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The Super-Rich Want You To Hate Taxes So They Can Keep Your Money
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» databoy replied on Wed Apr 14, 2010 @ 5:48pm |
 Coolness: 107040 | by Sally Kohn
When it comes to the American economy, there is one fundamental lie and one fundamental truth and it is up to you which you choose to believe. Tax Day is really a chance to ask: “Which side am I on?” The lie is that if the maximum freedom and, thus, maximum benefits are given to the super-rich elites, ultimately everyone will win because the super-rich will create companies and create jobs and buy things and that will benefit the rest of us. It’s been called various things over various times — Reaganomics, trickle down economics, free market capitalism. But mostly it’s just been called bullshit. The average five-year-old could tell you the truth — that if you want to create the most amount of opportunity and prosperity for the most amount of people, it makes much more sense to spread opportunity and prosperity from the get-go rather than give it all to the top and pray it will spread. Bullshit economists — who are mostly from elite backgrounds, educated in elite institutions, and invested in preserving the elite status quo — have been trying for decades to persuade us to believe their lie rather than the common sense truth. Their lie led our economy right into the toilet, but the bullshit economists and their Wall Street pals are still scrambling to convince us that they’re the solution, not the problem. The anti-tax agenda perpetuates the lie. In a currently uneven economy where wealth and privilege easily reproduce themselves while it’s harder and harder to climb from the bottom or the middle up the economic ladder, taxes are the primary way we as a society redistribute money to all the hardworking Americans who deserve their fair share and a fair shake. Sure, those Harvard-educated bank CEOs work hard, but do they work 300 times harder than you? Their pay is based not on hard work but on bullshit economics that favor the already-rich. Taxes are our way of saying, “Hey, good for you for making a bazillion dollars, but since you’ll still be rich with a bajillion, we’re going to use some of your money to help other have a shot.” Picture the classic image of rich titans of industry sitting around a wood-paneled private club, animal heads on the walls, butlers with white gloves — the exclusivity of the rich enjoying their riches together while plotting how to get richer. Government is the clubhouse for the rest of us. Public schools, roads, electricity, Medicaid and Medicare, veteran’s benefits — government helps the rest of us have the things we need in life, the otherwise only the super-rich could afford. Think about it. If there was no public water system in your town, the rich could import gallons of water from wherever, pay staff to wash their clothes in the river and boil water to drink, and so on. What would you do? The rich want you to think that government is a bad idea for YOU because it’s really a bad idea for THEM. They would be more than happy to keep their tax money, send their kids to $30,000-a-year private schools, pay thousands out of pocket to get a cavity filled, fly a private plane here and there because highways would be ruined. But since there aren’t enough super-rich folks to rule elections (though they keep trying with corporate donations to candidates) they need our help, too. They need the rest of us to swallow their lie so they can keep getting richer and, as taxes decline by our own doing, the rest of us fall further and further into despair. This isn’t to say government is perfect. We need a much more accountable, transparent and participatory politics in America. But thinking that if government doesn’t work perfectly then it doesn’t work at all is part of the lie. At a time when free market capitalism in its current form has failed us wildly, we’re not questioning the fundamentals of that system remotely as much as we should. But one minor or major misstep on the part of government, and we’re ready to throw the baby out with the bath water. We’re that brainwashed to believe the lie. Last year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said the people of Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands, who pay the highest taxes in the world, are also the happiest people in the world. Taxes don’t just benefit poor people. Taxes are what create shared prosperity and keep the middle class prosperous. This Tax Day, as you’re dropping your return in the mail (or pressing that e-send button), instead of reinforcing the pro-rich, anti-tax lie and sighing grumpily as you do your duty, look around at everything your taxes are paying for, everything that helps you in your daily life — from the subsidized post office to the government-created Internet, to the roads and the water and the parks and the schools and the fire fighters and the stop signs and everything in between. Paying your taxes is your way to get America back on the right track for all of us, to reject the lie that helps the rich get richer and instead create a shared economy that benefits everyone. © 2010 Sally Kohn's Movement Vision Lab [ www.commondreams.org ] |
| I'm feeling regenerate right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» basdini replied on Fri Apr 16, 2010 @ 12:13pm |
 Coolness: 146125 | How many men? is a thought experiment often used by anarchists as a moral
argument to show that taxation is theft. There are many variations of it, but one begins, for instance, with the example of a man stealing a car, which most people would regard as unethical. It then proceeds to make slight changes to the story..., with the identity of the thief gradually shifting from one man, to a gang of five men, to a gang of ten men who take a vote (allowing the victim to vote as well) on whether to steal the car before stealing it; to a gang of twenty men who not only take votes but have specialization of labor; to one hundred men who take the car and give the victim back a bicycle; to two hundred men who not only give the victim back a bicycle but buy a poor person a bicycle as well. It ultimately challenges the reader to say how big a group needs to be, and what characteristics it needs to have, before the immorality of theft becomes the alleged morality of taxation. all taxation is theft |
| I'm feeling surly right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» databoy replied on Fri Apr 16, 2010 @ 10:57pm |
| Coolness: 107040 | lol
It's because of horse crap like this that anarchists are rarely taken seriously. Lucky for them, coming from a socialist democracy gives them the right to set up shop in any third world country and live their tax free dream. |
| I'm feeling regenerate right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» basdini replied on Sat Apr 17, 2010 @ 1:15am |
| Coolness: 146125 | you re so cute data boy always trying to make it about political labels, last week i was into fox news, quite a difference from being called an anarchist today...
let's talk about issues... lets start with something like this question... Under what circumstance and by what right does the government use coercive force to compel me to pay taxes for anything? see, how you answer that question makes a big difference... |
| I'm feeling surly right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» databoy replied on Sat Apr 17, 2010 @ 4:56pm |
| Coolness: 107040 | It is you, sir, that draged the political lable to the discussion.
Btw, last week you where telling me to stop posting "shit like this", how was I to know that you where an anarchist? And now you drag out a moral argument suposedly used by anarchists... Dude I though you where just posting that little peice of twisted logic for the sake of argument. Sorry, my bad. The thing is, i have yet to meet someone in Canada that has run into coersive force from not paying taxes. Cus for the first 18 years of your life, you can walk on gouverment payed sidewalks, go to gouverment funded schools, use the free medicare, get an education, drink as much clean water as you want, flush the toilet without a second thought, and that is if you are fortunate enough to not need all the rest of the benifits associated with living in a socialist democratie. Then when you turn 18 you can take your Canadian passeport and either move away to a tax free 3rd world country or to any of the 80 tax free shelter in the most exotic of places. That is if you dont already make upwards from 350 000$ a year and have your acountant place your money in such a way that you wont evere have to pay taxes, yet will keep benefitting from the advantages of socialism. If you arent that fortunate, you can cut out a large amount of your yearly income taxes by investing in REER's and such. Most peoples have the common sence to realise that, true to capitalism, we are, in fact, getting what we pay for. |
| I'm feeling regenerate right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» basdini replied on Sat Apr 17, 2010 @ 11:56pm |
| Coolness: 146125 | Originally Posted By DATABOY
Btw, last week you where telling me to stop posting "shit like this", how was I to know that you where an anarchist? anarchist? let's say i have some 'libertarian' sympathies... |
| I'm feeling surly right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Gamos replied on Fri Apr 23, 2010 @ 1:14am |
 Coolness: 94420 | Economics actually doesnt say that. I've actually read articles by prominent economists that says the followings
1) Taxes don’t just benefit poor people. Taxes are what create shared prosperity and keep the middle class prosperous. 2) Lower taxes can increase government revenues depending on where you on the laffer curve 3) Taxes create a disincentive to work 4) Property rights can increase creativity 5) A lack of equality to opportunities might reduce intergenerational wealth by reducing competition. Example - Italy, Greece, Africa 6) Inequality in outcomes might be required to ensure equality in opportunities. Somewhere along the line, that article becomes stupid. Im pretty sure its right at the begining. The reason bullshit economics works in politics isnt because its what economics suggests. Its because people like the polcies. The reason this happens, that people vote for bullshit policies that help the rich at the expense of the poor, is because Americans aren't really all that unified. You become a net-tax payer at about 34 000. So, if youre a white guy making 50k a year, and you think mexicans are lazy, blacks are leeches, white trash in the south have too many kids, etc...you're not going to want to share your money with others. And if that means DOnald Trump pays less tax, so be it. You work hard for your money. Why the fuck shoudl you share it with lazy bums? And teen moms? And old people who didnt save enough? You shouldn't. In the states, even the middle class attends private schools. The public schools, like public transit are for poor people. The public medical system is for poor people. Thats why people don't like paying taxes. Its because theres a lack of true social cohesion in the states. Databoy. THe more you study economics, the more you learn that economics can only explain so much and makes differences at the margins. The real story, is rather intuitive. It always has been, and always will be. Its about culture. Its about social instiutions. American had a financial crisis in 2007 for the same reason they had a stock crash in 2001, a banking crisis in 1991, and a savings and loan crisis in 1980. The culture of the financial industry and the culture of USA at large. The culture is about making money, not benifiting society. The culture of the USA is about improving your own situation, not the countries. Canada has a better financial system because the financiers in our country care about the social implications of their actions. Its built into the system. Theres a reason a lot of the CEO and people in finance in Canada have PHds in Economics and not MBAs. Theres a reason the risk managers in all the banks are PHDs in econ. Theres a reason the banks in Canada work with regulators to make regulations. Its about culture. Its about social instiutions. The reason americans are richer than us is because of competition and creativity and entrepreneuralism. That too is cultural. |
| I'm feeling a message in a bottl right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» basdini replied on Sun Apr 25, 2010 @ 11:27pm |
| Coolness: 146125 | got to give it to gamos, he can both do the math and he does his homework. |
| I'm feeling surly right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» databoy replied on Mon Apr 26, 2010 @ 12:46am |
| Coolness: 107040 | Originally Posted By GAMOS
Its about culture. Its about social instiutions. The reason americans are richer than us is because of competition and creativity and entrepreneuralism. That too is cultural. Its about culture and social institutions, but it's also about financial deregulation (remember Reaganomics?) Funny that the 4 financial crises that you cited happened during and after Reagan terms as president. The "invisible hand" and the "trickle down effect" where also economic hypothesis's parroted by all the most prominent economists in the world since Adam Smith. It has failed society miserably at least twice in the last hundred years. But it is today the predominant economic philosophy in America and has made a lot progress in Canada as well. The reason America is richer than Canada has to do with way more than just competition and creativity. They built themselves with the blood sweat and tears of the African slaves. Then profited from 2 world wars that destroyed Europe, Japan and parts of Russia. They received a massive influx of rich and educated Europeans, before, during and after WW2, witch accounts for a large part of there creativity. An other factors is geological situation: longer crop seasons in the states means you can feed more peoples= more potential prosperity. The actual system based on Neoliberalism/Reaganomics is designed to create imbalance. A little imbalance is good, it keeps you an your toes but too much will send society on its ass. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan came to power, the American government dismantled the safeguards it had installed after the first Great Depression and, as you cited Gamos, came 4 important economic crisis. The last one being the worst the world has known. If there had been better government regulations, the whole crisis may have been averted. A few CEO's may not have received there millions in bonuses, perhaps, but the whole of society would have been better off. The invisible hand theory doesn't work because there is no "invisible hand". Its magical thinking. |
| I'm feeling regenerate right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Gamos replied on Mon Apr 26, 2010 @ 11:44pm |
| Coolness: 94420 | Financial regulation is important in a sense that you have to be in constant dialogue with the banks to keep leverage ratios low, and make sure the system is solid. But regulation is always one step behind the innovation, so it explains very little.
How do you regulate something before its created? You can't. It takes a rare man to figure out the unintended concequences of innovation, so the regulation will always be a step behind. THats true for everything, including financial innovation. No one forsaw that securitization would lead to perverse incentives that would lead to the worst financial crisis in 70 years. The entreprenuial spirit of America, coupled with their culture of greed in the financial system is more responsible than anything else. Three developed countries escaped the financial crisis with minimal damanage: Canada, Japan and Australia. Australia because it is tied to Asia and the crisis was small in China. Japan and Canada because they have the most conservative banking system in the world. You can't regulate TD and Royal Bank into being conservative. Its a corporate and sectoral culture. Edmond Clark and Gorden Nixon take pride in a risk management first, boring banking model. THEY TAKE PRIDE IN EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEIR US COUNTERPARTS DO. They would rather be less innovative and more safe. Conservative banking. ---- When I say richer, IM not talking about wealth. Im not talking about gains from slavery of WWII. Im talking about income. And the reason american incomes are higher is because they work harder and they get higher productivity gains out of their companies. And the reason for productivity gains is entreprenurialism and creativity. American born and raised people are responsible for this. The upper middle class boys who got to go to private schools and private universities while still being motivated enough to work their ass off. Employees at blockbuster? Fire them and get computers to do it via netflix. At the bookstore? Fire them too and turn to amazon. Second hand stores? No longer. Get computers to do it via Ebay. Secretaries, Admin and Postal service? LOL thats what Adobe is for. Small mom and pop consumer product chains? Walmart can do it cheaper. Buy a computer through a sales rep? Why not buy it on Dell. Spend time looking at maps? Navtek. Engineers doing manual Surveying? Now they use Garmin GPS equiment. Oil laborers? Fire half with new products from Caterpiller. Consolidate farms with GPS equipment from John Deere. [ Honestly...name ] companies that are as entreprenurial as Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Ebay, Netflix, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Cisco, Dell, Garmin, Navtek, Oracle, Walmart, Genetek etc. These are all household names created over the past 15 years, and theyre all american. THese companies could have been created in the garages of any country, but they weren't. USA. All of them. These arent names from the aftermath of WWII. Theyre names since the 1990s. Name some successful entrepreneurial companies in Canada: Research in Motion. Thats it. How about in Britain? France? Spain? Greece? Italy? All these countries had equal chances....why are all the cutting edge countries in the states? And why have Japan, Swiss and Germany and Korea managed to perform and in some cases move ahead of the USA? Japanese Perfection. Swiss precision. German Engineering. Korean operations. What do we say about Italy and Greece? Corruption and Nepotism. ------- Regarding the shrinking realitive incomes of the middle class: IMO the reason for the imbalances we're seeing in life over the past 20 years is computers. Honestly. Computers are the reason the rich are getting a bigger piece of the pie and middle class getting a smaller piece (the poor are staying about the same, relatively speaking). Jobs the middle class had are being outsourced because of IT systems allowing commuication easier across borders. Do doctors need to pay a x-ray interpreter when they can ship the x-ray to india? Does ford need to pay 80k to assembly when the job can be done in china for 1/10th the price? Jobs are being eliminated because computers are making middle class jobs obsolete. And when a doctor only needs one receptionist instead of 2, when a lawyer needs only 1 secretary instead of 2, when an economist no longer needs a research assistant, when bankers can eliminate tellers and client support, when walmart can eliminate floor staff and small shop owners ...who gets those gains? The engineer at ford. The lawyer. The doctor. The economist. The business man. The merchant. In short the rich. And at the expense of who? The middle class. ---- The answer is trivially obvious. The gains are being skewed. The answer is to make sure the negitive aspects of polarization of income are moderated. We must ensure public schooling gets better to keep equal opportunity on par with the rich who can buy every opportunity to their childen. Its about making sure post-secondary education stays accessible to all. Its about redistributing income so citizens in the middle class still have time to be informed, esteemed and included members of society. Its about tilting immigration away from unskilled workers towards skilled immigrants to lower the wages of lawyers and doctors and businessman by increasing the supply of them available. --- Im the first person to advocate regulation because IMO the invisible hand works, but not as well as it should. Regulation is required to make sure it works as intended. But its important to come to the right answer for the right reasons. Why? Because the type of regulation depends as much on the imperfection society is trying to fix as it depends on the road society wants to take. If the determinants leading to regulation are wrongly interpreted, then ineffective regulation is put in place. And ineffective regulation is fire in the hands of those who are profiting from imperfections in society to argue that Regulation is stupid, doesn't work, and makes things worse. |
| I'm feeling a overhang right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» databoy replied on Tue Apr 27, 2010 @ 7:11pm |
| Coolness: 107040 | Wow, gamos, thats one long post... I'd like to adress most of the points you made, but i most likely wont have time this week.
I'd just like to say that it will be interesting to compare average income in the U.S., pre and post 2009/10 ressession. [ en.wikipedia.org ] It's quite interesting to notice the amount of socialist gouverments in the top 20 GDP, specialy Norway. Whats also interesting is to notice that most of those country's are in the top 30 income tax payers [ en.wikipedia.org ] anyways, thanks for the reply :) |
| I'm feeling regenerate right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» nothingnopenope replied on Mon May 3, 2010 @ 1:22am |
 Coolness: 202150 | Norway has a high GDP because it is an oil rich country with a small population, along with its socialist leanings. A rich country with a low population will inherently have a high GDP per capita.
The high tax rate in Norway and other Scandinavian countries is offset by the immense amount of social programs available to all citizens. For example: parents don't have to save up for their children's college fund, as it is completely paid for by the government. |
| I'm feeling meow right now.. | |
The Super-Rich Want You To Hate Taxes So They Can Keep Your Money
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