Spreading the wealth around
Conservatives appear to be upset about Barack Obama's comment, made to Joe "My Last Name Isn't 'The Plumber'" The Plumber, to the effect that he wants to "spread the wealth around".
BD says the comment put him in an unflattering light. McCain raised it at the debate. Less mainstream commenters have screamed that it "reveals a socialist plan for America", or (horrors!) is a "Marxist" effort to "re-make America along the lines of socialist countries in Europe". They are even, with more optimism than Reagan on his best day, wondering whether Obama just blew the election.
Time for a reality check. What Obama was advocating in his dialogue with Joe the Plumber is a concept commonly called "progressive taxation". Now, conservatives, your homework exercise for today is to pick up an IRS 1040 booklet and flip to the back. You see those charts? Notice how the numbers proportionally go up as you turn the pages? What that means is that people who make more money pay a larger share of their income in taxes. In other words, by your own lights, you are at this very moment living in a socialist, Marxist, Euro-Communist worker's paradise.
Except you aren't, are you? Progressive taxation is not exactly new, and is common to nearly every industrialized country. The United States of 2008 has one of the flattest, most regressive tax structures, in fact; compare our current top tax bracket of 35% to the UK's 40%, or even to the US in 1954's 91% (under those raving Marxists, Eisenhower and Nixon).
Now, there are two possible conclusions here. Either conservatives are idiots who do not understand they are living in a country that "spreads the wealth around" all the time, a system which is supported by the vast majority of (even conservative!) politicians and to which Barack Obama is proposing a few modest tweaks; or they think that American voters are idiots who do not understand this. Either way, my impression of the intelligence and basic honesty of the conservative movement has not been enhanced.
Edit: Perhaps I wasn't clear. I did not write this diary to argue for or against progressive taxation. I wrote it because progressive taxation is a fait accompli, and conservatives are trying to pretend it isn't. John McCain supports progressive taxation. Every Republican President and candidate for President for the last fifty years, at least, has supported progressive taxation. Calling Obama a Marxist because he supports progressive taxation is therefore completely dishonest.
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The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
--
The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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Maybe McCain will turn out to be a flat-taxer after all.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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)speakin o entertainin:
Last week, Jack Kemp co-authored a piece in the Wall Street Journal. He had a solution to the banking crisis: The Flat Tax. This wasn't surprising. Jack Kemp always thinks the solution is the Flat Tax. That's why no one talks to Jack Kemp.
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| parent )Only an idiot would imagine that we currently or have ever resided under either a pure socialist or free-market system. Your argument makes about as much sense as the clowns who say "unregulated capitalism" led to the current crisis when, in point of fact, there's never been a dearth of regulations over most of the economic structure.
OTOH, you can clearly move in the direction of either more or less regulation, and you can also clearly move in the direction of more or less progressive taxation and even more or less socialistic communitarianism. So a fellow saying that BO's tax plans show a more progressive or socialistic bent than the existing code can be on fairly solid ground. Likewise, that upper tax bracket of 91% is a relatively socialistic item as compared to the current structure, though perhaps not as compared to, say, Fidel. It's all relative.
Modest tweaks are modest tweaks, but they still move in a given direction. One could just as easily argue that proposing to lock in Shrub's current model in the ultimate in "modest" proposals; there's no shift whatsoever in the present, but I'm willing to bet you'd scream your lungs out.
Anyway, I'm shooting to break the quarter-mil mark. Screw Barry.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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)I was looking at a couple of different takes on the causes of the crisis, and both would agree they have nothing to do with deregulation.
There is a video (38 min) of Prof Wolff, arguing that the roots of the crisis go back to sometime in 1970s when wages started falling behind growth in productivity.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/
The latest essay by Prof Wallenstein is different, arguing that the crisis is the result of the confluence of mid term Kondratieff cycles and long term hegemonic cycles.
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm
Both are interesting and both are hopeful.
Screw the quarter mil mark, if you like a lot of zeroes on your money, move to Zimbabwe and be a trillionaire!
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )....add very little to your purchasing power (as in PPP.) And you basically have to spend 'em in Zimbabwe. :^(
I've always been fond of Kondratieff's concept, though I'm still not sure I believe it. I will be sure to read both articles, though.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )is how I'd characterize the approach that led to this mess. A few data points like lax mortgage lending rules, SEC's eliminating the "net capital rule" in 2004, Phil Gramm's 2000 law that exempted OTC derivatives from *all* regulation, plus ultracheap credit all chart the growth line into the bubble.
Notably most of those deregulatory changes benefited a small number of people with the market position and knowhow to actually take timely advantage of the changes (e.g. Enron with energy derivatives).
The "bubble" came about because these inner few were able to create & sustain a massive overvaluation of their assets.
Suckers followed suit. And so it goes.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Some (not all, mind) obejctions to your formulation:
A) Everybody likes cheap credit, apart from savers. And who wants to save? Bo-ring. I can copy you a litany of politicians left & right, economists left & right, community activists, captains of industry and individual consumers who, rather than objecting to cheap credit over the last 20-30 years, cried for more and cheaper lending. And more credit = cheaper credit, perforce. Every time you lower any one of the many risk-mitigation bars that limit lending (income being a notable example), you lower the risk-adjusted return to the lender and offer credit to somebody who, at the previous equilibrium, was priced out. Our latest Nobel winner in economics, amongst others, spent quite a bit of time last decade and early in this one arguing that the Fed had choked-off "real" recovery.
B) The CFMA (i.e. "Phil Gramm's law", above) did nothing of the sort (i.e. exempt CDS from "all" regulation"). Here's the text. What it did was prevent the CFTC (originally an ag futures regulator) from regulating CDS. Nothing prevented or prevents some other bill from tackling them, nor some other regulatory body from doing so on their own initiative. OCC has been quite aggressive about expanding their remit, to the point where they clashed quite openly with Greenspan's Fed. Arguably, CFTC has no expertise that applies to what are really insurance contracts in any case.
C) Re "lax mortgage lending rules", I will simply point you back to A) and note the equivalency between cheaper credit and laxer standards. I might further note the sundry organizations (Freddie & Fannie, ACORN, the Bush II and Clinton administrations) that were pushing for precisely such a loosening of standards over the period in question.
If you owned a house over the last decade, or, if marginally credit worthy managed to buy one over that same period, took advantage of a HELOC, sub-prime credit card or auto loan, worked in housing, the automobile industry or in the various suppliers and raw materials producers that fed said industries, etc, ask not whom "deregulation" benefited. It benefited thee.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )Can you re-read what you wrote? It seems like you're making the case "well someone could've written another law in the future re-regulating them, so the law wasn't REALLY deregulating them"
I mean isn't that a bit existential for a conservative? PoMo?
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| parent )that the US relaxed + Canada didn't.
What's your take?
Re: B, did you have an argument that CFTC regulation would've been worse than no regulation? Also, were you intimating that the sponsers of the CFMA would've been fine w. the OCC regulating CDSs?
Re: C, 'equivalency' is too strong. Yes cheaper credit encourages lending, but not necessarily in the form of mortgages w. teaser rates + zero $ down. The latter could've been regulated against -- some states tried to -- while the former was still in place.
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| parent )Not as oversimplified as your A) and C) at any rate. Loosey-goosey lending standards and low interest rates would've produced a bubble on their own, no doubt about it. But the bursting of a bad-mortgage bubble wouldn't have been the 100-year catastrophe pulling down banks, financial institutions & governments we've currently got on our hands, if not for the giant, mostly unregulated derivatives market built on top of easy credit.
Which brings us to B). You probably missed my diary on the CFMA, and my other diary about the SEC's abolition of the "net capital rule", which is too bad, because I was hoping to hear from people with your expertise.
In any case, it's the $62 trillion CDS market, and similar speculative orgies in unregulated OTC derivatives that have made this a full-blown crisis. I'm shaky on the details, of course, but even I can see that the sudden devaluation of a market trading 3 times the volume of NYSE is a bigger deal than mortgages going bad.
And yes of course you're right that, while the easy credit gravy train was running, lots of people were on board. But that's not what went wrong.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Those of yous with a passing familiarity with Marx & Engels' Communist Manifesto will know that progressive income tax was one of the main planks in their platform. Along with free education for children. There is a grain of truth in calling anyone who supports such policies a Marxist. Or an Engelsist.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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)doesn't have the same ring, of course.
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| parent )While Marx and Engels did support liberal economic policies, in practice the various Communist Parties tended to oppose them. To a Communist, improving the lot of the masses only makes stirring them to revolutionary fervor that much more difficult.
19th-century liberals like the Earl of Shaftesbury often supported reforms for the stated purpose of staving off popular unrest.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )Shaftsbury was not a Liberal. Neither was he a liberal. He was an MP with the Tories, not the Liberals or the Whigs. It was the Tories who, in Shaftbury's time, passed the illiberal Corn Laws which prevented cheaper, higher quality foreign grain from entering the British market.
Shaftsbury was a philanthropist and a campaigner for 'family values.' He was only liberal in the sense of his generosity to the less fortunate. His political constituency was the wealthy land-owners, like all Conservatives of his day. There's a great quote from Willingdone, the Tory PM of the day:
Reform? Reform? Aren't things bad enough already?
I don't see any Communist party opposing the platform delineated in the Manifesto, certainly not because it would mitigate the emmiseration of the working classes. Communists believed that revolution in any case was historically inevitable.
Probably the most significant issue I can think of where reformers and communists split was over WWI. Reformers all over Europe repudiated pledges not to participate. It was the Communists who continued in their opposition. The war actually made it easier to stir up revolutionary fervour, not only in Russia, but all over Europe and North America. See Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 if you are curious.
Perhaps you have other issues in mind, but I think the events around WWI outweigh anything else.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )Lenin's known quite well for the "things need to get worse before they get better" schtick (while he was out of power), while even a staunch reactionary like Bismarck could come up with fairly progressive sounding stuff in the service of melioration.
In neither case does this make much of a point about the relative directions Obama & McCain would like to move us in, though.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )..."spreading the wealth" comment, which was spun against him by the usual suspects. Obama's answer to Joe the Plumber was inartful (where've I heard that phrase before?), thus opening himself to attack.
The left apparently responded by attacking Joe the Plumber, a private citizen who was randomly picked by Obama in a rope-line and who was guilty of nothing more than asking Obama a question. Such audacity.
As for the concept of progressive taxation, it is a fact of modern life.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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)apparently include the Republican nominee for President, no?
If this were just a bunch of dumb Freepers, I wouldn't have brought it up.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )Joe the Plumber during the debate, without vetting the guy. Just like he failed to vet Sarah Palin.
Word is that Dubya was a much better pilot that John McCain and Karl Rove would NEVER have allowed his candidate to wrap his arms around "Joe the Plumber" without a proper vetting, first.
Pretty much more of the same as the last eight years, with a veneer of Mavericky goodness and a lot less competence.
Hard to imagine I'd find myself arguing someone is less competent that George W. Bush but the McCain campaign team has persuaded me of that.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )If Obama supporters have the better argument, why go down the road of personally destroying a private citizen? This truly reveals something disturbing about Obamaniacs and the lengths they will go. It tells me that Sarah Palin wasn't just a one-off. If this group feels threatened, watch out. That's the message.
Why couldn't Obama supporters just respond on the merits? The merits of the argument on the McCain side are lame and easily disputable.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )Most of the people doing the "destroying" were not Obama supporters, but journalists. What do you expect in a campaign season, really? If Joe the Plumber is a campaign issue, Joe the Plumber's personal life is fair game. I am quite sure something identical would've happened if McCain had had the run-in with Joe at a rope line.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )edited:
Speaking of which! Oh the side splitting irony!
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/10/17/operation-destroy-joe-the-plumber/
And need any reminding, there's this charming bit:
"Let 'em twist in the wind and be eaten by ravens," wrote one one on Redstate.com, who was quoted in the Baltimore Sun. "Then maybe the bunch of socialist patsies will think twice."
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1670210,00.html
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| parent )What happened to Sarah Palin? You've got me scratching my head now.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Individual people did the leg work on their own. The guy thrust himself on to the national stage and presented a bogus argument based on false facts and individuals responded.
Also, Obama is not a big fan of Daily Kos even if Daily Kos provides Obama a big fan base.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )I said Obama supporters, and I fail to see how any of this justifies such personal attacks on a private citizen.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )Does that name ring a bell? And he was a minor.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )If you were outraged that Grame Frost was scrutinized by bloggers and media types, then you should be equally outraged by what happened to Joe. Frost was deliberately used by hyper-partisan Harry Reid to advance his political agenda. Joe is being used by both campaigns to advance their respective political agendas.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )I was outraged by Graeme Frost, because he's a 12-year-old kid. Nothing "happened" to Joe -- he lied (or declined to inform himself) about the effects of Obama's tax plan on his planned purchases, then leapt into the spotlight when given an opportunity.
I have no problem with this; if someone wants to take advantage of a bit of fame to discuss their political views, I think that's pretty much the definition of American. But I do think that he's an adult who has chosen to make false statements while becoming a semi-public figure, which is profoundly different from Graeme Frost.
This does not change the fact that it was completely wrong to publish his home address. But if someone is holding press conferences on their front lawn, it's hard to see an equivalence.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )For something that had helped his family. You can throw "hyper-partisan" in front of Reid's name, but that won't change the fact the Graeme Frost and his sister were considered fair game, or as the diary from RedState says, so perfectly encasulating the attitde:
"Hang 'em. Publically. Let 'em twist in the wind and be eaten by ravens. Then maybe the bunch of socialist patsies will think twice."
http://redstatenetwork.com/blogs/mbecker908/2007/oct/07/schip_nonsense
Again, just in case you missed it:
"Hang 'em. Publically. Let 'em twist in the wind and be eaten by ravens. Then maybe the bunch of socialist patsies will think twice."
So, now, when those on the right hit the fainting couch over poor "Joe the Plumber", it's really hard to gin up any sympathy for hypocrites. I do have some for "joe", but not his outraged defenders. Who have suddenly found a hyper-partisan conscience and concern for innocent bystanders.
And I still don't know what kind of countertops he might have!
And if you (the big you) have a problem with "hyper-partisan" Reid, as opposed to all the non hyper partisan GOP member of Congress????, why wasn't Malkin driving by his house, or one of her minions peeking in his kitchen window?
I could bring up Scott Beauchamp(his unit weren't so pure after all, were they?) or Michael Schiavo (who poor wife was indeed beyond repair, she wasn't going to get up and walk if only he had given her a sandwich and the ridiculous political interference)), who were both roasted alive by hyper partisan people...but none of these compared to what the Right thought was proper....feeding a little boy and his family to the wolves.
The hypocrisy...it burns.
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| parent )Over here. This was about as much an "examination" by the Freepers as a calf being cut up into veal. More fan dancing from you: the Swift Boating of that badly injured little boy was orchestrated by the Freepers who you now choose to over with the fig leaf of Media Types.
Whatever else is true about the Graeme Frost story, this much is clear:
The attacks were nasty, they were vicious and they were all from the Freepers. Now you can defend them if you want, but that doesn't reflect well on your position.
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| parent )is between the factual rendition of the Frost family's economic situation and the sad, Limbaugh inspired fantasy going on in "Joe's" head.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )a few times now. Seems like the selective memory thing is in full effect.
Plus, Joe has been doing media interviews and such. But the facts won't keep some folks from claiming an outrage, Outrage! is happening to non-plumber Joe.
The guy Mccain brought up around ten times in a presidential debate.
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| parent )the Frost family made accurate and truthful representations about their actual economic situation, while "Joe" appears to be peddling an inaccurate hypothetical that bears no relation to his actual economic position. Just another spectacularly misinformed Limbaugh Republican exposed by his own desire for that 15 minutes of fame.
Tax Advice for ‘Joe the Plumber’
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )Ok.
Joe the "Plumber" is confusing gross receipts with net profits. A business owner whose business grosses $250k is not subject to a tax increase under Obama's plan. Period.
Is that simple enough for you? I think it's what Obama tried to say at the initial meeting.
Now, I could go on to opine that someone who doesn't understand the difference between gross receipts and net profits is never going to be successful as a business owner. Would pointing that out be "personally destroying a private citizen", or just stating the bleeding obvious?
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| parent )then Obamanuts could've just pointed that out. Instead, dKos wankers are out there are publishing his personal information, and others are engaging in a personal Roto Rootering of the guy.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )You posted personal info about that dumb kid who hacked into Palin's e-mail account. When I called you on it your defense was, "Public information". Joe the Plumber is getting the same treatment you gave that dumb kid.
--But she's a queen, and such are queens
that your laughter is sucked in their brains. -D. Bowie
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| parent )he asked Obama a question after Obama approached him, and since then he's been stalked by Obamanuts because Obama gave an inartful response that was used against him. The person who hacked into Palin's e-mail account committed a felony by invading a woman's personal privacy, and he has been indicted. I'm sorry that you're either unwilling or unable to acknowledge those distinctions.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )nt
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| parent ).
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )you won't get a direct response from BD about this.
Outrage! Joe the Plumber! Great American! Hulk Smash!!!
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| parent )if he's not allowed to point out just how dumb McCain's argument is? Of course, because McCain's argument is just that "Joe the Plumber" is an everyman hurt by Obama's tax plan, pointing out that this "argument" is founded on provable falsehoods is an attack on Joe Everyman McPlumberpack. Nice racket.
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| parent )always needs to be brought up when someone mentions progressive taxation.
5% of a $20,000 income is worth more than 5% of a $200,000 income. That's not "justice" or "fairness" or "spreading the wealth"; it's a simple economic fact, fairly easy to calculate.
The question becomes, do we want a "truly flat" tax (meaning everyone contributes the same marginal value of their income), or or an actually progressive bracket (wealthier taxpayers contribute more than their marginal value)?
Because at the moment we have a regressive system (at least at the very top –
--Warren Buffet actually contributes 3% of his total income, way, way below what wage-earners in the bottom bracket get to keep).
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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)progressive taxation is a fait accompli, and conservatives are trying to pretend it isn't. John McCain supports progressive taxation. Every Republican President and candidate for President for the last fifty years, at least, has supported progressive taxation.
Why do you say that when both major changes to the tax code in the last 7 yrs. were principally aimed at reducing the progressivity and were explicitly praised for it?
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)I should've known this would turn into an argument about progressive taxation.
Here's the thing, catchy: we do have progressive taxation, at least as far as income tax, which was the subject Joe T.P. & Obama were discussing. John McCain and every mainstream conservative pol supports the existence of a progressive income tax. Now, when Obama mentions his support for one & gives an (admittedly half-assed) defense of it, suddenly he is a "Marxist" and it "reveals his mindset" in some negative way. I call BS on that.
Whether conservatives have mounted a stealth campaign to dismantle the progressive income tax is another story; probably an interesting one, but not this one.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )that given that the income tax code is already progressive, by the logic of McC's attack we already live in a socialist country.
In addition, no R pols have come out explicitly against progressive taxation + McCain isn't a flat taxer.
But I have never heard Bush or McCain say they support the proressivity of the tax code either. just b/c eliminating progressive taxation isn't a plank in their platform doesn't mean they support it.
Instead you've got McCain's proposal which further erodes progressivity and of course Bush's two tax cuts. I wouldn't exactly call this 'stealth'.
Plus a large segment of the pop. explicitly supports justifications for these tax cuts that are couched in anti-progressie language + those who don't support them have no language of 'fairness' 'shared burden' or whatever to combat it.
the fact that 'spreading the welath around' is called half-assed and politically unviable at a time of extreme wealth concentration is itself a pt. against general support for progressive approaches to wealth + taxation.
Anyway, didn't mean to derail the diary from your main pt., but it still seems a little much to call progressive taxation a fait accompli.
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| parent )"Spreading the wealth" is rhetoric from the time when the country tolerated 91% tax brackets (and a lot of almost equally obscene tax brackets lower down). In a time when proposing even a 50% tax bracket would be death at the polls, it's worth pointing this out. It would also be worthwhile for the Republicans to point out that one Mr. Clinton also promised us middle class tax cuts along with soaking the rich in a time of large deficits, and instead we got gas tax increases along with soaking the rich.
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)a 91% tax rate, but bear in mind that back then, just about everying was deductible, including all interest as well as mileage to and from work. Some of the unsung tax reforms in the Reagan era (and god, it kills me to say that) were the elimination of lots of weasely loopholes in the tax laws.
--They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist...
-- General John B. Sedgwick, 1864
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| parent )Here's how it works. As I've said to Tomsyl and BD, what's needed is a genuine Conservative Party, not this hideous congooberation of Republicans.
A genuine Conservative is all about lower taxes and smaller government. Conservatives are unabashed elitists in the good sense: those who possess initiative, mad skillz and a little luck will rise where others will not. Now Conservatives are not idiots: they fear the mob. They are not averse to helping the underprivileged and undereducated, but they cannot abide those who will not help themselves. They are most annoyed by the notion of egalitarianism in the sense that everyone is equally deserving. It is, as the old joke from the USSR: the Noble Worker pretends to work and the Beneficent State pretends to pay him.
The Liberal, and that would be me, believes capitalism follows the laws of gravity and cosmology: matter and capital accrete into large structures. Gas collapses into stars, stars forge larger atoms, stars go nova creating more matter which accrete into planets and more stars. The automobile industry began with hundreds of firms. Most didn't make it but a few large entities survived. Computers, same story, leaving us with essential monopolies like Microsoft. Electricity was a tussle between Edison's direct current and Westinghouse's (Tesla's) alternating current. The market separates winners from losers.
Since we shouldn't (indeed cannot) overly restrain this process of accretion, we must consider the benefits of certain restraints of the capitalist process. Antitrust and price-fixing laws maintain beneficial competition. Insider trading laws and clearinghouses keep things aboveboard for the rest of us.
Progressive taxation is eminently fair. The wealthy benefit disproportionately from the existing system. This is not a process of Spreading the Wealth Around. The Wealth already obeys the Law of Universal Gravitation:
Every point mass attracts every other point mass by a force pointing along the line intersecting both points. The force is proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the point masses:
Let's put it this way: workers create the wealth. The worker doesn't especially mind, he earns a salary. But his work is worth substantially more than his salary and that difference pays the executive's salaries and the stockholders. I am no Marxist, I do not begrudge the executive his compensation, but let us entertain no illusions about the source of that compensation: the efforts of others.
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)Conservatism is eternally tied to lower taxes and smaller government.
For Hamilton and Jefferson, more government was conservative, and less government was liberal. David Brooks is now talking about big government conservatism as a possible next phase for the movement.
What is the core of conservatism? I think it's William F. Buckley's "standing athwart history yelling 'stop!'" I think there's also a temperamental streak... conservatives identify with the overdog, and with authority -- the parental identification. Liberals identify with the underdog, and with the other members of their community -- the fraternal identification. Those temperamental traits seem to encompass all right- and left-wing movements I can think of.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )IMO the primary argument for progressive taxation is the concept of marginal utility -- i.e. 10% of a poor man's income makes a much larger difference in quality of life than 10% of a rich man's. (Another way to put this is that the concept of "fairness" does not translate directly into a flat percentage of income.) There are many reasons why progressive taxation makes sense that have nothing at all to do with class warfare, or envy, or any of the other usual canards.
But my main point is: what the hell gives McCain (for example) the right to criticize Obama for something he supports as well? McCain has made no flat-tax pledges. His tax policy is a tweaking of the brackets, just like Obama's.
The hysteria on the right over Obama's remarks makes me wonder, again, if the entirety of the modern conservative movement is nothing but a scam.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )I'm not getting your last sentence. does the viciousness/vacuity mindset that rules, say, dKos make you wonder if modern liberalism is simply a form of rabies? Somehow I don't see you saying that; I certainly don't think so.
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )He is the nominee for President of the ostensibly conservative party. Citing him is not exactly the equivalent of linking a comment at DKos.
I understand that many conservatives are dissatisfied with McCain, and I know most of the reasons for that, but the fact is that the great majority of self-described conservatives are going to vote for him in November.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )represents mainstream conservative thought. He doesn't. And you know as well as I do that 50% of elections in this country involve simply holding your nose and voting for the least worse candidate.
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )What we're looking at in this idiotic Republican Party is not true Conservatism, but a demented Neoliberalism.
I maintain, after conversion to economic Liberalism after many years of being an economic Conservative of the old Burke-ian school, that economic Conservatives and Liberals are different sides of the same coin. Without each other, they are meaningless abstractions, mere terms without the Equality Sign of a true equation. We keep each other honest.
Looking up what Edmund Burke actually said, I came across this little gem, which bears on our current economic predicament.
It is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied...[T]he public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.
Look at us now: our supposedly Conservative government has just run up the national deficit 50% and thrust it all up the collective ass of the taxpayer and his heirs and assigns.
So much for Fiscal Conservatism in our day and age. McCain wants to go on waging a 10 Bn / month war without raising taxes? We have the right, and no less than Edmund Burke, the intellectual father of Conservatism on our side to tell us a government does not have the right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer. The taxpayers' right not to be taxed oppressively takes precedence even over paying back debts a government may have imprudently undertaken.
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| parent )They are real conservatives. Their contempt for the public is just as pronounced as it was in Burke. Their problem is not their deviation from conservatism, it is their corruption and dishonesty. And how are liberals and conservatives going to keep each other honest when they are equally corrupt?
Are there not ways of prosecuting a $US 10 billion a month war without raising taxes? If we look at other cases around the world, we should be able to foresee selling off public assets and privatization, (roads, national parks, utilities etc) as well as cutbacks in government spending on health and education.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )I don't fear the mob, I'd spit in their hideous faces if given the chance.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )"... spit in their hideous faces"?
Who crapped in your cereal this morning?
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )it is in my fundamental nature to despise those who can't look after their own affairs. If this is a result of something being crapped in it happened long ago.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )I just found the high dudgeon a little over the top. I guess it's in my fundamental nature to find that kind of posturing a little silly. Don't worry, though - I'm not a spitter; so low class!
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )n/t
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| parent )Of course Conservatives fear and hate the mob. That's why they're so dead-set against enfranchising them.
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| parent )We tend to be heavily armed, and what good is a Dragunov with 20x Swarovski optics and a tritium reticle unless you can let off a round every now and then?
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )the right to vote should be earned, not given.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )with a birth certificate. The basic right was 'earned' a long time ago and forms the very foundation of our still imperfect Union.
Care to explain by what mechanism and on what basis you now propose to take that right away to be dispensed only to those who 'earn' qualification?
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )First, it's a little more than just a birth certificate. You have to be 18 or older, and not a felon. If there's a sound rationale for those limitations then why couldn't there be sound rationale for other limitations?
Were I king for a day, I'd throw out citizenship, criminal record and age and tie it all into how much one pays in taxes while still allowing those who pay no tax to get some vote. Those who pay more have a heavier weighted vote. I'd even consider allowing direct payment to gain vote weighting. I'm open to, actually in favor of, also weighing votes heavier for those who perform a service to the country, whether military, volunteers etc.
Is it perfect? Nope. I do think it's better than the two apparent options. Those being a) only the well-off vote and b) everyone gets an equal vote regardless of what they contribute.
--It's not only redundant, it's also repetitive
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| parent )and the wealth criteria should be in the form of something tangible like land, rather than just on paper. These are the byproducts of citizens who by in large demonstrate the judgment and character to forgo immediate gratification in the pursuit of a larger goal, which is a crucial characteristic for those tasked with the responsibility of making decisions which impact others.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )Cleaning ladies? Servants? Chauffeuses?
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| parent )housewives, cleaning ladies, servants, or chauffeuses could not join the military, go to college, or buy 5 acres of land? I can't can't think of one.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )maybe quite a few, but not all.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )Edited.
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| parent )That kind of incentive to join the military would weaken the isntitution. There'd be a glut of people w. enthusiasm for the franchise but not necessarily skill at the military.
Same w. education. Already too large a % of people go to college.
Land-ownership or wealth might make sense in a country where income mobility is high and income was determined by something resembling a meritocracy.
Instead you live in the US, where income mobility is lower than any western European nation and income inequality is higher.
In essence, you're talking about restricting the franchise to the land-owning gentry.
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| parent )if joining the military becomes an incentive for those who desire the franchise then the pool of recruits expands and the military can become more selective of who they will accept, thereby strengthening the institution. The same goes for Universities, but I doubt they'd take advantage of situation and instead admit as many applicants as possible under the delusion everyone deserves a voice. The fact that the worth of a college degree would be diluted is not necessarily a result of such a policy, but admittedly, given the mindset of those who direct academia, it is entirely foreseeable. Also income mobility and inequality can have little bearing on the wealth criteria, the requirement does not have to be extravagant, just enough to demonstrate the ability to save and plan.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )Been there, done that, rejected it.
"Property" qualifications for voting - in those few locations where elections were even extant - were a staple of political systems back in the Eighteen and early-Nineteenth Centuries (even ours). Unfortunately for your point, though, the evolution (or Intelligent Design) of democratic politics since then has been pretty much an uninterrupted expansion of the franchise, and ever-increasing engagement with getting as much of the population involved with the "..responsibility of making decisions which impact others".
Which, in a democracy, is how it should be: those decisions made at the ballots don't only impact "others" - but ourselves, as well.
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| parent )demonstrates to me the abuse of a right rather than living up to a responsibility.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )I'm sure quite a few of the above mentioned vote not based on the "issues" but that "gut feeling" that a certain politician is "just like them", when in fact he isn't, he just acts that way. And that the other guy was so alien to them as to be downright unAmerican..why almost a Frenchie!
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| parent )why you left the educated of your assertion, they aren't going to live up to it 100% either.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )In the header...
There is no way to keep people for voting for non-issues reasons if that is what they are going to do. Whether they meet some criteria involving service, wealth or education.
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| parent )it would be 100% effective.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )Amen! I agree 100%. Which is why myself, I try, in any election where I have a chance to vote, to study the issues, examine the candidates, and cast my vote based on something approaching an informed opinion, rather than superficial personality issues. And just as importantly, try to convince any and everyone I can to do the same.
Just like, IMHO, every citizen-voter should.
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| parent )Because I have this friend, let's call him "John", . . .
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )... but it got blurry for some reason.
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| parent )Who would be the more responsible "designated driver" is a much better metric.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )I failed that metric regularly in my 20s.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )Now I wish I hadn't asked.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )with me. There you will see the terminus of Capitalism, where all the power and money are concentrated on the few. Education is the trap door through which the children of the poor must fall.
You should see my house. Three meter walls, topped with electrified razor wire and broken glass set into soft concrete. Armed bodyguards for my children: kidnapping is quite profitable.
You think you will spit in the face of those mobs. They'll cut your fingers off and send them to your loved ones, and they will pay up oh yes they will.
Yes, at the terminus of capitalism, maids are cheap, anything you want can be bought for US prices, and you will live with the certain knowledge you never, ever have a nice view of the street.
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| parent )being poor in Guatemala is an entirely different experience than it is in America- their poor are actually skinny. As a society that exists closer to human nature than the enterprise America has become, it isn't quite as easy to designate who is as deserving there as it is here, but it isn't impossible either. A few weeks in any barrio will allow you to pick out the leeches who then can be spat upon to the cheering of their neighbors, for in all societies there is little tolerance for the perpetually dissatisfied.
And I'll gladly go to Guatemala with you, it wouldn't be the first time I've been exposed to dire poverty. Mean streets don't bother me in the least, I find more sense in them than a society willing to continually run one another into court over the most trivial matters.
--"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta
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| parent )Or any other dire poverty?
Your contention about an existence closer to human nature is at best baffling. I keep bringing Rousseau's Noble Savage up, over and over again, to demonstrate the falsity of this idea that Things Are Different Over There. There are no Noble Savages. There are just savages. Some wear Florsheim shoes, some wear flip-flops made from old tires. But they're all savages.
If mean streets don't bother you, well, you know what old Bill Buckley said about a Liberal: he's a Conservative who hasn't been mugged yet. Of course, a Conservative is a Liberal who hasn't been arrested, but that's a separate sermon I'll preach another time.
You haven't been mugged yet. You haven't seen a mutilated and raped kidnapping victim come back to her family. Lots of stuff you haven't seen that I have. For someone who never saw such things, you have no trouble delivering yourself of opinions on these things. This isn't an argument from authority, this is the argument of experience.
The poor are the same the world over. There is no difference. The poor do not leech, but then, you've never seen a refugee camp and I have. There's bullying in refugee camps: predatory gangs form to extort food and resources from the weak. These are the leeches, and they don't have their hands out. They have their hands around the throats of their victims. Most of the time, the victims are too weak to even lift their hands up.
Guatemala has courts, but they're all corrupt. All societies have law after a fashion, and the longer I live, the less tolerance I have for those who would say Americans Are So Different. The veneer of civilization is very thin, and all the roles are masks. I earlier said Conservatives fear the mob, but you, my friend, have never seen a mob in action. I have, and I fear the mob. That you do not fear mobs betrays a certain naivete, easily correctable. Guatemala City awaits us. I'll bring you down to Zona 5, drop you off in my Land Cruiser and let you find your way back to your hotel. In half an hour, you will be stripped naked and left for dead.
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| parent )Whether it is South Central LA or the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, it is a very small step to Guatemala City. Human brutality knows no limits.
But this is exactly where Conservatives diverge in agreement with Liberals. My wish for my old home town of New Orleans after Katrina was that the Feds would come in and employ a 10-20 years consent decree over all of Southeast Louisiana under the auspices of disaster recovery to enable an entire rework of the education, police, and judicial systems, as well as the municipal and state goverments due to rampant corruption and gross incompetence which enabled a vibrant criminal class. Conservatives should value law and order more than basic human freedoms because they know that without order, the thugs rule and no freedoms are available for anyone.
How to fix Guatemala City? I sure don't know. But I did offer my Guatemalan housekeeper and El Salvadorean nanny to join us in Minnesota when we left LA last year. They both declined. They were both content to live in their out of code apartments. Both felt relatively safe in South Central LA, compared to their previous conditions.
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| parent )madly and irrationally.
I have a solution to southern Louisiana, and it would begin by stretching the neck of Freezer Jefferson on a gallows erected in Jackson Square. Un example pour tous les autres.
I would NOT propose the Federal Government coming into any parish. If you would see what Congressional oversight of any territory would turn into, look no further than Washington DC. Good Lord, Carlos, I thought you were a Conservative, heh heh.
No, the solution to southern Louisiana is to fix the State of Lousiana, which concentrates far too much power in Baton Rouge and the Governor.
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| parent )permanently deployed to Georgia? (Here's a tip of the iceberg link.) Your thoughts on posse comitatus here?
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )Used to be in Würzburg when I was last in, but I went to a reunion at Ft. Stewart.
Ecch, posse comitatus has been repealed for a good long while now. It was enacted, as many such laws were enacted, in response to the abuses of the Union Army during Reconstruction.
I really don't have a problem with this order of battle: part of the Oath of Enlistment says I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic so as long as Sea Smurfs are used for truly large scale disasters or insurrections, they're still within the bounds of their oath.
Could it be abused? Ecch, again hard to say. My first thought would be that the Sea Smurfs might be ramped up at the expense of various National Guard units, who are already on tough times, with old bedraggled equipment, their troops are in terrible shape, I dunno how many deployments to the Sandbox some of those USANG units have endured.
Tell you one thing we really do need, and pronto. We need airborne command and control aircraft like JSTARS. I'd integrate all state police operations with JSTARS compatible comm gear.
Essentially, JSTARS in wartime does massive integration of ground force data, identifying friend and foe. In peacetime, JSTARS could use the "foe" portion of the system to identify hot spots for "interdiction" by "friendlies", who in this case would be State Police and Sea Smurfs doing rescues, fire control, humanitarian relief. I'd put elected officials such as state governors aboard a JSTARS and have them loiter over a disaster, with the JSTARS piping data to national control centers. I have always believed the notion of the State Police has never been effectively integrated into large-scale disaster management, though they're ideally suited to do the command and control for such operations.