Remember the 1950's when the country was running along...

[Scuba]

...like a well-oiled sewing machine? Glad we didn't have those high taxes on the wealthy or business would have been doomed.

http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977623449


<snip>
I received this chart, from The Washington Monthly, in an email this morning. I thought I would pass it along in case you have not seen it.

The media has been obsessing about President Obama's plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans—from 35% to 39.6%.

But I was surprised to learn that the tax rate the wealthiest Americans paid on the top portion of their earnings at the end of Ronald Reagan's first term was much higher -- 50%.

Under Richard Nixon it was 70%, and under Dwight Eisenhower it was actually 91%.
<end snip>

[cali]

1. no. because the fifties was a horrendous time for many. Minorities, women

[TBF]

2. What does that have to do with the tax rates? nt

[Cleita]

3. It was, but does that mean that we had to go

backwards in the things that were running right so minorities and women could make gains? I hope not.

[DBoon]

10. No it means we had to get the economic basics right

before there was the focus and strength necessary to make gains for women and minorities

[virgogal]

5. I was a woman in the fifties. They were hardly horrendous,in fact

I had a great time.

[Cleita]

11. Me too.

The big problem was inequality in the workplace, lower wages, glass ceilings and all, otherwise we were treated pretty well.

[Darth_Kitten]

18. Yeah, just no respect or equality for women. Minor thing, that.

:sarcasm: :(

[Cleita]

21. I got respect. I demanded it. n/t

[lumpy]

14. I didn't think, as a woman in the 50's ,that it was a horrendous time

at all for me. The only resentment, in my personal life, was knowing that I was not paid the same as my male co-workers for doing the same job. I was aware that minority rights were non existent and applauded the coming drive toward accomplishing the goal of equal rights for all. It seems integrity and honesty was more apparent in all facets of US business, political and personal life. In many ways the 50s was a time of smoother sailing and a feeling of security for the average middleclass white family. Can't say that feeling exists anymore for too many.

[raccoon]

20. If a woman in those days had an abusive and/or alcoholic husband, tough luck.

That was how it was with my parents.

[lumpy]

22. Divorce was available for woman in abusive relationships with

full property rights. Many women chose to remain in marriage for religious, social stigma against divorce or financial security. This wasn't exactly 19th century England.

[raccoon]

23. Think again--good luck to her on getting any child support.

It might be AWARDED, but getting it was something else.

I had a close family member who had a helluva time with that in the 1980's.

Also, women didn't get paid squat then--a woman teacher was paid less than a man teacher, simply because she was a woman. Nurses didn't get paid squat, either.

As for child care, a woman was on her own. If she couldn't get her mother or some female relative or neighbor to take care of the kids, she was out of luck.

[lumpy]

25. To this day some people try ducking out of paying required child

support payments, I have known of several cases. True there was no public finded child care available and it is not available to everyone to this day. There were many women who were willing to provide child care for a reasonable fee and many relatives took care of children because there was a willingness to help their own (that still is the case. I am one of those)
My one financial discontent was the fact that I was not paid the same as some of my fellow male workers, and I was a voice against that discrimination. Minorities were the ones who really had something revelutionary to gain through the civil rights movement.
It is rather useless to complain about life in the 50s; in some aspects this country was a lot better off.

[raccoon]

26. I guess everyone speaks from their experience. Yes, in some ways,

things were better, in general; a good economy, inflation so low you didn't notice it, etc.

But a lot of women had a crappy deal, and often they were just stuck with it.

Don't forget illegal abortion and couples "having to" get married.

In some aspects this country was a lot better off; in some ways it wasn't.

[Elwood P Dowd]

7. Imagine how much worse it would have been on them

if we had the tax, trade, and deregulation policies in place back then like we have today.

[lumpy]

15. How true. It has become truly dog-eat-dog. The Republican

agenda for many years has been those things you have mentioned.

[juajen]

12. I didn't find it horrendous. I started high school in 1955 and

enjoyed those years and the ones previous very much. It was the sixties that I had real difficulties.

[Ken Burch]

13. I remember a "women's music" song from the Seventies

that had the line(satirizing the Fifties revival then in fashion) "They're dancing to what oppressed us twenty years ago".

And, of course, it was also the height of the "Red Scare" period and the blacklist(an open attack on not only the rights of Communist Party members but everyone on the Left, and a just barely hidden attack on Jewish and gay Americans).

The OP wasn't endorsing THAT part of the Fifties, though.

[Canuckistanian]

4. Yeah, I've heard that somewhere before

Like in HISTORY class.

Funny how the highest tax rates for the rich coincides with the greatest periods of economic growth.

But hey, the rich can't hire people if they have to give up the second Mercedes or the yacht, can they?

[Scuba]

16. Bingo.

[Marblehead]

6. Higher Corp taxes

means more investments and less hording.

[guruoo]

8. Back when only one income was required to support a family - comfortably nt

[Darth_Kitten]

19. Yeah, and STILL women not treated as fully functioning citizens.

:sarcasm:

[WatsonT]

28. Yep, back when we had a workforce half the size of today

(proportionally) and the entire rest of the industrial world (excepting Canada I guess) was bombed flat.

Comparisons to the 1950s just aren't valid today. The standard of living was far lower, they had fewer luxuries, cheaper insurance but far less health care, and we had really no economic competition.

If half our workforce were required to stay home and American industries were virtually the only ones left then we can talk.

(also no iphones, computers, one car per household, perhaps one television, no air conditioning, etc)

[MannyGoldstein]

9. Total tax rate on the wealthiest down by 2/3, but has doubled on the average worker:

Total federal tax rate, the wealthiest vs. the average worker, 1955-2007:



For more info and references: http://fdrdemocrats.org/the-common-sense-guide-to-social-security/5/

[Vinee]

17. Ike didn't believe in giant military budgets or premptive war either.

[Retrograde]

24. And him a general and all

Seems rather telling, doesn't it? A person with first-hand experience with the military and wars warning about big military.

I was around for most of the fifties. Like all other decades, it had its good points and bad points, but if I had to identify one big difference from now it was the feeling back then of moving forward. Science and technology were visibly advancing (I remember Sputnik, and the American reactions that led to investing in science education), not everyone in the US was treated like a first-class citizen, but that was finally being recognized and people weren't as complacent as they used to be about it, colonialism was starting to go away in Africa and Asia - why, by the end of the century we were going to have all the world's problems solved! Maybe it's because I'm older and more cynical now, but I don't see that hopeful world view anymore.

(The BBC recently released collections of CDs containing radio broadcasts and commentaries from the 40s, 50s and 60s, which show that the more things change the more they remain essentially the same)

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

27. Globalization, increasing foreign education, and communication give corps the freedom to leave.

If you were a major corporation in the '50s thru the '70s (and favored democracy/capitalim) then your only realistic options were America or Western Europe.

With the advancement of globalization, free trade, and modern high tech communication (along with improving foreign education) companies have more choices. Just about anything except domestic service or regional resources can be made overseas. They can simply move their operations off shore to save money because they know consumers (especially American consumers) don't give a shit about where their products come from as long as it's affordable and works well.

In the 50's or 60's, it probably would not have been economically smart to build your Ford cars in Mexico, locate your customer service & logistics in India, and get/make your steel in China.'

Alot of people miss the big point:
In a global economy our LABOR MARKET has to be able to compete with foreign labor markets.
Ever see the value of foreign labor rates?

[MilesColtrane]

29. It's no coincidence that the era of 91% tax rates accompanied the...

biggest expansion of the middle class in our history.

That, and a high rate of union membership....