Wouldnt this make more sence than a Tax break for the wealthy?

[Myth465]

You guys had a full helping of Ayn Rand this morning, with a glass of Murray Rothbard ;D. I have read it all, and don't need it rehashed. No one is actually responding to anything written. I could just save myself the time and go to libertarian talkingpoints.com.

 

It astounds me that you can make more then 98% of people who live in the same country as you and still not be rich.

 

Freedom, Liberty, Founding Fathers, Principles, Socialism, Class War, blah blah blah. We got bills to pay. I get it you guys made money and want to keep it (I am a fan of just being honest). We all do. The challenge is to design and fight for a government which allows you to do that (based on the principles that folks like both Paul Ryan, and Obama have accepted), not this starve the beast plan.

 

Your basic argument is screw the country. I want whats mine (the middle class has the same argument, they are just a bigger voting block). Its fair enough, but drop the flag waving bs. Obama is far form a socialist and neither am I. The country has serious issues which need to be solved, and this focus on tax cuts is not the solution to any of our problems regardless of whatever faulty economic logic (trickle down) or patriot verbiage you want to use to justify them.

 

 

----

 

I prefer Original  Constitutionalist. Has a nice ring to it,

 

Perhaps you would. I wouldn't. Neither would most Women, or other Minorities. I prefer thought and work to solve today's problems not someone stuck in the 1800s, for the sake of being stuck in the 1800s.

[Myth465]

Realistically most governments can do whatever they want. Americans have actual rights but also have to give up something as well (taxes). I wise more people went to or read about other countries where people literally have no rights and can be disappeared for what they say.

 

People want "economic liberty, justice, freedom, and all that" but still want a civilized society. They want a right to security (police and military), clean water, paved roads, safe working environments, and all this other stuff but want to pay no to little taxes. I don't know what fantasy world they are living in, do you?

[Guest Bronco]

Myth - I would think 2.3 trillion dollars could help cover some of those things. 

 

BTW - police are paid by the state - NJ has a 10% tax rate at the highest level.

 

Roads - I pay $10 a day in tolls.

 

I would imagine we have higher social program liabilities than any other nation, but I don't have facts to support this. 

 

All these arguments for higher tax rates are flimsy, b/c

 

1) no arguments are made to discover tax rates that maximize tax revenues - which could be lower or higher than current rates set to expire

 

2) if in point #1, tax revenue is maximized at a 70% marginal rate, would you support that?  Why is 40% so magical to all of you? 

 

Don't forget that owner earnings of public companies are taxed at 50% in this country when distributed to the owners. 

 

With pensions as all the rage right now, no one has made a good argument against converting to defined contribution plans.  I have a real problem with a public employee mandating how much they should take away from my earned wages so they can be more comfortable not working.  C'mon my friends.

 

The arguments here can get silly - someone paying maybe $10,000 in taxes telling me that when I pay $100,000 in taxes it is not enough, even if I live a lifestyle and live in a house no different than them.

 

And the reality is that most people making more than $100 - $200k will be pouring more hours than those that don't.

 

But to the original point-$2.3 trillion in federal money alone should be plenty - the suggestion to raise tax rates b/c $2.3 trillion is too low is hard to swallow. 

[valuecfa]

I was talking to a an industry guy the other day who suggested to me a simple idea for the current economic situation that could help, and which was streamlined at the real problem, unemployment.

 

He suggested giving employers a tax credit of a certain amount (say $5,000) per employee they hire. He said if he knew he would get $5,000 back per person, he would hire more people, and i think many other businesses would as well. If you are going to dole out money any way it seems to me that it should go towards a remedy that addresses the unemployment issue. Putting people back to work is what the government needs to do, and this simple solution seems like a great idea. It would give incentives for businesses to rehire, which would help out the individual business as well as the employee, as well as the overall economy.

[Sea Island]

Obama is far form a socialist and neither am I

 

Myth good point, Obama is a statist/marxist

[Guest Bronco]

Value - if his business is an S corp - why would he hire more people if he got a $5000 tax credit but his marginal tax rate would go up 10%? 

 

If he is running a C corp - it still makes more sense to drop the corp rate from 35 to 25 - THAT could provide the additional funds for hiring.

 

I get your point and respect the logic - but these are my opinions. 

 

 

 

It seems people are more happy when politicians overpromise, underdeliver, overtax, overregulate, and kick the shibit out of the value of the currency. 

 

Social security is a mess and a bad program.  This could be fixed (see Harry Long's post on Chile).

 

Medicare is a REAL, REAL problem.  How do you tell old people that you won't provide them coverage?  How do you extract costs out of the system?  As life expectancy goes up, the problem gets worse.  I think the issues are over most people's heads, including both mine and the President.  Huge NPV liabilites alrady exist - getting worse.

 

 

[Smazz]

Government is not the solution and we do not want Canadian style socialism in the U.S.

We have something in common... I dont want US style socialism in Canada here either.

 

Govt decides to use taxpayers funds to go Country shopping with the pretex they are "providing safety for its citizens"

 

no thanks. ;)

[Sea Island]

Right on...peace through weakness, I like it

[Smazz]

fundraising by fear raising... works for the sheep or the fanatical religious.

[Guest Bronco]

I would like to see quantified the amount of USD spent annually for troops in Japan, Korea, Germany, etc.

 

Is this really necessary anymore?

 

I bet if the amount were published, people might start making a stink.

[Smazz]

I would like to see quantified the amount of USD spent annually for troops in Japan, Korea, Germany, etc.

 

Is this really necessary anymore?

 

I bet if the amount were published, people might start making a stink.

They will pale in comparison to troops in Iraq going forward - under the veil of "security forces".

Any troops in Europe are basically symbolic.  

[Myth465]

Myth - I would think 2.3 trillion dollars could help cover some of those things.  

 

BTW - police are paid by the state - NJ has a 10% tax rate at the highest level.

 

Roads - I pay $10 a day in tolls.

 

I would imagine we have higher social program liabilities than any other nation, but I don't have facts to support this.  

 

All these arguments for higher tax rates are flimsy, b/c

 

1) no arguments are made to discover tax rates that maximize tax revenues - which could be lower or higher than current rates set to expire

 

2) if in point #1, tax revenue is maximized at a 70% marginal rate, would you support that?  Why is 40% so magical to all of you?  

 

Don't forget that owner earnings of public companies are taxed at 50% in this country when distributed to the owners.  

 

With pensions as all the rage right now, no one has made a good argument against converting to defined contribution plans.  I have a real problem with a public employee mandating how much they should take away from my earned wages so they can be more comfortable not working.  C'mon my friends.

 

The arguments here can get silly - someone paying maybe $10,000 in taxes telling me that when I pay $100,000 in taxes it is not enough, even if I live a lifestyle and live in a house no different than them.

 

And the reality is that most people making more than $100 - $200k will be pouring more hours than those that don't.

 

But to the original point-$2.3 trillion in federal money alone should be plenty - the suggestion to raise tax rates b/c $2.3 trillion is too low is hard to swallow.  

 

Bronco we arent even having a conversation. You again arent reading what I write. Instead you are beating up a straw-man. I never said anything about 40%, and really the only thing I have said on taxation is I would support what Paul Ryan recommended, and we should pay for the government we have not want. You keep talking about rates and double taxation, and you are winning the argument but its against a straw-man.

 

Also no facts needed, you are correct - all the entitlement programs are a mess, and we do likely have higher unfunded liabilities then any other country. Some say its as high as 7x GDP.

 

----

 

This article gets to the heart of the issue.

 

http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=107397

 

Since Keynesian economics is no longer relevant, some are now arguing that tax cuts will save the day. Two of the academic studies we reviewed suggest that tax relief is a much stronger stimulus to the economy than government spending, and under normal circumstances this is probably true. But we are not in a normal economic environment. Even if the tax cuts implemented by George Bush in 2006 are extended by the next Congress, the US will still face the ‘Keynesian Endpoint’. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published in January 2010 states the following: “In our Alternative simulation, which assumes expiring tax provisions are extended through 2020 and revenue is held constant at the 40-year historical average; roughly 93 cents of every dollar of federal revenue will be spent on the major entitlement programs and net interest costs by 2020.”12 Extending tax cuts won’t solve anything.

 

INMO we need to reform things, cutting taxes prior to that process wont address our problems. You cant seriously be pro tax cuts and anti deficit. Pick one.

[rkbabang]

While I won't pick a side of this debate, I will make a small point.

I often find it amusing what "rights" people believe exist.  I was speaking with a local businessman about this issue, and he noted that the government didn't have a "right" to tax his company.  I agreed and then noted that perhaps a compromise is in order: corporate entities shouldn't exist at all and therefore would offer no limited liability for owners.  In return, they will pay no taxes.  He then responded that he has a "right" to run a company without unlimited liability.

I guess I haven't gotten the memo that people have a "right" to this and that.

 

Some of us, apparently nowhere near the majority, have a moral code.  Mine is that the initiation of force or fraud is wrong.  This means that actions like murder and theft are bad.   And furthermore I have the insane belief that it is just as morally wrong to delegate theft or murder to a third party as it is to do it yourself.  The person hiring the hit-men are just as guilty as the hit-men. And I have the still nuttier belief that it is just as wrong for a group of people to commit, or delegate, theft or murder as it is for an individual to do so.   Having ten people, a million people, or even a billion people, in your group doesn't make theft or murder moral. Might doesn't make right.

 

Now, I know most people wouldn't agree with my above statements and so have no problem with the way things are, but if you do agree with me then please answer the following question: How is war not murder and taxation not theft?  The only way to justify such things is to say, sure theft and murder are wrong when one or two people do it, but they are just fine if tens of million vote for it.  The whole "common good" nonsense.  You can justify evil anyway you please, but I don't buy it and want no part of it.

 

I also find it telling that WEB says all the time that he thinks he should be taxed more, but when he chooses to give his money away he doesn't simply give it all to the federal government or even a portion of it.  Why is that?  Maybe he doesn't think that is the best place for *HIS* money, but he apparently thinks it is the best place for other people's money.  Funny how differently people will spend their own money from how they advocate the forced spending of other people's assets.

 

--Eric

 

[Guest broxburnboy]

Obama is far form a socialist and neither am I

 

Myth good point, Obama is a statist/marxist

 

Really, this conversation is degenerating to the kind of thing you find on Fox News or the Sunday morning Televangelical 2 minute hate.

Blaming someone and labelling them with terms the blamer themselves don't understand, solves nothing, just entrenches the confusion typical of today's public media discourse.

Bush, Obama, Palin,... makes no difference they will follow the same agenda... borrow and spend, reduce taxes to "stimulate", pretend the debt doesn't exist, kick the can down the road.

A good deal of the fiscal and monetary difficulties are caused because there has been too LITTLE taxes and governments have borrowed to make up the difference in spending demands (like foreign wars, bridges to nowhere etc.) of the same demographic who received the tax cuts.

How do you kickstart an already overheated and overlevered economy?  You don't... it has to collapse back to a sustainable level of growth and then spend some time in a high tax, rationalized spending environment in order to at least demonstrate an ability to pay current debt obligations.

One other thing, the most painful part... the general population particularly the wealthy will have to deal with their own sense of entitlement and future expectations.

[Sea Island]

Statism (or etatism) is a term assigned to political movements and trends that are seen as supporting the use of the state to achieve goals, both economic and social. Economic statism, for instance, promotes the view that the state has a major and legitimate role in directing the economy, either directly through state-owned enterprises and other types of machinery of government, or indirectly through economic planning.[1][2]

 

Marxism:

The dialectical and materialist concept of history — Humankind's history fundamentally is a struggle between social classes. The critique of capitalism —

Advocacy of proletarian revolution —

 

I believe that, without assigning value(negative/positive) the above adequately describes Obama's political beliefs. To those of us engaged in capitalism this should be pretty obvious and I believe I understand it pretty well.

[Guest Bronco]

Bronx - please read the article on Cisco in this past weekend's Barrons.

 

You sound like an intelligent, generous person - but on U.S. corporate tax policy I think you are dead wrong.  If you didn't like what I said, listen to John Chambers.

 

 

 

Myth - now that the straw man has been smacked around, I would like to put him in a rear naked choke, followed by a gasoline bath and a couple of matches.

 

We are all intelligent enough to understand that spending has to come down in this country, and fiscal responsbility restored.  I just disagree with some on how to do this.

 

On a separate note - there is much to be said for the wealth effect.  I think we can do a lot in the U.S. to enhance shareholder rights - rewarding owners and giving them more power.  A topic for a different day.

 

 

[Guest broxburnboy]

Statism (or etatism) is a term assigned to political movements and trends that are seen as supporting the use of the state to achieve goals, both economic and social. Economic statism, for instance, promotes the view that the state has a major and legitimate role in directing the economy, either directly through state-owned enterprises and other types of machinery of government, or indirectly through economic planning.[1][2]

 

Marxism:

The dialectical and materialist concept of history — Humankind's history fundamentally is a struggle between social classes. The critique of capitalism —

Advocacy of proletarian revolution —

 

I believe that, without assigning value(negative/positive) the above adequately describes Obama's political beliefs. To those of us engaged in capitalism this should be pretty obvious and I believe I understand it pretty well.

In what way does Obama, A Marxist, apparently by your labelling, advocate a proletariat revolution?..I thought that was what the Tea Party is all about.

In what way does he NOT support the entrenched monopoly capitalist American state? So far he has extended the direct transfer of wealth from State to private hands through TARP and a host of other handouts. The much ballyhooed health care legislation is a compulsory subsidy to the insurance industry and the other health care monopolies. He seems to want to extend the imperialistic wars on Muslim countries (Woops, I forgot ..right wing demonology has labelled him as a Muslim terrorist as well).

There are various types of capitalism, corporatism is only one. Liberal free enterprise capitalism requires the intervention of government to prevent the concentration of economic power in the hands of monopoly, and to ensure a level playing field for all. Corporatism (monopoly capitalism) eventually results in a static 2 class society where innovation ceases and social spending is directly principally to support corporate profits at the expense of the majority of people.

[rkbabang]

Marx's class theory is just plain wrong.  There are, and always have been through out human history, only 2 classes.  These classes are separated by a gun (or a sword if you go back a few hundred years).  What matters isn't race, sex, religion, or wealth. What matters is which side of the gun you are on.  You are either master or slave.  I put the lowly bureaucrat making 25K per year in the master class that is part of the problem, and the entrepreneur making $10M per year in the slave class along with you and me.

 

If Marx would have defined his classes as such, Marxism would be a very different philosophy.

 

--Eric

 

[Sea Island]

far he has extended the direct transfer of wealth from State to private hands through TARP: TARP was signed into law by President Bush.

 

health care legislation is a compulsory subsidy to the insurance industry and the other health care monopolies: The health care legislation is designed to have the government replace individual insurers with a "single payer" system.

 

Liberal free enterprise capitalism requires the intervention of government to prevent the concentration of economic power in the hands of monopoly, and to ensure a level playing field for all. There is no such thing as a level playing field for all.

[Myth465]

This is a most interesting debate. Its really mucking up the board, but more then a few of use appear to have a keen interest in politics. I pride myself on calling a spade a spade and my interest in this thread perked up when rich people started saying they werent even rich, when people who do better than 98% of everyone else wont even admit that, then the country has issues.

 

I reviewed the Munger interview and Him, Buffett, and Obama are on the same side of the issue. They are all socialist is the obvious reply. Everyone with a counter point is a socialist / Marxist. Just like everyone who disagrees with the left is a racist. It really stifles debate, and is a great tactic. Munger is one of the greatest mind I have ever come across, and him and everyone worth listening to can admit that we are in a bind with few good choices. He is pro keeping the social programs, and so is the Republican Darling Young Gun Paul Ryan. But yes they are all socialists.

 

I also saw a Charlie Rose interview with David Brooks and he brought up a good point. This economic Darwinism world that you all dream about has never existed. Government and Business have always gone hand and hand in building this country. Every successful country has had a healthy dose of Government intervention (and all the growing ones feature a significant amount of it - Brazil, China, Other Asian Countries).

 

 

Myth - now that the straw man has been smacked around, I would like to put him in a rear naked choke, followed by a gasoline bath and a couple of matches. We are all intelligent enough to understand that spending has to come down in this country, and fiscal responsbility restored.  I just disagree with some on how to do this.

 

On a separate note - there is much to be said for the wealth effect.  I think we can do a lot in the U.S. to enhance shareholder rights - rewarding owners and giving them more power.  A topic for a different day.

 

Bronc I always enjoy chating with you, and you are right. Americans feel poorer and we are all hurting. This issue though is its unsustainable and I think where we are now is much healthier.

 

---

 

I know I know - Krugman is a rabid socialist who hates anyone who has made any money but his thoughts mirror mine. These arguments are just lame, and I would prefer for you guys to simply say I have earned it and I want to keep it, if Joe gets a cut, I want mines to. I may not agree, but I can respect that. I would endorse a 2 year extension (to deal with the recession and then cancel all cuts) but I know the Republicans would start this whole debate over again in 2 years. Not that my opinion matters much.

 

Paul Krugman: The Angry Rich

from Econo View by Mark Thoma

8 people liked this

 

The "rage of the rich" is broadening and intensifying:

 

   The Angry Rich, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: ...These are terrible times for many people in this country. Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they’ll never work again.

 

   Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans. You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.

 

   The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office. At first, however, it was largely confined to Wall Street. ... When the billionaire Stephen Schwarzman compared an Obama proposal to the Nazi invasion of Poland, the proposal in question would have closed a tax loophole that specifically benefits fund managers like him.

 

   Now, however, as decision time looms for the fate of the Bush tax cuts ... the rage of the rich has broadened, and ... craziness has gone mainstream. It’s one thing when a billionaire rants at a dinner event. It’s another when Forbes magazine runs a cover story alleging that the president of the United States is deliberately trying to bring America down as part of his Kenyan, “anticolonialist” agenda, that “the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s.” When it comes to defending the interests of the rich, it seems, the normal rules of civilized (and rational) discourse no longer apply.

 

   At the same time, self-pity among the privileged has become acceptable, even fashionable. Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families. Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.

 

   These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. ... Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.

 

   And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it. “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago.

 

   The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.

 

   You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. ... And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.

 

   But when they say “we,” they mean “you,” Sacrifice is for the little people

 

I believe that, without assigning value(negative/positive) the above adequately describes Obama's political beliefs. To those of us engaged in capitalism this should be pretty obvious and I believe I understand it pretty well.

 

Obama is a corporatist simply trying to appease a public that is feed up with bailouts. Follow the actions and ignore the lip service. Wall Street got off basically Scott free when the fueled the biggest crisis in my lifetime. The fair left is extremely pissed of. The regular left is extremely pissed off. His healthcare bill is a Corporate bailout, his bailout, was a Corporate bailout, no cap and trade, no cardcheck (to date), BP was handled with kid gloves for screwing up the 3rd coast. I just dont see it. I dont see this socialist that you all are so scared off, niether does the Economist (but ya thats far left as well).

[Guest broxburnboy]

Marx's class theory is just plain wrong.  There are, and always have been through out human history, only 2 classes.  These classes are separated by a gun (or a sword if you go back a few hundred years).  What matters isn't race, sex, religion, or wealth. What matters is which side of the gun you are on.  You are either master or slave.  I put the lowly bureaucrat making 25K per year in the master class that is part of the problem, and the entrepreneur making $10M per year in the slave class along with you and me.

 

If Marx would have defined his classes as such, Marxism would be a very different philosophy.

 

--Eric

 

Marx's theories dealt with the problems of his time and the state of affairs in the early stages of industrialisation. They were relevant to the issues of his time. Curious that you seem to believe like Marx that there are only 2 classes, the exploited and the exploiters. Marx was contemptuous of the middle class, the petite bourgiousie.... it had no place in his dialectic.

Yet the rise of American dominance is due to the industriousness of this class and its participation in the economy, encouraged by democratic liberalism, seemingly limitless natural wealth and the continued arrival of motivated immigrants.

The only places where marxist inspired revolutions occurred however were in deeply feudal like agrarian states which had only the 2 classes you mention. Marx meant his revolution to occur in industrial Germany, but they occurred in Russia, and later in China...he would have rolled over in his grave had he known... he was also contemptuous of the idiocy of rural life.

We see as time goes on and the middle class rises, economic growth accelerates and the middle class rises some more.

When capitalist economies (and they all are) become monopolistic capitalist societies, the middle class loses its equal access to capital, education, health and the ruling class reemerges, this time as a "meritocracy"... The lower class exists to subsidize the upper, the middle class becomes marginalized.

 

 

[Guest Bronco]

myth - keep in mind, we can debate who is rich or not, but my original posts were on corporate taxes. 

 

I stand by these, and I advise everyone get knowledgable about this.  The current structure hurts US tax revenue, US jobs and US shareholders.  There is zero benefit.

 

I cite the Joint Committe on Taxation report.  As I have mentioned, John Chambers (see barron's article) echos my comments on this board.

 

The tax jihad on corporations (which are really legal entities for US shareholders and owners) needs to end.  I am involved with this type of stuff on a daily basis - it is enough to make you sick.

[Sea Island]

For me, being active on this board is about learning and I try to keep a very open mind as it easy in the world of money management to become dogmatic and autocratic. Sometimes you have to believe more strongly than anyone else that you are right and be willing to impose that view on others(mgrs., clients, partners etc.). The term "corporatist" is not one that I was aware of until today and while I assume it means one that acts on the behalf of corporate entities I do not believe that it describes Obama. Obama's actions tell us that he believes it is the state above all else. Sometimes manifested in Keynesian economics, sometimes in New Deal Socialism and sometimes in straight government take over: GM et al. Obama doesn't believe in the power of the individual to overcome their own circumstance and by extension doesn't believe in corporations beyond what they can provide him funds to persue his objective of an all powerful state.

 

Obama is a corporatist simply trying to appease a public that is feed up with bailouts

[twacowfca]

For me, being active on this board is about learning and I try to keep a very open mind as it easy in the world of money management to become dogmatic and autocratic. Sometimes you have to believe more strongly than anyone else that you are right and be willing to impose that view on others(mgrs., clients, partners etc.). The term "corporatist" is not one that I was aware of until today and while I assume it means one that acts on the behalf of corporate entities I do not believe that it describes Obama. Obama's actions tell us that he believes it is the state above all else. Sometimes manifested in Keynesian economics, sometimes in New Deal Socialism and sometimes in straight government take over: GM et al. Obama doesn't believe in the power of the individual to overcome their own circumstance and by extension doesn't believe in corporations beyond what they can provide him funds to persue his objective of an all powerful state.

 

Obama is a corporatist simply trying to appease a public that is feed up with bailouts

 

Dinesh D'sousa has a most interesting article 09.27.10 in Forbes.com, How Obama Thinks.  He makes a persuasive argument that socialism is inadequate to explain many of his bizarre actions such as redefining NASA's main mission as outreach to the Muslim world.  Instead Obama's raison d'être is antineocolonialism with the main boogymen being the exploitative international businesses and those who get rich exploiting poor countries and the underclass, especially well off people in the US and the UK. He got this dream and his life's mission by channeling his dead father, a rabid anticolonialist, according to D'sousa.

 

Having read his first autobiography, Dreams From My Father, the one he wrote all by himself, not the sanitized one mostly ghostwritten for him before the election,  D'sousa's thesis makes perfect sense.

[Myth465]

Do you mind linking the article. I would like to read it, though the premise sounds way off base from what I have seen. The fact that you see a bit of value in it has peaked my interest. Though its a tough pill. Gingrich said the same and I thought it was way out of left field.

 

---

 

Labels may be problematic. Everyone has one lol. Both Amy Goodman and Ron Paul (2 people who agree on very little) would call Obama a Corporatist.

 

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/economy/commentary-mainmenu-43/3303-ron-paul-obama-is-another-corporatist-not-a-socialist

 

The idea that President Barack Obama is a socialist is popular among many conservatives; all of us have seen automobiles sporting the bumper sticker reading, Don’t Blame Me; I Didn’t Vote For the Socialist — obviously referring to Obama. Not so fast, says, of all people, Ron Paul (R-Texas).

 

Addressing the Southern Republican Leadership Conference during its third day, Dr. Paul told the audience, “The question has been raised about whether or not our president is a socialist….  I am sure there are some people here who believe it. But in the technical sense, in the economic definition of a what a socialist is, no, he's not a socialist.”

 

Dr. Paul continued, “He's a corporatist. And unfortunately we have corporatists inside the Republican party and that means you take care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

 

What he means, and whether or not he is right, depends on what we mean by socialism and what by corporatism. In its classical usages (classical here meaning within classical Marxist usage and its derivatives) socialism means: an economic system that is abolishing or has abolished the private ownership of the means of production in favor of public (i.e., state) ownership, with all wealth shared.

 

In this classical sense, Obama is clearly not a socialist. Nothing he has done, not even in the recent healthcare bill, seems aimed at abolishing private ownership of the means of production.

 

Much of what he has done since taking office, however, has vastly increased government control over the means of production — e.g., when he personally demands that a CEO step down (think General Motors). Is this what we mean by corporatism? Ron Paul described the healthcare bill as containing many corporatist provisions:  “We see [corporatism] in the financial institutions, we see it in the military-industrial complex. And now we see it in the medical-industrial complex.”

 

Corporatism is often seen as monopolistic capitalism in which business and governmental elites partner with each other. This isn't too far from the mark. Business elites possess what we might call the power of the purse — they have the money. Governmental elites possess what we might call the power of the sword — they write the rules. We might debate which one, if either, is truly dominant since both scratch each other’s backs and benefit handsomely from having thwarted both genuine marketplace competition and a truly open political and electoral process.

 

Corporatism hardly began with the current administration, of course, or its predecessor. In an article published in 2002, which deserves far more attention than it has ever received, commentator Robert Locke outlined the basic ideas behind corporatism and traced some of its history and influence.

 

According to Locke, corporatism “has the outward form of capitalism in that it preserves private ownership and private management, but with a crucial difference: as under socialism, government guarantees the flow of material goods, which under true capitalism it does not.” (Emphasis in original.) Corporatism does not really trust the marketplace to provide. It manipulates the marketplace “to deliver goods to political constituencies [which now include] basically everyone from economic elites to ordinary consumers.”

 

What has made corporatism so tempting is thus not hard to see. Locke explains further:

 

Big business, whatever its casuists at the Wall Street Journal editorial page may pretend, likes big government, except when big government gets greedy and tries to renegotiate the division of spoils. Although big business was an historic adversary of the introduction of the corporatist state, it eventually found common ground with it. The first thing big business has in common with big government is managerialism. The technocratic manager, who deals in impersonal mass aggregates, organizes through bureaucracy, and rules through expertise without assuming personal responsibility, is common to both. The second thing big business likes about big government is that it has a competitive advantage over small business in doing business with it and negotiating favors. Big government, in turn, likes big business because it is manageable; it does what it is told. It is much easier to impose affirmative action or racial sensitivity training on AT&T than on 50,000 corner stores. This is why big business has become a key enforcer of political correctness.

 

-----

 

Bronco our thoughts on Corporate taxes aren't too far off. As I said I would support Paul Ryan's position except for maybe a 5% - 10% Corporate tax rate, he wanted tax equalization with overseas countries and to eliminate Corporate taxes. Though I would raise taxes on you (and my self) to offset this.