So, tax cuts to the non-wealthy, who vastly outnumber the wealthy and are more likely to spend it immediately on things that will stimulate the economy, is better? That doesn’t sound right.

Congressional Republicans and their party’s presidential nominee have both pushed plans to cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans in hopes that such a move would stimulate the economy and aid the recovery from the Great Recession. A new study, however, indicates that tax cuts for the wealthiest earners fail to generate economic growth at the same pace as tax cuts aimed at low- and middle-income earners.

The study, conducted by Owen M. Zidar, a former staff economist on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and a graduate student at California-Berkeley, examined economic growth in the states with the most high-income earners. Zidar reasoned that “states with a large share of high income taxpayers should grow faster following a tax cut for high income earners” if the tax cuts had the economic effect conservatives claim.

What he found, though, is that the effect of tax cuts for the rich was “insignificant statistically,” as Reuters’ David Cay Johnston reported:



  1. Dallas says:

    Of course it doesn’t help today. This is flawed thinking originating when ‘rich’ represented a larger portion of the population that drove purchases of durable good built by Americans.

    Now, it’s 2-3% wealthy buying stocks and bonds with their tax cuts and occasionally buying a Korean or Chinese flat panel TV.

    The 2-3% are feeding the Teapublican uneducated sheeple a load of shit that ‘tax cuts’ pertain to them in some fashion. They don’t get that corresponding spending cuts need to happen and most important, those 2-3% billionaires will never ever spend enough to get the sheeple employed and prosperous.

    It’s a shame. This study just says the obvious. However, Teapublican sheeple need to stick with mommy and daddy’s party line.

    • hmeyers says:

      Eventually, our dollars will deflated so much that you’ll need $250,000 a year to pay the rent.

    • msbpodcast says:

      According to the IRS, the population in the US is stratified as follows:

      The 99% (~299,000,000 thousandaires. [earnings and assets, worth < $999,999][expenditures $1,000,000,000][expenditures $250,000*])

      Dig a little, do some research and stop pulling numbers out of your ass…

      *) that’s right. The über rich don’t need to spend as much per capita as the 1%ers. They don’t need to impress.

  2. bobbo, one true Liberal recognizing Obama is too far Right says:

    Businesses expand based on demand. If they need money to expand, they get a loan in most cases. Rich People funding start ups is the allure of every scam start up with an idea===they are even on tv now. Its very rare and even the businesses making billions for those investors only employ a few thousand people.

    Rich create jobs is just a scam. A SCAM—short and simple. Scam in Chief: Mittens. Running to reduce his tax rate. Biggest conflict of interest there has ever been.

    Rich people invest overseas and in intangibles==not by letting it be at risk in trickle down activities. Or as Mittens again shows: by being a VAMPIRE TAKE OVER/UNDER ARTIST. Greed is good.

    All you have to do is Look. Just LOOK.

    • dusanmal says:

      Simple question: OK, raise taxes to 100% to those “rich”. How much that will raise and for how long our Spend Big Government can live on the raised sum?
      But, stop wars too. OK, 10% more deficit down (Obama Administration 3+ yrs track record 5.5 T$ in minus, 0.56T$ in total war spending). Still TRILLIONS in the yearly hole.
      And still about half of US population does not pay a dime in Federal Income Tax while that same group VOTES and has influence on how (not theirs) money is spent. Unsustainable and leading directly to wrong economic policies benefiting leeches.
      The only viable solution is to a) Make income tax flat. Rich and poor all paying same percentage of income as tax with no deductions of any kind. All voting population in for the same proportion of income, SHARED BURDEN. b) Make balanced budget Constitutionally mandatory. c) Make tax rate one, small and immutable. I’d say 15% or 18% for all: individuals, investment, corporations,… ALL.
      This would require immediate proportional cut to all aspects of Government. Also, immediate sale of assets to pay existing debt (absolutely no reason for Government to hold 90% of West US land mass as Fed’ lands) augmented by immediate sale of oil/mineral rights for wherever anyone requests (no more “you can’t drill here”). No debt in 2 years or less, balanced budget and small, weak (hence un-corruptable) Government fearing its people. AND “rich” paying 18% taxes (and 50% leeches on society now paying 18% tax).

    • Sea Lawyer says:

      Here is a question for you braniac… when a business goes to the bank and asks for a loan, do you think the bulk of the money being lent comes from the deposits of account holders who are low income earner who live paycheck to paycheck, or wealthy account holders who have large deposit balances?

  3. AlanB says:

    Well… yeah. Just like when they went after all the old cars or “Gross Polluters”. Even if you remove all the old cars with smoke trailing behind; the cars poor folk can’t afford to upgrade; it wouldn’t come close to improving air quality as much as it would if you increase the gas mileage of new car production by 1 mpg.

    I hope no one paid for that study.

    • NewformatSux says:

      Actually, new cars are so much lower in pollution, it does make sense to go after the old ones. Alternatively, you could reduce gas mileage requirements, making new cars cheaper, and getting more of the old cars of the road as a result.

      • rwest says:

        Those old cars could run for decades and pollute all they could and NEVER equal the amount of pollution generated by the manufactoring process of making the new car to replace it.

        Reuse don’t recycle.

        • NewformatSux says:

          It’s not just a 5 or 10% difference. Most of the air pollution is coming from older cars. Manufacturing pollution is not the same as auto pollution at runtime, because of location, unless you are counting carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

          • AlanB says:

            I can buy all that. But again, it’s in the numbers. How do you define old car? Pre 2000? 1990? I was just referring to the Gross Polluters. The ones blowing smoke. The ones people are embarrassed to drive and drive them only when they have to because they can’t afford the gas let alone a new car. CA estimates 10-15% of cars are gross polluters. I just don’t believe it. That means every 10 or 15th car you see should be blowing smoke. I don’t see that many. CA estimates over half the air pollution created by cars comes from these cars you rarely see. I’d like to know who in CA is making the estimates. Off topic anyway.

  4. pcsmith says:

    Tax cuts for the rich is the base plank of Trick-up Economics, which is why Ronald Reagan is so beloved.

  5. msbpodcast says:

    Tax cuts for those wealthy enough to make a difference never reach the economy.

    They have accountants who are duty bound by their code of professionalism to keep any and all money in the rich person’s accounts.

    Tax cuts for the wealthy never just trickle down.

  6. mharry860 says:

    Anybody on here heard of the Laffer Curve, it’s proven by history. Lowering taxes on the rich won’t help, but if you raise them they will magically stop paying them. For some of those above me I pity your lower than my Downs Syndrome sister. Overtaxing the rich would yield 4 billion, how is that supposed to help when this administration is running Trillion dollar deficits?

    • hmeyers says:

      I think the federal government spends $16 billion per day.

      $5 billion of that can’t be paid for so the federal government runs up the debt $5 billion every day.

    • Carlos says:

      Don’t go confusing these guys with logic.. wealth taxes are working so well in France that the London estate agents are employing French speakers.

      On the other hand for each 1%’er they scare off (with their business, employment and taxes), 300 new non-1%’ers will have to be found to compensate, or failing that, new higher taxes for everyone that’s left. Genius!

      • NewformatSux says:

        You don’t get it. Candidate Obama was asked about this explicitly, and he said even if it gets you less money for the government, he would raise taxes as a matter of fairness.

    • msbpodcast says:

      It shouldn’t be forgotten that the current administration inherited a couple of wars paid for by the Bush administration using our credit cards.

      The problem is that the 12,400 über rich take their payment in hard assets, (in land & real-estate, not in cash.) You don’t really spend assets, you use the assets to back your fiat currency.

      The 1%ers are now realizing that they should have not been so greedy, but its too late. There are tens of thousands of bridges that are going to fail because there is enough political will. (viz: the 1%ers who are our politicians are not willing to spend fiat money maintaining our assets.)

      The medium of exchange (the specie of your bank note) is not really as fungible as all that (a US dollar is as useless as a Zimbabwean unless there is an exchange which will accept it. If the US starts defaulting, it’ll find out just what its fiat currency is really worth. [butt wad…])

      The 99%ers now own so little and earn so little that its really not worth trying to float an economy on that. A growing proportion of us are aging out of as well.

      The US have literally gone from a world power to be reckoned with to a bunch of cantankerous old men who are extremely well armed but who can’t even keep the damned kids off our lawn.

      The USSR collapsed in less than ten years.

      What kind of hubris makes the US think it can last much longer?

  7. mharry860 says:

    lower than my Downs Syndrome sisters IQ.

  8. bobbo, one true Liberal recognizing Obama is too far Right says:

    ummm – mharry==what does the Laffer curve prove again?

  9. NewformatSux says:

    If he understood the theory, perhaps he could have developed a test that works. The idea is not that the rich would then spend more money and drive the economy on the demand side, but that lower tax cuts would be an inducement to investment. Having lots of rich people earning 200k is irrelevant. It’s the marginal gains where the jobs are created. Someone starts a business or expands it. This could be someone on the lower income bracket, though less likely. Plus the wealthier states tend to be the ones where they have priced out the poorer people with more regulations on housing and business. This is not going to be conducive to economic growth, even if you lower the tax rate a few points.

    • bobbo, one true Liberal recognizing Obama is too far Right says:

      I’ll say it one more time: businesses expand based on DEMAND not investment. Business is already sitting on some trillions of dollars ===IE IN TWELVE FOOT HIGH NEON LIGHTS: THEY DON’T NEED MONEY. They need demand.

      Now, riddle me this Rich Man’s Stooge: who buys more shirts, cars, houses, dog food: 1 Million working folks, or 112 Super Rich Folks?

      Can you do the math?

      Or stay a complete failure?

      Business/Economy/Jobs only need DEMAND to expand. The Rich are running a Laffer Con job on you all.

      Easy Peasy.

      • what hope and change? says:

        Small businesses sitting on trillions? Where did the money come from?

        There is no DEMAND. It’s too late. Not enough tax money will be returned to the middle and lower class to make a difference. I’ll buy lottery tickets with my share.

        And screw paying off the credit cards. Just like the government will never pay down its debt. They don’t even have a budget.

        There’s no incentive to be productive. Just give in to the nanny state. We are a dying star.

        Bush may have stuck in it, but Obama shoved it up the rest of the way and broke it off.

        • bobbo, one true Liberal recognizing Obama is too far Right says:

          Not addressing the advisability of taking advice from someone thinking we reside on a dying star:

          1. what would you have done differently?

          2. what makes the USA a “nanny state?”

          3. What is a nanny state?

          4. How is there no more incentive to be productive?

          I’ll go first: the trillions are retained earning and oversea’s earnings waiting to be repatriated. Its money NOT INVESTED because there is no demand for goods and services. Jobs aren’t created out of thin air for no purpose. All just putting the LIE to the RICH being job creators. They aren’t.

          • hmeyers says:

            Once upon a time, the rich were job creators.

            But, Bobbo I think a comment you made a few weeks ago opened my eyes to see that I think we live in a world with a vast over-supply of labor.

            There are quite a few things we don’t need these days — the post office for anything except packages, physical checks, live customer service representatives in most cases, the library for info, encyclopedias.

            Farming produces maybe 100,000 times a yield per person than a century ago.

            Even physical stores like Best Buy are getting pushed hard. You don’t need Blockbuster stores these days.

            The need for human labor has been dropping rapidly.

          • noname says:

            If we are going to have a plantation economy, your going to need slaves!

            But who needs humans? What value to they bring to the table? They consume voraciously; pull up and trample vegetation out of existence; unlike any-other animal the volume of waste produced is enormous. Humans jump off building roofs in a protest over wages. The start wars over human rights and cry’s for freedom!

            Face it, humans are old-fashion, we need a Radio Shack solar powered dexterous humanoid robots to be their Slaves!

          • what hope and change? says:

            To borrow your code commenting style:

            1. what would you have done differently? // Not much. The ponzi scheme has just played out. We have all the Amway and Mary Kay sales ladies we’ll ever need. What we don’t have is enough Dollar Stores.

            2. what makes the USA a “nanny state?” // Government knows best when it comes to health care, what children are taught, who comes into the country, voting rules, etc. We are children of the state.

            3. What is a nanny state? // Overprotective government, always in your face, interfering with personal freedom, treating the population as a collective 5-year old. The 1%’ers in government (that covers all of them) know what’s best for you. They of course exempt themselves from eating what they dish up to the minion children.

            4. How is there no more incentive to be productive? // Why work hard if nanny is going to make sure those who work less have just as much as you do? Government is bulldozing the landscape flat.

            …thinking we reside on a dying star. // A dying star still gives off low quality light, but you know it’s never going to recover. It’s just the way it is.

            We’ve become too big to save.

  10. NewformatSux says:

    It appears to be even worse than this, and are in fact begging the question. They are using a tax simulation model, so not actually looking at the real effects of tax law changes. Rather, they are feeding tax law changes into a model that essentially has turbotax built into it. So now, you assume a certain amount of tax cut, distribute it among the bottom 90% or the top 1% or whatever.

    The theory is that lower tax rates would change the behavior of the people involved. Instead the model calculates the tax liability under different tax regimes. No new economic activity occurs under the different tax regimes. So of course you would get more economic growth under a system that assumes economic growth comes from consumer demand.

    Now the model itself is not bad, as it is built on actual IRS tax returns over 40 years. However, this test appears to be a fail.

    • bobbo, one true Liberal recognizing Obama is too far Right says:

      I read the link and I can’t tell what they are doing.

      Supposedly, they compared states economic growth compared to the number of rich people they had and somehow concluded tax breaks to the bottom 90% had a greater return. Makes no sense at all.

      Not any different than the faces you saw in the clouds either.

    • hmeyers says:

      +100 for using the phrase “begging the question” correctly. So I can tell you know what the expression means.

      • NewformatSux says:

        Yup, I’ve had opportunity to use it twice after I saw someone else do it correctly, I think. Before that, every use was incorrect.

  11. ECA says:

    There is something that the reps/congress dont understand…

    Lets look at it from another angle.
    EVEN IF YOU BELIEVE: that the TOP percentage of people 1-5% pay MORE in taxes.. A PRODUCT BASED SYSTEM, is based on buying power…NOT MONEY..
    IF you gave a Poor person $1000, what would he spend it on?
    BILLS FIRST..(they dont want that)
    PAY off your house(they dont want that either)
    THEn buy stuff/toys..

    How much could you Pay off, and then Start to BUY, compared to what a rich person does?

    But, you must understand something.
    CORPS know how much you make. And they KNOW how much they can GOUGE you..They KNOW that if you GET MONEY, you will spend it.. and they WILL GET IT..esp after they RAISE PRICES to take it Away from you.

  12. deowll says:

    So which is more likely to work? Raising taxes and other expenses on small business owners or increasing taxes and expenses on small business owners.

    Even Dallas should be able to figure out that doing the later in a high stress business market is going to put some small business owners underwater and out of business and the rest are going to be desperately trying to hang on to what they have rather than grow.

    I’m serious when I say that people that thank they can get away with some of the crap the Democrats are pulling now should just move to Cuba and be happy.

    • Dallas says:

      Raising taxes and other expenses on small business owners or increasing taxes and expenses on small business owners.

      Neither. You propose two ridiculous options as if those ARE the options.

  13. hmeyers says:

    The government spends … maybe 70% more $$$ than it takes in.

    Why not just eliminate federal taxes entirely and the government prints the dollars they need?

    I guess I’m saying we are doing this now. We are going to have huge deficits for the next 40 years eventually so high that no amount of taxes could pay for it.

  14. Captain Obvious says:

    The obvious question is: What has this got to do with the new iPhone?

    • noname says:

      Everything!

      The iPhone is the exemplar manufacturing ecosystem the Pentagon wants inside her boarders.

      To do that, Wall Street will require Corporations to be the influential plantation owners of America.

      All Americans earning less then 200,000.00 a year are legally required to register with Selective Service before turning age 26 as “Citizen Slaves”, unless they own a business. Americans have already been tricked out of their sovereignty by stealthy legal Corporate illusions.

      To register every American are required to have a Employer Sponsored G-Card. Citizenship Rights of that American are licensed according to contractual scope of the G-Card sponsorship. Damage Measures for Breach of Contract are defined according to contractual scope of the G-Card sponsorship.

      Of course, USCIS continues to handle applications for G-Card Citizenship benefits. Two other governmental agencies will be created to oversee the G-Card contractual strict enforcement and labor security, Citizen migration and transport Enforcement (CMtE) and Border Protection (BP), respectively.

      You gonna get use to wearing them chains after a while, Citizen. Don’t you never stop listening to them clinking, they gonna remind you about what I been saying for your own good. Obey the law and we can have a very peaceful and prosperous economy.

      Exemptions are made for joining the military, police or other governmental agencies.

      Good luck citizen, earn and prosper!

  15. Jeff g says:

    “The study, conducted by Owen M. Zidar, a former staff economist on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and a graduate student at California-Berkeley, ”
    Let’s read the study and its methodolgy before we see, I wonder if this study’s author has any agenda?

    • NewformatSux says:

      The study spends more time bragging about how groundbreaking and unique it is, than explaining what it did.

  16. Kent says:

    Who cares? The only people who should be taxed are those who spend the money, the politicians.

  17. gildersleeve says:

    Part of the problem is that “investment” more often than not seems to end up being “investment in overseas property or operations”. If the “rich” get more money from tax cuts, there’s no guarantee it will end up getting invested here in the states, creating local jobs. Even in the companies we’re all familiar with, who USED to be job creators in the 80s, more and more work is being outsourced overseas. We need to change our commerce laws to discourage imbalanced trade. I expect neither candidate to accomplish this (nor do I think either one wants this).

  18. orchidcup says:

    We need to redistribute the wealth by creative and special taxation that specifically targets the national debt.

    All of the following tax strategies would be temporary revenue streams that apply directly to the national debt with a sunset clause that kicks in when the national debt is reduced to zero.

    1. Create special taxes and permit fees for porn sites and social media sites and blogs.

    (This is an example of thinking outside the box. Other strategies for developing revenue streams are sure to follow).

    2. Create special taxes and permit fees on condoms and sex toys.

    (Nobody should be taking pleasure for themselves while the country suffers through austerity measures for the lower classes).

    3. Create special taxes and permit fees for religious institutions other than Scientology. Scientology is not a religion.

    (Religious institutions have been freeloading off the American taxpayer and accumulating wealth and real estate without contributing their fair share to the support of free enterprise).

    4. Sell pocket editions of the Constitution to Chinese laborers, the Saudi royal family, the Christian Taliban, Corporate Persons, and other repressed individuals that do not comprehend human rights and free speech. All profits will apply directly to the national debt.

    (This will ignite a firestorm of controversy and debate among the uninitiated and repressed peoples of the world).

    There you go. I have started the ball rolling. Thinking outside the box will be sure to generate many creative ideas that will generate thousands of revenue streams that will overwhelm the national debt and pull us back from the brink of economic disaster without providing tax breaks for the wealthy.

    This is what I love about this country. Innovation and Initiative and Creativity.

    • orchidcup says:

      Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

      — Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

  19. tomdennis says:

    I cannot believe a human being needed a study to figure this out. I knew what would happen when “Bushy Boy” decided to cut them the first time and I knew for sure when he did it again that I was up shits creek.

  20. Uncle Patso says:

    Screw the flat tax. Let’s try the Flat Rent.

    If, as hmeyers says, the U.S. spends $16 billion/day, that’s about $5.84 trillion/year. With a current population of about 311 million, that’s almost $19 000 per person. Round it up to $20 000 to help pay down the debt.

    So that’s it: it costs $20 000 a year to live in the U.S. Pay up or get out.

    What could be fairer than that?

    • Dallas says:

      Interesting concept but sadly, my partner and I today pay for several occupants yet have no children so we would demand a discount on your plan too.

      Sorry, I’m in favor of pay your own way and not the communist system favored by the right.
      > You want children? Ok, pay for their admission until they are 18 yrs of age and then THEY pay admission.
      > Oh, you want a place to worship a cow? OK, pay for the fire and police protection as well as opportunity loss of municipal taxes for a real tax paying enterprise.
      > Oh, you want to pollute the air? OK, a pollute the air tax on the SUV to pay for the heathcare costs for iron lungs.
      > Nice lawn? OK, import your own water for grass.
      ……

    • msbpodcast says:

      I live in a 1,178 sq.ft. condo in Jersey City.

      I don’t even own a car.

      Rockefeller lives it up in several mansions, houses, buildings and campuses or choice farm land and urban real estate measuring several hundred thousand sq. ft. (A lot of those properties collect income from tenants.)

      He also owns a fleet of private cars, buses, planes, boats, yachts as well as the facilities to maintain them and the people to cart his statistically insignificant but obscenely wealthy ass around…

      Tell me again why I should give $20,000 of my $1,400 a month pension just so he doesn’t have to pay any more than me. (Do the math, I’ll have died of hunger within the first month…)

      What could be fairer that that?

      How about if you set up walled gardens where the 1%ers can shoot at the elderly, the cripples, the poor and the stupid, but to pay down the debt a government program pays off the $20k per target, uh, person.

  21. TripHamer says:

    Why not just cut taxes on both. The rich will take that money and invest it (you would think)…creating jobs and such and the not so rich will save and spend it….so win, win either way.

    (yeah, I know it’s not that simple in practice)

    • noname says:

      In practice it’s real simple.

      Cut taxes on the non-rich and they will spend it, generating market demand and businesses will respond to the demand by creating jobs.

      Jobs are created by market demand. A market implies millions & millions of people (the non-rich). The non-rich spend much of what they take in. Therefore, as research shows, give the non-rich money (tax cut) and they will spend it. In the process this creates jobs.

      Supply follows demand!

      The rich maybe able to create a SUPPLY, but will not if there is no MARKET. Remember, the MARKET are the non-rich millions!

      Rich people DO NOT CREATE JOBs!!!!!

      Rich people ONLY FEED OFF THE SPENDINGs OF THE MIDDLE CLASS!!!!

      That is how a FREE MARKET ECONOMY WORKS!!!

      Rich people DO NOT CREATE JOBs!!!!!

      Neither the earth nor the MARKET started with rich people!!!!

  22. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

    Just as a “thought experiment” keep all your ideas but change just one: the rich don’t create jobs.

    Now run that thru your cool aide drenched computer and see what comes out the other end.

    Do you want another $250/year in your pocket by less taxes or do you want government provided healthcare, job retraining, secure retirement?

    these are all the same question. All inherent in the OP.

    Now… just vote your own self interest.

    • Sea Lawyer says:

      You forgot free food and a house in your list of the wonderful things the government should provide me in exchange for my $250.

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

        Yes, there are a whole laundry list of items an effective government should provide in return for the taxes they collect. I can think of 5 more real fast ….. ohhh there’s another 4. Its what democracy is all about: what do we the people organize ourselves to do TOGETHER that is much more effective than operating individually. That first list is and should be very long, while the second list isn’t by definition of group concern.

        Excellent point Sea Lawyer.

    • Crug says:

      Voting your own self interest is what turns us into an “entitlement” society. I’ve often repeated: The government virtually guarantees housing, clothing, food, and now healthcare. Throw in cable TV and internet and I’m out of the workforce.

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

        How are you out of the workforce? Not that relevant YOU being only one person, but it is catchy. How many people do you think are similarly situated to yourself whatever that is? Do you recognize that YOU along with everyone else does indeed need all that you list, all that Sea Lawyer lists, all that I can imagine, and MORE?

        We are all more similar to one another than different.

        And YES —— when you work for a living and pay taxes, you are ENTITLED to an effective government.

        Who can argue (cogently) otherwise?

    • Derek says:

      Ummm… Who pays for everything else past that $250?

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

        Well Derek—its called budgeting. You add up your wants, you add up the costs, you add up your revenue and you compare. Then you have to nip there, cut over there, add a bit here and so forth to get a balance.

        In general, the legitimate needs of people far outstrips the ability of the commons to provide for it so the question will of reality devolve to how much can we pay for? ie–how much in taxes can we raise for what everyone would like?

        The Laffer curve was referred to yesterday in that it “proved” something that was not named. I will name it: there is a sweet spot for taxation. Tax too little, and not enough services are provided. Tax too much, and people feel entitled (sic—theres all kinds of entitlement thinking that goes on) to cheat. Most experts put the apex of the curve somewhere around 70-75% total taxation at the margin. Where the progressive rate is set getting to 70% is up to compromise but any system that aims at 70% and ends up at 13% has got some more work to do.

        Thats where the other money comes from.

    • msbpodcast says:

      the rich don’t create jobs

      Anti-Reaganesque heresy!

      Of course the rich create jobs.

      They need minimum wage earning Latinos to do the hard physical work.

      They need a few wage slaves to run the computers that the rich use every day to boss their shit around.

      And somebody has to count the money they saved because of some idiotic capital gains and revenue tax cuts.

      Then the accountants are duty bound to tally that money in the ledgers and make sure that it doesn’t disappear.

      What do you think they’re running? Charities?

  23. Sea Lawyer says:

    People who criticize so-called “supply-side” economic policies usually do so because they have a fundamental lack of understanding of what it means, specifically concerning the implications of Say’s Law. Supply constitutes demand.

    It’s all well and good to say that you need to encourage demand, but how is it that consumers are able to demand goods and services? They are able to consume because they have the means to consume – they have money in their pockets because they have been paid a wage for their labor while engaging in the act of production. You must produce before you can consume. This is the entire point of supply-side economic policies – policies to promote production, which will create new consumption.

    This is where the Keynesians get it wrong, no thanks to Keynes’s own mischaracterization of Say. Just because a company produces some widget doesn’t mean that demand for that widget will necessarily follow. But having employed people to create that widget, the workers that have been paid will then go out and consume (demand) other goods and services produced by others, who have in turn been paid wages allowing them too to consume. If in the end that widget was desired by consumers at large, then good for that company and it succeeds, otherwise the company loses and the market corrects the previous misallocation of resources. But wages have already been paid and subsequent consumption has already occurred.

    This is why our society and culture values entrepreneurial risk taking so highly, and has been so successful as a result. Even without proven demand for particular goods, people will take risks and employ others in production. Which creates further demand and eventual economic growth. And that is the whole point of “supply-side” policies; to encourage production, not to give tax cuts for the sake of tax cuts.

    • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

      Sea Lawyer — so if I go out and build buggy whips I will create demand?

      BWHAHAHAHAHA. How long you been saving that chestnut?

      Not a strong basis on which to then attack PROVEN Keynesian economic theory. Keynes is proven correct all the time LIKE RIGHT NOW. Governments that spent into this recession are doing better than those who went austere. The only thing that people identify with Keynes and then conflate with it is that under Keynes you spend in recessions (everyone is happy to do that) but then you are supposed to REPAY IN GOOD TIMES, which the Pukes refuse to do in their wrong headed avarice to keep all that they can for themselves. Keynes works: spend in bad times and you will win. Don’t pay back in good times and you will lose. What else do you think Keynes means?

      Buggy Whips….. made for the RICH to beat the wage slaves into line?? Yes, still a market for that.

      RICH = CRIMINAL

      Of course not 100%. Just often enough to be in caps.
      AND by the way===$250K income per year is not RICH. Rich is measured in estate value, not income.

      Silly wage slaves. VOTE YOUR OWN SELF INTEREST. Get the rich man’s propaganda off your throat.

      • Sea Lawyer says:

        Written by a man whose understanding of things is restricted to what he has skimmed through on Wikipedia. Bravo.

        • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

          Ahh, Sea Lawyer—unusual for you to mindless stoop to the unsubstantial ad hominem attack. You got that little huh?

          I did google Say’s Law. didn’t really understand it. Seemed like a lot of double speak to me. Goods being competed against by other goods. Hard to underestand IN A SERVICE ECONOMY!!! The guy writes like he’s from the 1800’s or something.

          You know SL==when you got nothing, its time to get something. Stop the BS and accept the fact you are wrong. Unhobble yourself. Learn to walk, then run.

          Simple, but you gotta take that bag off your head.

      • Sea Lawyer says:

        Well, since I’m going to bother with giving you a serious answer to your unserious response…

        Yes, if I open up a buggy whip factory and hire 100 employees to produce them, those employees will turn around and take the wages I have paid them and contribute to aggregate market demand (see I can use Keynesian terms too). In the end, I may have misjudged the market and may go out of business when nobody in fact needs buggy whips, and it will have proved to not be the optimal way to allocate the resources that went to producing them, but that does not diminish the economic effect of their production.

        There are small start-ups all across the economy that will eventually fail in the market for some reason or another, that does not mean that their activity does not contribute to the economy as a whole.

        Unless you are inventing money from thin air, you cannot consume without first producing, or else what do you have to offer in exchange?

        And Keynes has always been proven right? That must explain why all modern Keynesian theories have changed to account for all the things he (really the models developed by Hicks and others like Samuelson) couldn’t explain.

        But then again, I fall back to my previous statement that you really don’t understand a thing beyond some amateurish interpretation of some articles you read on wikipedia… oh, and I do recall a while back you reciting with great reverence some things you happened to have just read from a thrift store copy of “Das Kapital” you stumbled across.

        • tcc3 says:

          If even failed production produces positive economic activity, then it bolsters the idea that government spending in hard times can do the same. Priming the pump as it were.

          You’re advocating for Keynes and his idea that even pointless activity like paying to move dirt from one hole and then back again would have a positive economic effect.

          • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

            touche.

          • Sea Lawyer says:

            “You’re advocating for Keynes and his idea that even pointless activity like paying to move dirt from one hole and then back again would have a positive economic effect.”

            No, because even failed market activity is subject to market forces and those forces will eventually correct misallocation, which is why my buggy whip company will eventually go out of business. The government is not subject to those same forces, so the market cannot lead to more efficient allocation. The government will continue to keep pumping money down the black hole until it finds some other politically expedient reason to spent money.

          • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

            SL–you miss tcc3’s point entirely.

            Probably an honest mistake in haste?

            The issue FOCUSED ON is how can you stimulate economic activity?

            The market is meant to provide discipline to bad business decisions. The voters are supposed to do the same for government “investments.” both systems are faulty, both are necessary.

        • noname says:

          Sea Lawyer, your simply full of it.

          By your definition, SUPPLY creates DEMAND, DEMAND creates MARKETS, MARKETS create SUPPLY. This indeed would be a virtuous cycle that would quickly become a vicious cycle that would only go on forever.

          Realty, really does disprove you.

          SUPPLY always follow DEMAND!!!

          It is true a savvy investor may invest in a FACTORY in anticipation of DEMAND. Again that is DEMAND following SUPPLY.

          There are ways to manufacture DEMAND!
          1.) Advertising is one way. AGAIN the SUPPLY will only be built only to FOLLOW DEMAND (if the advertising is successful)
          2.) The government can demand by law people purchase a product, say Auto INSURANCE or a HELMET for motorcycle riders. AGAIN SUPPLY is only built to satisfy the DEMAND!!!!

          By you definition, pigeon shit would be in high demand in Washington. The supply is certainly there, so why isn’t there a demand for pigeon shit?????

          Your whole supply side theory is PIGEON SHIT and there is no demand for it!!!!!!!!

          I guess in one sense you are absolutely right; there are people like you who demand everyone buy into your theory of SUPPLY side economics. In that sense, there is a market for PIGEON SHIT, only by those who obey your demand.

  24. Derek says:

    We need tax breaks for poor people and lower middle class people! They are who create jobs!

    • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

      No Derek. Poor and Low Middle don’t have any discretionary income to pay income taxes to begin with so cuts in those doesn’t help. No, the poor and middle classes need support and services so that they may fully engage their potential without fear of being overly damaged on failures and lean times.

      The RICH pay most of the income tax because they have most of the income. (sic as each term needs to be defined, charted, trended and understood). They also get the most of the benefits of being in a sound stable society. Poor people and Rich people are the same except the Rich have more money. So…poor people get greedy and try to keep their buck thirty while Rich people get greedy and try to keep their millions.

      We are all the same. Thats why you can learn so much about the world simply by looking within yourself. ………. Deeply, with blinders off, a dictionary, and a willingness to actually answer uncomfortable questions.

      Try it.

  25. JimD, Boston, MA says:

    I think we all knew this – except for the self-delusional Repukes and their BLOW-HARDS LIKE RASH LIMPDICK !!! So if you work for a living, you should realize that you SHOULD NEVER VOTE FOR A REPUBLICAN – UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES !!! Doing so just give the Repukes a chance TO STAB WORKERS IN THE BACK – SEE THE RYAN “PLAN’ TO DESTROY SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE !!!

  26. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

    Sea Lawyer says:
    9/13/2012 at 3:56 pm

    Well, since I’m going to bother with giving you a serious answer to your unserious response… /// Ha, ha. Dog just won’t give up that bone? You just gotta use a personal attack? Why is that????? What itch gets scratched by such an ineffective self defeating tactic? See how I want my opponents to do the very best they can??? You can do better SL, be more effective. Focus!!

    Yes, if I open up a buggy whip factory and hire 100 employees to produce them, those employees will turn around and take the wages I have paid them and contribute to aggregate market demand (see I can use Keynesian terms too). In the end, I may have misjudged the market and may go out of business when nobody in fact needs buggy whips, and it will have proved to not be the optimal way to allocate the resources that went to producing them, but that does not diminish the economic effect of their production. //// Ahem: the economic effect of their production was……….ZERO. The payment of wages had zero economic effect as well. You know where this is going: ….. the only economic effect there was was when the employees SPENT THEIR WAGES. NOT the rich man creating jobs. Yes, the argument can be dismissed as mostly rhetorical as A leads to B to C and so forth. I just stand closer to the flame with my analysis. You will always find the focus closer to the flame.

    There are small start-ups all across the economy that will eventually fail in the market for some reason or another, that does not mean that their activity does not contribute to the economy as a whole. //// Correct, because of the wages spent.

    Unless you are inventing money from thin air, you cannot consume without first producing, (Holy Zen!!!) or else what do you have to offer in exchange? /// Keynes: the promise of a future return. aka Credit. Thats what a monetary system is all about. The fact that money, too much money, is created out of thin air is a serious concern today. As usual if not always, there is good and bad to each element of a problem you wish to address. Simple uniform rules are for sheep.

    And Keynes has always been proven right? That must explain why all modern Keynesian theories have changed to account for all the things he (really the models developed by Hicks and others like Samuelson) couldn’t explain. /// How vague can you get? What was clearly and limitedly said was: spend into a recession and pay back in good times. Thats Keynes. Do you disagree?

    But then again, I fall back to my previous statement that you really don’t understand a thing beyond some amateurish interpretation of some articles you read on wikipedia… oh, and I do recall a while back you reciting with great reverence some things you happened to have just read from a thrift store copy of “Das Kapital” you stumbled across. /// May I suggest a steroidal ointment? ……. Its used topically.

    • Sea Lawyer says:

      Aww, poor bobbo, the DU poster boy for attacking others while bloviating on random topics, is offended by being called out for what you are?

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

        How do you get bobbo is offended from what is posted above? I’m not offended at all. I find such sidebars a source of humor and half the reason I attend. Given your limited resources, I’m just trying to get you to focus while you can on where the highest return on your efforts will be.

        think of it as a “market force” so you avoid buggy whips when the Ipad 6 is still in development.

        I LOVE A GOOD INSULT. But telling me I’m a failure because I actually googled a topic before responding kinda misses the boat don’t you think?

        ……. but its starting to look like you don’t.

  27. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

    Sea Lawyer not yet finding his taint says:
    9/13/2012 at 4:06 pm

    When the government taxes poor bobbo to buy cruise missiles, that is as much of a transfer as giving the money to a mother of two on welfare. You just aren’t clever enough to recognize it as such. /// ooooooh, an argument about words? My very favorite.

    SL==are you seriously going to argue what a word means without defining it first? …. Since you have:

    you were arguing “wealth transfer” at first and this droplet argues about the similarity of “transfer” standing alone. Are these two separate but related topics or only one in your mind Sea Lawyer?

    Traditionally, I say that “government wealth transfer” (three words—the snowball is rolling rapidly now!!) typically means welfare, social service type transfers.

    Its good to recognize the similarities of things that are different BUT the job isn’t done until you compare those similarities (transfers being made in this case) with the contrasts of the subject of inspection: in this case the OBJECT of the transfer. Welfare mothers to provide individual health and care to future citizens not really the same object as Cruise Missles that generally defend the freedoms and options and even base existence of our entire society and the business enterprises subsumed within?

    So–are payments for missles a welfare payment indistinguishable from welfare payments to fecund poor moms? Can we ignite babies and throw them against Iran when the time comes or are the two payments/transfers for very different purposes?

    Lets start there Sea Lawyer. Hmmmm?

    • Sea Lawyer says:

      Clearly you still are not smart enough to grasp concepts; but you are good are writing long tirades when you don’t understand…

      When bobbo does not engage in voluntary exchange, but instead has something taken away from him to be give to somebody else, that is a transfer. The government is a middle man, and it transfers money from you to somebody, or something else.

      Well, I have a football game to watch and beer to drink. Go find an economics book to read that isn’t targeted at three year olds. I think Mankiw’s is pretty standard these days.

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

        My webpage just went all “italics.” Not as easy to read. Is it my settings?

        Anyhoo–sadly, you focused on the irrelevant. Yes, the government transfers money from one to another. We both agree on that. But I thought it was the similarity of welfare and self defense both constituting “WEALTH transfers” that you thought was important. Yes? No? Can’t tell?

        As Pedro suddenly becomes relevant: yawn!

        I thought you had more SL. but its footballs>?

        Ha, ha. Oh well—-try again another day. You aren’t completely wrong–just ineffective in presenting whatever your issue actually is.

      • noname says:

        Sea Lawyer, your simply full of it.

        By your definition, SUPPLY creates DEMAND, DEMAND creates MARKETS, MARKETS create SUPPLY. This indeed would be a virtuous cycle that would quickly become a vicious cycle that would only go on forever.

        Realty, really does disprove you.

        SUPPLY always follow DEMAND!!!

        It is true a savvy investor may invest in a FACTORY in anticipation of DEMAND. Again that is DEMAND following SUPPLY.

        There are ways to manufacture DEMAND!
        1.) Advertising is one way. AGAIN the SUPPLY will only be built only to FOLLOW DEMAND (if the advertising is successful)
        2.) The government can demand by law people purchase a product, say Auto INSURANCE or a HELMET for motorcycle riders. AGAIN SUPPLY is only built to satisfy the DEMAND!!!!

        By you definition, pigeon shit would be in high demand in Washington. The supply is certainly there, so why isn’t there a demand for pigeon shit?????

        Your whole supply side theory is PIGEON SHIT and there is no demand for it!!!!!!!!

        I guess in one sense you are absolutely right; there are people like you who demand everyone buy into your theory of SUPPLY side economics. In that sense, there is a market for PIGEON SHIT, only by those who obey your demand.

        Yes I copy and pasted this from my previous post!!

        I too have other things to do.

      • Dallas says:

        Sorry to butt in but today we have a consumption problem. Sheeple wanna buy a new fridge but they got no money. Businesses are sitting on trillions of dollars in capital waiting for the buyers to buy shit so they can build new fridge factories.

        • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

          Thats new fridge factories built in china or assembled in the maquiladoras just south of the border?

          How internationalist our capitalist over seas job creators are today compared to Henry Ford who doubled the factory wage so that his workers could buy the very things they made.

          Did yu’all see that show on Fox Con in China? The 60 hours a week wage slave could not afford the computers and Iphones they assembled.

          Its a race to the bottom, these job creators want….. and are getting.

  28. Quark says:

    I just love this PROPAGANDA! It get’s everyone sooooooo pissed off!

    Just look at the candidates saying this crap. Both these guys are so outside the realm of “normal” that they wouldn’t know what normal even looks like. BOTH of them have been in politics just a little too long and that should be your FIRST CLUE!

    On the one hand there’s Obama who’s not helped ANYONE except himself and those who helped get him elected. It’s politics as usual only on a slightly larger scale. In fact, you could even say it’s true about getting screwed by a black man – it’s bigger!

    And then there’s Romney who’s probably even more stupid than ol’ G.W. Romney probably thinks most Americans who have less than a million dollars net worth is less than five-percent of the population. At the very least, his extremely stupid friends obviously think so.

    Either way you go, we’re all FUCKED! And the reason we’re collectively grabbing ankles is because no one wants to stand up and point out who the INCUMBENTS are!

    Selecting a new President is only symbolic when we continue to listen to rhetoric puke like this and vote according to our party “beliefs”. That just leads to keeping the same boob in power way longer than he/she should be there. What we need to do is change every damn idiot in office every damn chance we get! But that’s not going to happen when there are so many ankle-grabbers convinced their guy is the right guy for the job.

    • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

      What main point or two do you think this link excellently reviews?

      Or did you just think it was somehow related to the topic du jour?

      I will await your considered and thoughtful response before going to the link—as will most others.

      Do just a little bit of work will ya?

  29. deowll says:

    Watching the news, I’m forcefully reminded of the time when Iran was taken over by the Mullahs. That may be because I was around then and much of the video looks the same. Carter/Obama are even saying the same kinds of things.

    What is harder to fathom is why I’m reminded so strongly of Germany during the 30s. I’ve read a lot of history and watched period video but I wasn’t there. Maybe I’m seeing connections between fascism as it emerged as a world power and Islamo-fascism as it grows into a true world power.

    • NewformatSux says:

      “It’s a make believe world. A world of good guys and bad guys, where some politicians shoot first and ask questions later,” Carter said,

      “Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.”


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