Remember when I said...

That the Republican plan for Jobs, to decrease unemployment, is to Fire people.  Some laughed because it was funny and seemed completely illogical and wrong-headed.  I wasn't laughing - because that IS their plan.  At a time when we have soaring unemployment - their plan is to, literally, Fire People.  At a time when we have a wages that are too low to support our economy, their plan is to Lower Wages on those who can least afford it, while protecting the "high-income" earners' salaries and offering THEM tax cuts.

Read - http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/16/296220/with-government-job-losses-holding-back-recovery-romney-promises-to-slash-even-more/

If that is not enough, http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/14/295506/pushing-low-corporate-taxes-bachmann-rejects-extending-jobless-benefits-because-we-dont-have-the-money/

We don't have enough money to pay teachers well or extend unemployment benefits, but apparently we have more than enough and can refuse due income.

Do Democrats Care?

http://www.wlbt.com/story/15205916/democratic-primary-numbers-dont-surprise-the-experts

Read the article above...

So, we have three options here - either Republicans have no scruples and vote in the Democratic Primary, because, hey, they all vote the same any way or Democrats don't care about the state, just their local territory or Independents outnumber both and are wishy-washy, voting Democrat locally, but many shift to Republican State-wide.

I don't particularly care for any of the options.

Phil Bryant would be a disaster for Mississippi - just like Haley Barbour or Texas' Rick Perry.  They may make some numbers look good, but reality on the ground is horrible.

Its time to Stand Up, Stand Together and Do the Right Things for Mississippi.
(http://bobbykearan.com/vote/)

Input Requested

So, Jackson Free Press put up an article about Trickle Down economics.  "turbodog" wrote a comment saying it was childish and asking "When is the last time you got a job from an unemployed person?"

I replied and started a whole chain of comments :

I have often been hired by an unemployed (or poor) person. Whether it was a sole proprietor hiring me to work for him or someone hiring me to fix their computers when I was running my own business.


Rich people do not create jobs. Government can't create private sector jobs.


You seem to have the idea that a rich person will just go out and hire someone for no reason. That is ridiculous. The only thing that creates a job is Demand. Someone has to have a need that requires someone be paid to fill that need. Many times a business - which doesn't need to have any rich people in it, nor rich people to start it up - will have to hire someone to meet extra demand for their goods or services.


The problem right now is that the top 10% have leeched ludicrous amounts of money out of the economy and into their vaults. A construction worker could support a household of 4 on his salary alone in 1970. Today, the construction worker makes pretty much the same thing he did in 1970, but the cost of everything has gone up 400%. So, the construction worker has had to get his wife to get a job and both go into debt to maintain a lesser lifestyle.


Well, we are now maxed out on the household debt, so we can't spend any more. The rich have leeched all the money and profit out of the economy. There is not much more left.


So, the only real solution is for big businesses to cut absurd CEO and Executive compensation and raise worker pay. This will put money back into the economy and create a sustainable economy instead of the boom & bust economy we have had. Read about Henry Ford and Kenneth J. Douglas.


Basically, its "the Rich" and corporations against everyone - including themselves. Capitalism requires a robust, free flow of money to sustain itself, and they have been leeching funds out of the economy, slowly killing it.


Obviously many are not going to self-regulate to maintain a healthy economy. Therefore, government has to intervene in order to "insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."


(see http://bobbyshead.blogspot.com/2011/02/business-leaders-agree-i-am-right.html andhttp://bobbyshead.blogspot.com/2011/03/success.html for more)

posted by BobbyKearan on 08/11/11 at 09:14 AM

***
Rich people do not create jobs. Government can't create private sector jobs.
***


Really? Tell that to Steve Jobs (haha) that created the iphone and the crapload of jobs and money that flowed to Apple.


Yes, he created an item, which made demand, which make jobs. But, no demand w/o the item.

posted by turbodog on 08/11/11 at 11:54 PM

***

So, the only real solution is for big businesses to cut absurd CEO and Executive compensation and raise worker pay. This will put money back into the economy and create a sustainable economy instead of the boom & bust economy we have had. Read about Henry Ford and Kenneth J. Douglas.

***

A lot of the boom and bust has been at the hands of the government. Housing boom and collapse caused 2008 problems. Was also loose credit and housing boom in the 1920's...

Government distorts markets. They underwrote these 'toxic' mortgages. You think normal investors would have given cash to finance those shady home sales? Get real.

They opened the floodgates. Banks took part, real estate agents took part, sellers took part, buyers took part.posted by turbodog on 08/12/11 at 12:00 AM

if "the rich" top 10% put money back into the economy at anywhere close to the rate they are leeching it out, then the middle class would be spending it right now and the bank accounts of those top 10% would not be as large as they are.

And you are missing a LOT. Steve Jobs was not rich when Apple was created (and his salary - income - is $1.00 per year). He was an inventor or innovator whose product created demand, which created jobs, which led to him being rich. Bill Gates was not rich when he started Microsoft. Now both are calling, along with Warren Buffet, to have their taxes raised. Why? Their own self interest, of course.

Paul Krugman puts it like this "Lack of corporate cash is not the problem facing America. Big business already has the money it needs to expand; what it lacks is a reason to expand with consumers still on the ropes and the government slashing spending."

The only way to get our economy going again is to put money into the hands of people who spend it. I don't think Government is the one that should be doing that, but the ones who should be simply are not doing so. In the end, big business will only wind up hurting itself by destroying it's consumer base.

Henry Ford and Kenneth J. Douglas, both successful and rich, said that it was 'indecent' for a CEO to make more than 40 times what an average worker was paid. They turned down raises for that reason. Because it hurt business in the long run. It hurt their bottom line in the long run.

Math, History and Economic reality are not on the side of cutting taxes more.

posted by BobbyKearan on 08/15/11 at 02:18 PM

Leeching? To steal Todd's line, "What a breathtakingly self -serving read."posted by independent on 08/15/11 at 02:43 PM

Independent - how would you describe a group that requires another group to survive but is slowly draining the other group of the very item the first requires? In this case, money is being drained at a faster rate than it is being put back into the economy.

The Rich must have the middle class in order to survive, but they are draining the very resource they require. The middle class doesn't need rich people any more than a host needs a leech. Maybe the relationship is a tad bit more symbiotic than a leech, but the end result is looking to be the same.

"The top 20 percent of American earners -- those making more than $100,000 annually - received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the country, compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line.

That translates to a ratio of 14.5-to-1, up from 13.6 in 2008 and almost double the low figure of 7.69 recorded in 1968."

20% of the country can not support a healthy economy. Going from 7.69 to 1 ratio of income to 14.5 to 1 is, by any definition, leeching money from the other 80%. We do not really have an infinite supply of money, so when one group's share grows, another one's must decline. "Leeching" is the only term for it, because it has become destructive to the national economy.

Its not a matter of jealousy or 'being fair' or anything like that. It is a matter of a healthy economy. The transfer of wealth from the bottom and middle to the top can't go on at this rate forever. Its going to crash and burn. The only hope is to put a stop to the greed and create a more healthy circulation. I.E. Pay workers more, CEOs less. Government cannot (should not) correct this, it has to be the market, the business leaders. We need more Henry Fords.

posted by BobbyKearan on 08/16/11 at 06:10 AM

"The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980."
- from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html

The bottom 90%'s income drops by .6% (per household) while the top 1%'s income rises by 14%. That is not sustainable. Its destructive and we are seeing it now.

posted by BobbyKearan on 08/16/11 at 06:40 AM

How do you convince someone to work just as hard or harder as you take away some of their pay? Especially if they're an expert in their field and on of the tops in their industry worldwide? I'm afraid doing that would start a domino effect that would have negative consequences among high paid hard working people that your comments seem to have such disdain for, and who may actually help certain charities with large gifts because of their lofty salaries.

posted by independent on 08/16/11 at 07:35 AM

Wow. You just miss the whole point, don't you?

posted by BobbyKearan on 08/16/11 at 11:29 AM

I wish I could let that go, but ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!

We have millions of hard working men and women working 40, 50 hours a week, little to no vacation days, can't afford to get sick and still can't make a decent living and you are worried about a few overpaid CEOs making $8 million instead of $10 million??

You seem to have a lot of disdain for people who actually work hard for a living - construction workers, factory workers, food service industry workers, computer technicians, data entry clerks. Why do you hate us so much? It is us who does the actual work for them to get paid their salaries. We work harder and they get the credit for higher productivity. We treat customers well and they get the credit for higher customer satisfaction. We build quality into every product we forge or assemble and they get the rewards of higher sales.

You have a very different idea of 'hard working' and 'earning' your salary than I do.

"We believe in making 20,000 men prosperous and contented rather than follow the plan of making a few slave drivers in our establishment multi-millionaires," Henry Ford said, quoted in The La Crosse Tribune on January 6, 1914.

posted by BobbyKearan on 08/16/11 at 11:55 AM

Snakes and Oil Salesmen

This article - The United Snakes of America - has some very good points.  Such as :

Republicans have become agents and experts unto themselves. Their belief system has primacy over history, science, empiricism, common sense, arithmetic or facts that contradict that system. Economists, doctors, climate scientists, physicists and historians are no match for the divine and unassailable expertise inherent in hard-right Republican ideology. Truth and reality become whatever they want them to be.

and

If the Bush administration racked up five trillion dollars to our national debt and the Obama administration added 1.44 trillion dollars, then simple math tells Mitch McConnell the debt is all Obama's fault. If the Republicans in unison call all billionaires "job creators," then they just are, even if their presidential front-runner/billionaire Mitt Romney made his money specifically by taking over companies and firing thousands of employees. 

then this one :

If history demonstrates that "trickle down" economics has been an abject failure every single time it is has been tried, then, en masse, the Republicans are going to demand that we lock it in for the entire 21st century. 

and finally :

No matter how extreme the Tea Party becomes, the media gives them the first and often the only crack at the megaphone. So, Tea Party blackmail becomes a "debt crisis," health care reform becomes "death panels," restoring historic and moral tax rates becomes an outrageous "tax on the job creators" and regulations preventing polluters from getting away with murder become "job killers" themselves. 

 On the last point, I find this to be very true.  There is no coverage of reality - only what the extremists say.  What is wrong with the Media these days?

Republican plans - such as trickle down - have taken us from a creditor nation to a debtor nation with huge deficits and a spending addiction.  Their "Borrow and Spend" mentality is a lot more damaging than any democrat extremist's "Tax and Spend." Somehow, they now expect us to believe that they have changed their ways, realize that deficits do matter and are now "fiscally responsible."  No, thank you, I am not interested in buying that snake oil.

Consumption Tax?

I was told by someone that I would not win the election. "Maybe not," I said. But Maybe I will. Then they said they support a Consumption tax with a voucher for low income people because Illegals and Drug Dealers would have to pay it.  Which is suggesting they don't pay income taxes.

Either way, I started thinking about the Consumption Tax. I could not support such a system to replace the income tax - even with some kind of voucher or credit system to ease the extra burden on the poor. Here are the reasons :

• Extra financial burden on the poor and middle class - or extra paperwork or extra 'tax payment card' or something. The tax burden would shift significantly higher onto those who can least afford it. Rich people save a higher percentage of their income than the other two, meaning they would pay proportionally less taxes.
• A consumption tax discourages spending. The $100,000 home which is now really a $107,000 (not including interest, points, closing costs, etc) home in Mississippi, would become a $167,000 home under a consumption tax. You keep 26% (whatever your tax rate is) more of your money, but everything costs 60% extra (what the consumption tax would need to be in order to replace income tax revenues). A $1.00 candy bar ($1.07 in Mississippi) suddenly really costs $1.67 to buy. A $18,000 compact car suddenly adds $12,060 in taxes and becomes a $30,060 car.
• While savings would be encouraged, which is a good thing, there is no special incentive to use a 401k or an IRA or any deferred savings for retirement. Perhaps a much higher interest rate on that money would be some incentive, but there would be no up-front costs savings for putting money where you couldn't use it until retirement.

Here is a comment I found on one of the websites about a consumption tax that I mostly agree with :

I don’t think you people really get it. You all keep running these numbers over and over again. The reason people are not spending money isn’t because of the state our economy is in. We got here because over the years the prices of goods and services have continued to go up and the pay for the working man has stayed about the same. So then it comes down to food or your house payment, and that is where the credit cards and loans come into play. But now we are so far in debt that we can’t get any more loans or credit cards, and even if we did we cant pay it back.

These big companies need to pay their workers more and stop keeping all the profits for themselves, then maybe the people would have the money to go buy goods and services and keep this ecomnomy going. The asnwer isn’t more taxes!  The answer is better pay for the working class people in this country. They are the back bone, they are what keep the gears of this nation going. If they don’t have money to spend. Then these companies don’t have the money or means to keep going so they lay off workers. Its their faults not ours. Either lower your prices, or pay us more thats the bottom line.

I wouldn’t mind having a new car or house or tv, but even before the crisis at hand its been either luxury or feed my kids. I can’t pay my bills now and I have nothing to show for what I do spend out a month except for my house. And the way its looking now I might not even have it much longer. And people like you want more taxes. How am I to pay these new taxes? And if I don’t they just come take my house anyways. Try thinking more about the regular guy instead of how to keep the money in the rich mans pockets. The poor are who makes the rich rich.

— Dean

and a selection of another, rather long and collegiate article :

The income tax rests necessarily on the ability-to-pay principle, namely the principle that if a goose has more feathers it is more ripe for the plucking. The ability-to-pay principle is precisely the creed of the highwayman, of taking where the taking is good, of extracting as much as the victims can bear. The ability-to-pay principle is the philosophical embodiment of the memorable answer of Willie Sutton when he was asked, perhaps by a psychological social worker, why he robbed banks. "Because," answered Willie, "that's where the money is."

The consumption tax, on the other hand, can only be regarded as a payment for permission-to-live. It implies that a man will not be allowed to advance or even sustain his own life, unless he pays, off the top, a fee to the State for permission to do so. The consumption tax does not strike me, in its philosophical implications, as one whit more noble, or less presumptuous, than the income tax.

That article goes on to repeat my argument / statement  that any tax on a business can not conceivably be "passed on" to a consumer.

Consider: all prices are determined by the interaction of supply, the stock of goods available to be sold, and by the demand schedule for that good. If the government levies a general 20 percent tax on all retail sales, it is true that retailers will now incur an additional 20 percent cost on all sales. But how can they raise prices to cover these costs? Prices, at all times, tend to be set at the maximum net revenue point for each seller. If the sellers can simply pass the 20 percent increase in costs onto the consumers, why did they have to wait until a sales tax to raise prices? Prices are already at highest net income levels for each firm. Any increase in cost, therefore, will have to be absorbed by the firm; it cannot be passed forward to the consumers. Put another way: the levy of a sales tax has not changed the stock already available to the consumers; that stock has already been produced. Demand curves have not changed, and there is no reason for them to do so. Since supply and demand have not changed, neither will price. Or, looking at the situation from the point of the demand and supply of money, which help determine general price levels, the supply of money has remained as given, and there is also no reason to assume a change in the demand for cash balances either. Hence, prices will remain the same.

Gary R. Blair on Reality

Everyone has the right to believe and accept what he or she wants, but reality doesn't discriminate. Reality is not different for different people. Not once has reality excused anyone for good intentions ignorance or stubbornness. Reality shows no mercy, accepts no excuses, and issues no pardons. Reality does not "turn the other cheek." This does not mean that reality is cruel, it just means that reality is.

- Gary Ryan Blair

Facebook Postings

On Facebook, I Liked "The Constitution" - a page apprently created by a right-winger, you know the ones that talk about supporting the Constitution, but exhibit a vast lack of understanding about the actual document, it's history and it's authors? Yeah, those right-wingers.

They posted :

The ConstitutionThe day after the increase in the debt limit was approved the federal government spent $239 billion, which amounted to 60% of their approved funding. LIKE this post if you think that Congress should work to restrain the ability of the government to borrow, tax and spend.

To which I replied :

Bobby A Kearan The Debt Ceiling Compromise reveals the GOP agenda for dealing with high unemployment is to Fire People (by cutting funding for their jobs) - their solution to paying off debt is to eliminate income by cutting taxes more - their solution to a sluggish economy is to take money out of the economy (by cutting government spending).
What makes people think these are good ideas?
So, The GOP and Tea Party got it's way. NOBODY better blame the results on Obama. (stock market dropped like a rock, unemployment will rise even higher, economy will tank - congratulations.)

I wasn't done, because I had become a tad emotional about the whole issue :

Bobby A Kearan Just some Historical Notes - the Boston Tea Party was thrown because government cut taxes for a favored corporation (East India Tea Company)
Reagan turned the U.S. into a debtor Nation, Bush II ran the debt up like crazy. Obama inherited an huge boulder of debt rolling downhill - and that is hard to stop.
FDR had his 'tea party' moment when he tried what congress just did - which led to a recession until he started spending again to pull us back out of it and into years of economic growth.
Look it up. History doesn't lie. We just got screwed.

This guy pipes up, directing it at me... (not sure which comment he was replying to)

Jerome Easter Lol @Bobby! Do you really believe that BS? How does taking money from the people that earn so the idiots in DC can blow it on more bs stimulate any thing other than greed and corruption?

Bobby A Kearan ‎@Jerome Easter - it is FACT, How can you deny fact? Greed and Corruption? Like tax breaks for those who don't need it? Many of whom don't even WANT tax cuts? Some of whom WANT to pay their share? Like increasing shareholder profit by firing long-term employees who "make too much" to keep? Like increasing CEO pay by 400 plus percent, but worker pay by only 4 percent? Like that kind of Greed and Corruption? Like getting bailed out by taxpayers and using it to give the people who caused the failures big Bonuses? That kind of corruption?
People need to do some REAL serious critical thinking and reasoning. You really think jobs are created by rich people? That is just plain idiotic. Ask around - why are businesses not hiring? Its not "uncertainty about taxes" - it is because the middle class is out of money and have nothing to spend to increase demand which is the ONLY thing that creates jobs. Money has been leeched out of the economy and into the pockets and vaults of the top 1% - who pay 40% of taxes while holding 90% of all the wealth. (percentages may vary slightly) They can't make much more money - because it Does NOT trickle down.

Well, Standard & Poor's has now downgraded the U.S. Credit Rating to AA+
Congratulations to the Tea Party Terrorists - you got what you wanted.  My 401k lost $800 today and I am going to hate to see what Monday brings.

Let me hilight a quote from their press release :

The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year's wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently. Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability.
Our opinion is that elected officials remain wary of tackling the structural issues required to effectively address the rising U.S. public debt burden in a manner consistent with a 'AAA' rating.

 Let the Bush Mistakes expire! They have taken us from a budget surplus to huge deficits and ... YES, the Tax Cuts! ... and have piled on the debt!

Hold the GOP and Tea Party responsible for what they have wrought upon us all.