How the rich soaked the rest of us

[Octafish]

No room for Trickle Down.

How the rich soaked the rest of us

The astonishing story of the last few decades is a massive redistribution of wealth, as the rich have shifted the tax burden

EXCERPT...

Instead, a rather vicious cycle has been at work for years. Reduced taxes on the rich leave them with more money to influence politicians and politics. Their influence wins them further tax reductions, which gives them still more money to put to political use. When the loss of tax revenue from the rich worsens already strained government budgets, the rich press politicians to cut public services and government jobs and not even debate a return to the higher taxes the rich used to pay. So it goes – from Washington, to Wisconsin, to New York City.

SNIP...

Several examples show this. First, a good part of the money the rich save from taxes is then lent by them to the government (in the form of buying US Treasury securities for their personal investment portfolios). It would obviously be better for the government to tax the rich to maintain its expenditures, and thereby avoid deficits and debts. Then the government would not need to tax the rest of us to pay interest on those debts to the rich.

Second, the richest Americans take the money they save from taxes and invest big parts of it in China, India and elsewhere. That often produces more jobs over there, fewer jobs here, and more imports of goods produced abroad. US dollars flow out to pay for those imports and so accumulate in the hands of foreign banks and foreign governments. They, in turn, lend from that wealth to the US government because it does not tax our rich, and so we get taxed to pay for the interest Washington has to give those foreign banks and governments. The largest single recipient of such interest payments today is the People's Republic of China.

Third, the richest Americans take the money they don't pay in taxes and invest it in hedge funds and with stockbrokers to make profitable investments. These days, that often means speculating in oil and food, which drives up their prices, undermines economic recovery for the mass of Americans, and produces acute suffering around the globe. Those hedge funds and brokers likewise use part of the money rich people save from taxes to speculate in the US stock markets. That has recently driven stock prices higher: hence, the stock market recovery. And that mostly helps – you guessed it – the richest Americans who own most of the stocks.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/01/us-taxation-public-finance

I'm old. I remember when the rich didn't own the Government of the United States, We the People did.

[ReggieVeggie]

1. K&R

[Octafish]

3. Good charts in there, too.

Relative increases in net household incomes of Americans from 1979 to 2005

Thanks for giving a damn, ReggieVeggie. Amazing, what news Corporate McPravda misses.

[ReggieVeggie]

5. what kills me is how this ever-increasing gap matters so little to so many

Many, many people within the middle-class still believe that if they just work harder and are more productive and hunker down and stay the course, they'll make their millions and be rich and be powerful. They don't realize that there's an ever-decreasing pool of wealth available. They tend toward centrist or right-leaning capitalism and poo-poo pointing out this wealth gap as "instigating class warfare"

[Octafish]

7. Middle America has been duped into believing nonsense.

Most of the wealth created in history -- according to the GOP's very own David Stockman -- has been created in the last 30 years. Who got the lion's share? The top of the top, the winners of the "invisible" class war.

[Faygo Kid]

2. Not enough. They want it all. Seen the Koch lovefest in the NY Times today?

They can spend a fortune on publicists to generate whatever they want. The tilt now means ultimately we have no chance, against junk like this: Cancer Research Before Activism, Koch Brother Says http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/us/05koch.html?hp

Who is he laughing at? Us.

[Octafish]

6. Survival of the richest.

Thank you for the heads-up, FaygoKid. Monstrous.

Remember Steve Kangas? He died outside the offices of Richard Mellon ("Arkansas Project") Scaife, another fine well-to-do fellah.

To help spell out how the modern "system" works, Kangas (the "Liberal Resurgent") wrote:

The Origins of the Overclass

[Overseas]

11. Excellent article.

Full of details I have forgotten, in trying to hope things could be different, or that more significant change was possible.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. I remember walking to the Esso station in our home town with my grandpas

gas can and getting gas for 23 cents a gallon for his lawnmower so I could "have some fun".

[Octafish]

9. Gas was $3.69 per gallon yesterday in Detroit.

Thank you for sharing the memory, HysteryDiagnosis. I miss my grandfather, too.

Thanks also for reminding me about petroleum, the largest single factor in the global economy -- more than what all the governments of all the nations spend each year. Now THAT's power. For the rich, of course.

[woo me with science]

8. `THIS has to be a campaign theme--fixing this.

Not just generalized recovery that isn't trickling down. People have to realize that someone, anyone, understands what has happened and is still happening to them.

[Octafish]

17. We the People need a Free Press now more than ever in our nation's history.

Agree 100-percent, woo me with science. We the People need what our nation's founders called the "Free Press" and another reason why I am a Kennedy Democrat.

JFK was a real journalist and he respected the Public's right to know

"Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment — the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution — not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply 'give the public what it wants' — but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion." -- President John F. Kennedy, address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association (27 April 1961)

That attitude was the exception to the rulers.

A must-read for those interested in learning more about the real operators of what Americans read, hear, watch and grok: CIA and the Media by Carl "Watergate" Bernstein.

[Overseas]

10. K&R. Excellent excerpting too.

Those are the key reasons.

And I still feel so naive for hoping things would change, especially after the Bush Crash, with millions being evicted from their homes.

"Supply Side" economics had crashed and burned.

That offered my party the chance to become more democratic again. To rebuild our economy through demand side economics again-- helping the majority instead of the favored few.

Cleaning up and rebuilding with immediate massive government action would have been bipartisan enough.

We're not prosecuting, we're healing. The Bush Crash was the emergency that could have justified a beneficial turn in our country.

But instead we got minimal prosecutions and more fevered attempts to keep Supply-Side Rich-First Economics alive.

And lots of elbow room for cruel professional right wing PR to pretend supply side was not at fault. To pretend Republican mismanagement had not crashed and burned us all again.

I was naive not to have realized how compromised the majority of my Democratic legislators had become, needing to play their "bipartisan" games to retain their corporate support. That millions of constituents had less importance than the favored few fighting to increase the quarterly profits of their multinational corporations.

[Octafish]

22. Don't avert the eyes. Plagiarize.

Old J-School motto. Thank you for the kind words. I cannot take credit, just trained to spot the truth.

You are spot-on regarding corruption. Adlai Stevenson II explains what that truly means: "Corruption in public office is treason."

These bedwetting bastards know it would cost them everything were the Truth to become, not only in terms of general knowledge, but general belief. Once Bubba and Mr. Michigan Militia put "2+2 Together." That'w why the crew has gone to no expense. They know if their guard gets to see without the blinders, it's lights out. So, the BFEE and its cronies, supporters and Satanic masters ready for their fight to the bitter end.

"Let them go." Yeah. Right.

Speaking of truth, you know how to put pen to paper, Overseas. Coupled with your good heart, you are a most powerful person, one with Integrity. That is something money can't buy or power can't gain. And that is why these gangsters and banksters and warmongers and traitors run scared.

[blindpig]

12. I think they owned it then too.

They were just more discreet, the memories of the 20's & 30's were fresher.

There's another reason for the onslaught of recent decades, the fall of the Soviet Union and the socialists block. When there was a competing system appearances must be kept up. No reason for that now and the pretense has been dropped. It might be said(not entirely tongue in cheek)that the Red Army defended the American middle class(so called). That event, along with 50 years of union busting and the Red Scare, the latter two being complimentary, brought us to where we are today.

We must put the fear in them, and next time no half measures.

[Starry Messenger]

18. +1000

Well said.

[TBF]

26. Recommend this post. nt

[Octafish]

30. JFK tried to work with Them.

Ignorant greedhead bedwetting warmonger traitors were too dumb or crazed to understand.

So, yes. I'm all for full-effect change.

[blindpig]

31. It's worse than 'dumb or crazed'.

Were that the case we should just try to promote those who are not dumb or crazed. But it is the nature of the capitalist system which promotes the dumb and crazed to positions of authority because they produce the desired results, maximum profits on the quarter. We will always have the dumb and crazed with us to some degree, the trick is to have an economic system where they cannot have power over us and that requires separating them from ownership of the means of production, the source of their power.

[antigop]

13. "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense & Stick You

with the Bill" and

"Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else"

Read David Cay Johnston's books:

Wikipedia:

Johnston is the author of best-selling books on tax and economic policy, the most recently published of which is Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill, about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism. It follows his earlier book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else, a New York Times bestseller<4> on the U.S. tax system that won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2003 Book of the Year award

[SDuderstadt]

14. They are both...

excellent books.

I highly recommend them.

[Poboy]

15. Recommend

[dmosh42]

16. All the presidents since Reagan have sucked up to the rich! n/t

[Kurovski]

19. K&R

I may post this elsewhere.

[moondust]

20. Sociopaths on the loose.

Anything more equitable than slavery is "redistribution of the wealth!!!" Owner takes all!!

[bobthedrummer]

21. K&R

:thumbsup:

[sabrina 1]

23. Read that article yesterday and felt very hopeless

that anything can now be done to stop them. They pretty much own the country now, as people turned a blind eye to what they were doing and there is no sign that any Government Law Enforcement agency is even considering looking into the fraud they perpetrated against the people.

[hfojvt]

24. I remember a time when the bottom 50% made more than the top 1%

that was as recent as 1991

[bvar22]

25. There you go again!

We shouldn't "begrudge them their wealth."
They are just "savvy businessmen."
"Its the Free Market."
Look at all the baseball players!"



Who represents THIS American MAJORITY!


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.
I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans."
---Paul Wellstone


"By their works you will know them."

[midnight]

27. This state of emergency is working out really well for them.

Egypt's state of emergency lasted for 30 years... I wonder how long ours will? The price tag for the shake down is obscene.

[blm]

28. In our country, too. Bush's FEMA guy used 9-11 to enrich all their cronies.

.

[xchrom]

29. kick