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Crazy, Nuts, and Role Models
This entry was posted in Economics, economy, finance, inequality, media, philosophy, political humor and tagged Fortune Magazine, Hoarding. Bookmark the permalink.
thebigpicturereport ™ 
Do feel free to revisit my blog with further comments. I like hearing different points of view.
I honestly appreciate the discussion, Hoboduke, and I will allow you the last word as we are so far apart neither of us is going to change our minds with further arguments. But one last piece of information, I bought a VOLT (and I like it). 🙂
It strikes me as amusing, Hoboduke, that those on the right side of the political spectrum see those who have the least as the cause of their problems. Never mind that the poor have little and are rapidly getting poorer. The right doesn’t recognize the rich as the problem, who because of favorable tax breaks and subsidies, keep getting richer while the rest of us fall behind. It makes no sense to me. If the poor are taking from the rich, how come the rich keep getting richer?
Let me try to make this as direct as possible. An organic farmer recognizes a greater demand for his produce by the community grocer. He grows more produce. He gets more money. Who did he steal from? Should he work and take the risks to donate the organic food? Who deserves to get paid? Comrades, your local comisar of the people socialist republic of Russia will evaluate who has the claim to organic produce profits. Only the government is entitled to make the leaders rich by taking from everyone. Most millionaires design their lives to steal from poor people? My parents came off the boat after WWII with nothing. No government assistance, no family, and at the end of their lives had saved for retirement and died in their own home they owned. They weren’t protesting how millionaires ruined their future. They were fleeing the Stalin death labor camps of Russia in the “worker’s paradise” that was hell on earth. You have no idea what it is like to get letters that another relative died working for the glorious future in the slave labor camps of Russia.
The problem with your analysis is that we are nowhere even close to Stalinist Russia. Our billionaires and their shills in Congress are adamantly against raising the top rates from 35 to 39.6 percent. Will your organic farmer or CEO stop working if his marginal tax rate goes up three or four percent? Of course not. Hell, we had top tax rates of 70 to 90% for years and did very well, because there was money for the middle class (thanks to government programs and labor unions) to buy organic produce or whatever the economy was selling. A slight increase in tax rates for the wealthy is not communism.It helps the middle class grow and increases demand for products to grow the economy.
It’s just common sense.
The Russian Stalin movement was based on being “fair”. Fair without a legal system to protect. Now we have the thought police marching on Wall Street, they seem a very intelligent lot capable of common sense? Mob justice is no replacement for a legal process. Who cares about tax rates anyway? It will never be enough, and it will never seem right or just no matter what the percentage rate. Yes in the 1950’s the top rate was 90% and it was very prosperous and economy expanded even with a very bad recession inside those 10 years. You know why? We did not have a process of 5 years and 12 different government agencies reviewing 100 applications for permits in order to start anything. We actually used coal! My God we can’t use coal, even though China does. WE actually did not pretend to help the auto industry by creating a mandate for the VOLT. NObody is buying it. We let the stupid public pick what they wanted, and my gosh we ate hamburgers, french fries, and drank Coke! We need more regulations to stop this!
Hoarding cash neighbors make you poor? Now I know we got enough morons to make Obama dictator for life. You can break into your rich neighbor’s house and take what you need to make it fair. Life will be fiar when we’re all poor, because the government will tax us poor pretty soon anyway. Can’t wait to qualify for food stamps, public aid, government housing, and a free Obama cell phone.