved. I really don't see where we will fix any of that in the next few years.
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Ronald Reagan was a great President.
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LOL
I still like the quote I heard recently: "I've never been hired by a poor person."
Yeah, baby. Let's tax those rich people. Let's tax those job-creators. Let's tax those money spenders. Let's tax those people who have the knowledge and character to start businesses and get the money flowing around. Let's make it as difficult as possible for them to make jobs and spend money. As a matter of fact, let's make it bad enough for them so they shut down jobs and stop spending their money.
There.....now THAT will fix our economy!
My realtor used to work building yachts.LOL
I still like the quote I heard recently: "I've never been hired by a poor person."
Yeah, baby. Let's tax those rich people. Let's tax those job-creators. Let's tax those money spenders. Let's tax those people who have the knowledge and character to start businesses and get the money flowing around. Let's make it as difficult as possible for them to make jobs and spend money. As a matter of fact, let's make it bad enough for them so they shut down jobs and stop spending their money.
There.....now THAT will fix our economy!
Back when they installed the "luxury tax"........you know it wouldn't hurt the regular people, just the people who have all the money.
So what happened? Well people didn't get (or keep) a lot of money by being stupid, they stopped buying those items.
So all the people building boats lost their jobs......the "rich" people kept their money. That was quite a few years ago.......but worth remembering. He tells me stories about how the bottom just fell out of the boat building industry.
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We're seeing some of the same thing here, Duncan Aviation has cut hours and may lay off a bunch of folks real soon. One of the largest service centers for private jets.
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It's foolish to think any tax increase on the rich isn't going to be passed onto the consumers (i.e. middle and lower class--98% of the entire population) in higher prices. There is no tax increase on anyone making under 250 grand unless you use electricity, gasoline, heating oil, natural gas.....and unless you stop buying things that rich folks make...like groceries, medicines, restaurant meals, plumbing services, automobiles etc.....everything you buy ...tax increases on the rich get passed onto consumers and then some.
It will be Reaganomics that gets us out of this mess....
It will be Reaganomics that gets us out of this mess....
Now Chuck there you go using logic again!!
Gundog thanks for the laugh, "Trickle up poverty"
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I don't think so, and I don't think Obama would even agree with your assertion, at least based on some of his comments embracing parts of Reaganomics during the campaign. What I think we've learned is that there are limits to trickle down economics, it's not the end-all economic theory.
It worked pretty well during the Great Recession of the 80s, but that was a different beat. That recession was largely caused by Volker's rampant interest rate hikes - which were required at the time. Government spending wasn't the focus of stimulus then because the Fed had a lot more in its arsenal in the form of interest rate cuts. That's not available now. We've already cut taxes. Marginal rates for top earners aren't at 90% like they were in the 80s, so we're limited in 2009 in that department as well.
To declare it dead is engaging in political talk more than economics. What Obama is doing has not yet worked. We'll see if raising taxes by significant amounts to reduce the deficit causes long-term harm to the economy. I think it's premature rhetoric to say supply-side economics is dead. I think it is fair to say we've found its limitations. Cutting taxes is stimulative and that can produce more revenue. That part of Reagaonomics has been proven. I think the limitation is that you can't always rely solely on tax cuts, and you can't just cut taxes on top earners.
I think it's a stretch to blame the disparity, which began in the 70s, on a president who didn't take office until the 80s. On top of that, I think it's overly simplistic. There's plenty of debate over the causes, and there are many.
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/07/lazear-vs-krugman.html
It worked pretty well during the Great Recession of the 80s, but that was a different beat. That recession was largely caused by Volker's rampant interest rate hikes - which were required at the time. Government spending wasn't the focus of stimulus then because the Fed had a lot more in its arsenal in the form of interest rate cuts. That's not available now. We've already cut taxes. Marginal rates for top earners aren't at 90% like they were in the 80s, so we're limited in 2009 in that department as well.
To declare it dead is engaging in political talk more than economics. What Obama is doing has not yet worked. We'll see if raising taxes by significant amounts to reduce the deficit causes long-term harm to the economy. I think it's premature rhetoric to say supply-side economics is dead. I think it is fair to say we've found its limitations. Cutting taxes is stimulative and that can produce more revenue. That part of Reagaonomics has been proven. I think the limitation is that you can't always rely solely on tax cuts, and you can't just cut taxes on top earners.
I think it's a stretch to blame the disparity, which began in the 70s, on a president who didn't take office until the 80s. On top of that, I think it's overly simplistic. There's plenty of debate over the causes, and there are many.
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/07/lazear-vs-krugman.html
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Just a finite example of why this big money grab doesn't work. There is a move afoot to kill the tax exemption for home equity loans. We have one. It's not that big and the payment is small so we don't worry about it much. We had planned on my buying a new car this year. Now we've decided that I can drive the old one another year and we will devote our energies to paying off the home equity loan.
In the long run we'll personally be better off by eliminating debt. What the economy is going to reflect is another person who was going to make a big purchase and now isn't. The state won't get the increased sales tax, the increased car registration fees, the dealership won't get a sale that might have kept somebody their job, the guy who trucked the car in has less work, the fancy car wash place won't get as much business because, like everybody else, we wash new cars more than old, every single person whose job depends on manufacturing that car and the parts that go into it will have a little less work and a little less job security.
You don't have to be too smart to see what happens when that situation gets multiplied several million times. All because Congress thinks it's better to grab a little money up front rather than let it work its way through the economy naturally.
The biggest problem with this mentality is that the more you tax, the less I'm going to spend, resulting in less tax revenue, which results in higher taxes to make up for last years loss of revenue, which results in my spending even less. It feeds on itself with no natural endpoint. I live in a state, California, that has been a petri dish for this style of taxation and economics. But hey, looking at how well we're doing should give everybody a nice warm and fuzzy feeling.
In the long run we'll personally be better off by eliminating debt. What the economy is going to reflect is another person who was going to make a big purchase and now isn't. The state won't get the increased sales tax, the increased car registration fees, the dealership won't get a sale that might have kept somebody their job, the guy who trucked the car in has less work, the fancy car wash place won't get as much business because, like everybody else, we wash new cars more than old, every single person whose job depends on manufacturing that car and the parts that go into it will have a little less work and a little less job security.
You don't have to be too smart to see what happens when that situation gets multiplied several million times. All because Congress thinks it's better to grab a little money up front rather than let it work its way through the economy naturally.
The biggest problem with this mentality is that the more you tax, the less I'm going to spend, resulting in less tax revenue, which results in higher taxes to make up for last years loss of revenue, which results in my spending even less. It feeds on itself with no natural endpoint. I live in a state, California, that has been a petri dish for this style of taxation and economics. But hey, looking at how well we're doing should give everybody a nice warm and fuzzy feeling.
from the article referenced:
The history of the United States economy over the last 70 years can be roughly divided into two periods: the decades immediately after World War II, when inequality plummeted, and the past three decades, when global economic forces and government policies caused it to soar. Mr. Obama is setting out to begin a third period that looks more like the first than the second.
....Over the last three decades, the pretax incomes of the wealthiest households have risen far more than they have for other households, while the tax rates for top earners have fallen more than they have for others, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
As a result, the average post-tax income of the top 1 percent of households has jumped by roughly $1 million since 1979, adjusted for inflation, to $1.4 million. Pay for most families has risen only slightly faster than inflation.
Before becoming Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers liked to tell a hypothetical story to distill the trend. The increase in inequality, Mr. Summers would say, meant that each family in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution was effectively sending a $10,000 check, every year, to the top 1 percent of earners.
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The history of the United States economy over the last 70 years can be roughly divided into two periods: the decades immediately after World War II, when inequality plummeted, and the past three decades, when global economic forces and government policies caused it to soar. Mr. Obama is setting out to begin a third period that looks more like the first than the second.
....Over the last three decades, the pretax incomes of the wealthiest households have risen far more than they have for other households, while the tax rates for top earners have fallen more than they have for others, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
As a result, the average post-tax income of the top 1 percent of households has jumped by roughly $1 million since 1979, adjusted for inflation, to $1.4 million. Pay for most families has risen only slightly faster than inflation.
Before becoming Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers liked to tell a hypothetical story to distill the trend. The increase in inequality, Mr. Summers would say, meant that each family in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution was effectively sending a $10,000 check, every year, to the top 1 percent of earners.
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from the article referenced:
The history of the United States economy over the last 70 years can be roughly divided into two periods: the decades immediately after World War II, when inequality plummeted, and the past three decades, when global economic forces and government policies caused it to soar. Mr. Obama is setting out to begin a third period that looks more like the first than the second.
....Over the last three decades, the pretax incomes of the wealthiest households have risen far more than they have for other households, while the tax rates for top earners have fallen more than they have for others, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
As a result, the average post-tax income of the top 1 percent of households has jumped by roughly $1 million since 1979, adjusted for inflation, to $1.4 million. Pay for most families has risen only slightly faster than inflation.
Before becoming Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers liked to tell a hypothetical story to distill the trend. The increase in inequality, Mr. Summers would say, meant that each family in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution was effectively sending a $10,000 check, every year, to the top 1 percent of earners.
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I tried really hard to understand this but as Mr. Obama's top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers liked to say when he was president of Harvard, we girls just aren't very smart at that math stuff. Best to leave it to the boys.
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O has a bigot on his staff, now that's just not right.
The Republican era of decreased governmental regulation and oversight, record profits for the oil companies, lowered taxes on the most wealthy, record bonuses for bankers & Wall Streeters, amazing new securities (credit default swaps, etc.), the last 8 years has really spurred our global economy, hasn't it, and brought our world to the land of plenty. Just lookit at what the Peanut Company of America and the Madoffs have achieved -- wunnerful!
We sure gotta give you the credit y'all deserve.
There's just no arguing with success, is there?
Give yourselves big pats on the back and hugs for all your achievements.
Surely, you've insured the Republican party, Reagonomics, trickle down, cut taxes and deregulate (business is SO much wiser than any government regulators) that those principles will have the long and healthy life they've earned and so richly deserve!! (R.I.P.)
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We sure gotta give you the credit y'all deserve.
There's just no arguing with success, is there?
Give yourselves big pats on the back and hugs for all your achievements.
Surely, you've insured the Republican party, Reagonomics, trickle down, cut taxes and deregulate (business is SO much wiser than any government regulators) that those principles will have the long and healthy life they've earned and so richly deserve!! (R.I.P.)
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