I'm no economy expert but, Why do conservatives shoot themselves in the fiscal foot

[nightscanner59]

to save a few tax dollars when they make far more by paying more employees and encouraging their fellow enriched ilk to do so. The employed buy more products... free market progressiveness profits all concerned, expands tax base... conservatism chokes the one's they want to pay their taxes instead, works for the moment but in the long run (which we are experiencing) breaks down the whole system, plundering the market by which they sell, especially as in-lockstep as conservatives are at this ultimately self destructive combo lately. It seems a perfectly vicious cycle that makes no sense.
The likes of the Koch's have forgotten that the silver spoon they were raised on wasn't sent by their god but by the backs of the workers, the lives and economy of the workforce and their very empire would fall if they continue to choke that to death? A few rich men exchanging exorbitant funds does not an economy make when they are becoming the only ones left to afford products.
Hiding funds in the cayman's and such instead of expansion is even more ultimately destructive to the economy. I don't think this rampant conservatism fueled the great economic expansion post WWII that made their wealth possible, didn't the same conservatism equation result in the great depression? Have they learned nothing from history?
Skinner-box researchers in the 1950's had two monkeys side by side in cages. One had the lever system that dispensed food at specified intervals. In this set-up, the monkey who pressed the lever shared the food with his neighbor. Then the experiment changed, the lever dispensed tokens which could be put into the chimp-o-mat for food. The lever cage monkeys hoarded the tokens, ignored the pleas of their starving to death neighbor...
Why do the rich conservatives do this? Do they feel more powerful sitting over what they've collectively plundered? Or does it stem from some unreasonable, innate fear on their part they might run out of money like aforementioned monkeys? Somewhere, sometime along their family lines, someone worked their way up by means of a thriving economy. They most certainly aren't, never have, and never will be "taxed out of business" like they like to broadcast. They most certainly aren't the "job creators" they claim to be by the policies they support and massive layoffs.
My ultimate question to Charles and David Koch--
How do you want history to remember you? As those who broke the USA over petty squabbles or those who saved the economy?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002826118

[Scootaloo]

1. Because they are simple fucking creatures

Basically, they see money NOW, but not money LATER... even if later would produce a bigger return than now. They are offended by the notion of "their money" being paid in taxes, but can' seem to figure out that higher wages for employees would not only bring more profit, it would probably end up reducing taxes (more prosperity = less people on the dole.)

Whether it's inherent stupidity, or just that htey've been trained this way, I can't say for certain... But I lean towards the latter, because they worship the brass balls of that bull on wall street, and as far as capitalism is considered, this mentality isn't a bug, it's a feature.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. It seems to me that the conservatives who make those decisions aren't using traditional

theories of the free market and capitalism. In other words, their logic dictates that a few individuals or a small group of individuals deserve to possess an inordinate amount of wealth at the expense of the economy. After all, they still have their assets if there's a national or global economic collapse. They just don't care about the rest of society, making them them sociopaths with money.

[rock]

3. Repiggies

are well named.

[Fuddnik]

4. Because they're selfish assholes.

[Warpy]

5. They're all prisoners of their silly, backwards dogma

that says economies run from the top down.

Look at Hoover, he knew what the problems were and, unlike today's Republicans, he wasn't that bad a guy. He was simply locked in to his party's dogma and spent his time trying to convince plutocrats to hand jobs out like welfare checks, even though they had no place to sell the goods and services those jobs would produce. The plutocrats saw this as bad business and of course they refused. The demand has to be there first.

Today's Republicans are even more locked into that mindset than Hoover was and they are utterly incapable of admitting that some of their policies have failed so miserably. Like Hoover, they'll just continue rolling along like they always have, begging the nice billionaires for jobs and allowing this recession to keep deepening.

This combination of being locked into fantasy economics and spitefulness in refusing to admit they have made any mistakes is why they invariably crash the economy when they get into power for too long.

I don't know what it will take to reach that tipping point when the public finally realizes that party is intellectually, morally, and fiscally bankrupt and abandon it in droves. Bush almost did it. Maybe it really will take another one of them in office to accomplish it.

[Shagman]

6. All good points but

I would add magical thinking to the list. We've tried trickle-down economics 20 times now, and it doesn't work. They think, just one more time, this time it will really really work. Well, it won't. That's one definition of insanity.

[Viva_Daddy]

7. Or a serious gambling addiction.

"They think, just one more time, this time it will really really work. Well, it won't. That's one definition of insanity."