Pangloss

And how do we know this? Also, isn't it pretty clear that the reason that families with a combined income of $210,000/yr was chosen was because of the amount of revenue that would generate? I mean, if the reasons were purely moral then surely the bar would have been set much higher. And yet the argument rationalizing the move is moral -- that these people, as a group are rich tax-dodgers. That's the justification being used, and yet it's pretty obvious that many people in this group are not rich at all, nor are all (or any?) of them tax-dodgers. Put another way, the government decides it needs X amount of additional tax revenue. They know they can go after the Bill Gates types with a moral justification, but for whatever reason that won't get them to X. So they lower the bar until it reaches X, and then sell it by talking about why Bill Gates has to pay more, hoping nobody will notice the fact that Joe and Jane Smith also have to pay more. Meanwhile the budget grows in leaps and bounds. Does anybody still wonder why Obama gets labeled a socialist, or why his poll numbers are so low?

I don't understand how any of this answers iNow's excellent (implied) question to you. Can you be more specific and less... verbose? It's interesting, and I don't mean to be rude, but it seems like you're trying to hide in rhetoric here. Maybe I'm wrong? Here's what he said, again, in case you missed it: Do you agree or disagree with this statement? It's cool with me either way but I don't understand your previous reply.

Interesting. Certainly avoids the potential problem of slackers getting free cash. Unfortunately even with brackets it might have an impact on upward mobility. Every time you move up in salary, you get a pay cut. Wouldn't a flat tax accomplish the same goal? You work more, you earn more. You earn more, you pay more. Simple, direct, motivating, and fair. Throw in a floor at the so-called poverty line (they pay nothing), and then set the percentage at whatever it takes to balance the budget based on the remaining 85% of the working, taxpaying base. Tax inheritance the same rate. I agree; I support safety nets and temporary relief measures. Fair enough; thanks for expanding on this point. Obviously we don't agree on redistribution but I think you put a lot of thought into your argument and lay it out honestly, and I respect that. You and I just don't see the universe the same way. (grin) I'll just leave it at that.

It's sad the way the middle class always gets shafted in these things. They are the best of both words -- the hardest workers, the most aware, the least likely to support graft and corruption -- the very people you WANT on your side. And you want to pillage them to buy off a group of people many of whom would rather sit in front of their Playstation all day, and buy fast food and cola with their food stamps. IMO that middle class won't exist for very long. Why should it, once you've taken their motivation away? They might as well kick back and relax in front of their Playstations too. And perhaps more importantly, I'm not at all convinced that throwing money at poverty CAN solve it. Handing someone money does not give them motivation, and it's only motivation that produces success and achievement. I'm all about safety nets and helping hands, but you'll never sign me up for a pity argument, because there is a huge, HUGE difference between someone who got kicked out of their house because of a predatory lender and a blind robo-signing lawyer, and someone who sits around the house all day in front of a Playstation, getting fat off food stamps used to buy Oreos and Coca-Cola. There is no reason why I should care about the latter group, and if you take money from the middle class and give it to such people, you will have made a huge mistake. See, if you're talking about do-nothing CEOs making millions while their companies flounder, I am right there with ya. But you included the middle class above, so I really gotta wonder if what you really mean by "capital concentration" is "income earned through hard work". This seems like an exaggeration to me. I don't know much about British Rail, but isn't it still underwritten/protected/something by the government? And I don't think AMTRAK could turn a profit on its own if they found a thousand-year supply of oil five feet under the tracks. It may not be a purely government organization, but it sure walks and talks like one. And the French system isn't purely socialist. SCNF is owned by the government, but they've intentionally opened the system to competition. Not the sort of thing one does when everything is "magnificent". Interesting article on that here: http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/04/17/high-speed-rail-competition-between-trenitalia-and-sncf-coming-in-2010/ This next article talks about the benefits of competition in French rail service, which will (it is hoped) include lower costs to consumers. http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/12/29/with-competition-in-high-speed-operation-who-wins/ Interestingly, the changes were apparently mandated by European Union law. I guess the EU doesn't want a purely socialist system. Interesting. The ones that did value money gave us something important as well. The Ancient Romans built the world's first superpower, a hemiphere-encompassing civilization spanning 2500 years, with inarguable contributions to law, architecture, technology, religion, art, literature, governance and language. When it fell they didn't call it the "dark ages" for nothing. Absolutely. No doubt about it, IMO. I'm not opposed to raising minimum wage, but what I am opposed to is upsetting the apple cart over an ideological preference. Say we raise the minimum wage from 7 or 8 bucks an hour to 20. And a million small businesses go under tomorrow, or get soaked up by giant megacorps who then tell their lapdogs in congress to drop it back down to 7 or 8 bucks an hour, and then we're right back where we started. Or we're all in some sort of socialist utopian nightmare where we might as well sit at home and play games on our Playstations. It's just more complicated than that. Sure, sometimes socialist-like reforms are needed, but at other times capitalism-like reforms are needed. The best answers will sometimes mean sliding the bar to the left, just as it will also sometimes have to move to the right. But the problem isn't low wages or poverty or capitalism-vs-socialism. The problem is corruption and complexity and abuse combined with a populace that doesn't care or isn't paying attention.

Yes, although I would give it more time.

First off, you mentioned the benefits of giving a beggar $100,000. There are 41 million people on food stamps. That's 4.1 trillion dollars. Do you advocate more/greater deficit spending as a solution to poverty in the US? Finger-pointing is easy. Watch: Raise the definition of poverty to include 2 cars, a house and a Playstation and surprise! More poverty appears. Admit more immigrants than anybody else and surprise! More poverty appears. Some on the left even advocate an OPEN border! Why not? Plenty of conservatives around to blame the poverty level on. See? Blaming poverty on ideological extremism is easy. Too easy.

Yes please, somebody help me out here. In the meantime, regarding your previous post: 1) Do you feel that families making over $210,000 per year are "rich"? They're included in the category that will lose the tax cut no matter what, so I think it's a valid question. 2) Is there any data regarding what families who make, say, $210,000-$300,000/year do with their extra income when there is a tax cut that affects them? As opposed to, say, people who earn $1,000,000/year?

Actually what I was wondering is where they came from. That's why I asked, you know, "where they came from". Did the rich breed in very large numbers in the 1980s and 1990s and split their stock with their teenage children? Did three million poor people win the lottery? Did natives from Alpha Centauri discover planet Earth and invest in dot-coms? NOW I'm implying something.

No. I'm stating that historically when the rich are given tax cuts they tend to save that money, which reduces the economic benefit of the tax cuts themselves (since those benefiting most significantly from the cuts are not, as a general rule, investing it back into the economy in other ways). I don't understand. As far as I know no new tax cuts are being proposed. The question is which economic groups lose an existing tax cut. So aren't you saying that taking the tax cuts away from families making more than $210,000 per year will take money that was, under the tax cuts, merely stowed away and saved, and place it into government coffers? How do we know that the full range of those earners, from families making $210,000 per year all the way on up from there, have been putting that money away rather than spending it?

So where did all those new millionaires in the 1990s come from?

So if I understand you correctly you're suggesting that this most of this new tax revenue will come from "under a mattress" (proverbially speaking). I don't have any problem believing that people who earn millions per year do that. But for families earning $210,000, I do have a problem believing that. That's still very much "middle class", and strikes me as guilt by association. They'll get a whole bunch of new tax revenue from these hapless 210k-ers, who then may not be able to spend as much on the economy, while wealthy millionaires just pull out a little more pocket change, then sit back and laugh. How do we know that that's not the case?

I'm not sure if you're not understanding my question or if I'm not understanding your answer. I changed the bold statement, perhaps while you were composing the reply, to try and be more clear. I don't understand what you mean by "they save most of it". Who is they? How can people who are spending more "save most of it"? I don't understand how your quote addresses my question; it seems to be addressing other (peripheral) issues.

I'm not making an argument, I'm passing along an argument made by others. I intend to continue doing that. How does hard data tell us how the highest-earning taxpayers will behave when they lose their tax cut? The chart below (based on the same source you quoted in the other thread) says the government will receive another $68 billion annually in tax revenue (I think your source put the figure at ~61). http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0913/Bush-tax-cuts-101-What-changes-could-be-in-store-for-taxpayers/%28page%29/2 How do we know that the affect on the top earners and their behavior in the market and in their businesses will not exceed the benefits gained from that additional revenue? What does your hard data tell us about their plans and emotions and intentions?

Economists seem to disagree on the outcome of preserving the tax cuts only for the middle class and allowing them to expire on the wealthy. A couple of weeks ago 300 economists got together and released a statement summarized in this article: And apparently even some Democrats agree, which suggests that it's not just a partisan-politics thing.

I don't know if you all caught his Monday night reflection on the whole Rick Sanchez matter, but I couldn't help but think about this thread as I was watching it. It's rare for him to reflect on his own impact on the world, and he seemed to be acknowledging his role to some extent. I thought it was interesting. If you want to check it out it's the first few minutes of Monday night's show. Ok, that makes sense, I shouldn't have included 'ridicule' in my previous list. And perhaps it's not so much about avoiding ANY separation as it is about separating extremist demagogues from mainstream people who may, for example, mean well but just have busy lives. That's an interesting observation (actually one of several in that post), and IMO it fits what I see on the screen very well. I agree. I have to say you really ate your Wheaties this morning. Darn good analysis there, IMO. BTW, this seems like a good moment to refresh our memories of what may still be the best and funniest 15 minutes in the whole history of political television -- Jon Stewart's 2004 appearance on Crossfire, which was canceled three months later with CNN executives citing Stewart's appearance as a factor in the decision.

I just ran across the quote I was thinking about when I wrote the above. It's Andrew Pierce at LBC, saying "They're pathetic, aren't they, those Americans". LexisNexis has a transcript here. Of course I have no idea if he's just some sort of shock jock or something. LBC's web site has a bio on him here, saying that he's a columnist for the Daily Mail.

It's a great message. All about respect and avoiding any semblance of ridicule, animosity, antipathy, anything that separates. I hope people hear it.

Well I'd say you probably get bonus points from just not being Americans, but as WASPs I guess you're still pretty much stuck with the politics of guilt. Though that's an interesting point about difficulties even when it happens now/recently, with modern insight and technology. I think we Americans tend to think of that situation as ancient history, long since dealt with (regardless of what some special interests drum up from time to time). Important to recognize in the history books, but not so much something to see as an active and potentially returning problem. I heard they found the first Earth-like planet the other day. Though I suppose the way things are going by the time we arrive the alien tongue they'll be speaking will be Mandarin!

It's a good thing Bush is gone, or the whole mess would have been laid at the White House door. Even so I still heard a story on ABC News tonight with some audio clips from angry British radio talk show hosts cursing those "bloody stupid Americans". All I can say is, Bob's your uncle.

Sounds right to me. Though I don't hold Jon Stewart responsible for determining whether it's Democrats or Republicans who are "doing the most extreme things". As far as I'm concerned he's welcome to simply give his opinion on the matter, which each viewer can accept (or not) as filtered through their own perspective. But that doesn't mean that an overall message of moderacy won't get through, if well-presented. Divisiveness and inability to find common ground even when it's staring at us in the face (e.g. immigration reform). I want to nod at your point about his message being aimed more at (if I am paraphrasing accurately) media-driven public reactions rather than politics and the issues. You could well be right, and I wrong.

I've seen this posted in a bunch of places now. I think the story surrounding it has become an interesting example of how comedy has come to be perceived as form of coercion similar to the use of fear, just with a different operating mechanic. Personally I don't think these folks crossed any real lines here. The most I would really accuse them of is not understanding the seriousness of the current political climate. It feels like was an honest attempt and sincerely meant to be humorous and not really divisive (since after all they have no reason to shoot themselves in the foot). The problem lies in the perceptions of viewers (which are not without reason), not so much the intent of the makers.

Heh, yeah, we use that one from time to time as well.

Well I guess that's something you hear people say from time to time, but I'm not sure I believe it, especially with the current political climate. I agree, and in pondering this further it occurs to me that the phrase "Rally to Restore Sanity" could mean different things to different people. Maybe some see it as just a plea to tone down the rhetoric, but I saw it as also a plea to find common ground and compromise on the issues. Isn't the lack of compromise how we got here? Isn't that why the rhetoric is so elevated? Also, this makes me wonder whether some on the far left will feel betrayed by Jon Stewart, just as some have felt betrayed by President Obama. If so I would cheer that event, just as I cheered the disappointment felt by the religious right in President Bush. As with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc, when the screams get louder you know you must be doing something right.

Why?

A couple of the better AmHist books I've read over the last few years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Brothers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776_%28book%29 Infamous Scribblers by Eric Burns was also good: http://www.amazon.com/Infamous-Scribblers-Founding-Beginnings-Journalism/dp/B00127UJSI/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3