Markets Plunge Again

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Really? Can you name a floundering economy that was taxed into recovery?

 

[Zoomie1980]

Oh yeah? Warren Buffet bought $5 billion worth of prefered stock of Morgan Stanley when it was trading around $35/share.

MS down - 17.37% today to $18.30.

He's lost billions of dollars. I don't think he's very happy about that either.

I'm sure he doesn't really care that much. His time horizon is years not days...

 

[DavidS]

Really? Can you name a floundering economy that was taxed into recovery?

Yes. The United States Economy in 1993. Bill Clinton raised taxes across the board. Our economy began recovering almost immediately and by 1996 was strong enough to get him re-elected.

Let's compare that to the economy in 2001. Bush cut taxes. Our economy didn't begin to recover from the internet bubble until 2004. Lower taxes hasn't helped us a bit in this horrible economy. John McCain wants to cut capital gains taxes... fabulous when you have DOW 16,000. We have DOW 8,000 and plunging.

It is true that the rich, if they are making the current amount of revenue they are now, will have less money under Obama's tax plan.

BUT under Obama's tax plan, the middle class will pay LESS taxes and therfore have MORE money to spend, thus supplying the rich with more money. The rich make more money and spend more money on taxes... it's a wash and we revert to their bottom line for the past 8 years, all the while the US government is finally making more money to balance its bottom line and putting a floor on the amount of debt we're getting ourselves into.

 

[Zoomie1980]

Yes. The United States Economy in 1993. Bill Clinton raised taxes across the board. Our economy began recovering almost immediately and by 1996 was strong enough to get him re-elected.

Let's compare that to the economy in 2001. Bush cut taxes. Our economy didn't begin to recover from the internet bubble until 2004. Lower taxes hasn't helped us a bit in this horrible economy. John McCain wants to cut capital gains taxes... fabulous when you have DOW 16,000. We have DOW 8,000 and plunging.

It is true that the rich, if they are making the current amount of revenue they are now, will have less money under Obama's tax plan.

BUT under Obama's tax plan, the middle class will pay LESS taxes and therfore have MORE money to spend, thus supplying the rich with more money. The rich make more money and spend more money on taxes... it's a wash and we revert to their bottom line for the past 8 years, all the while the US government is finally making more money to balance its bottom line and putting a floor on the amount of debt we're getting ourselves into.

The tech boom of the 90's would have happened no matter who was President. The 9/11 recession would have happened regardless of who was President. The severe recession of the early 1980's and subsequent 80's growth boom would have happened regardless of who was President. The 1992 recession would have happened regardless of who was President

Presidents have NOTHING to do with the economy. The have no legislative power and the economy is so large that it completely DWARFS the entire federal government. It's like trying to steer an Aircraft Carrier with a bass boat rudder.

 

[editec]

It wasn't designed to 'work'. It was designed to save friends and preserve an economic method.

-Joe

Bingo!

 

[editec]

Really? Can you name a floundering economy that was taxed into recovery?

Germany 1933-1939?

Of course, they had to make some modest changes to their formerly democratic republican social system overall, too, didn't they?

But Germany did go from a completely bankrupted nation with super-hyperinflation to the world's most productive military power in less than a decade.

The thing about our current problem is that it is artifical. Artifical in the sense that all economic systems are basically man-made systems. But we agree to the rules of that system and then we play it out and see how it works.

Thanks to the amazing productivity of capitalism, there is no huge shortage of anything at all that people actually need to live. There are problems of course, but they are hardly insurmoutable

But also thanks to capitalism, there is a huge disparity between how the rewards of capitalism are being divided.

Basically the way we do the accounting to distribute the wealth is a bit out of kilter.

So this problem is manmade.

We have cobbled together a consumer economy, but we have also allowed that system to put so much of the profits of it into the hands of the capital class, that the consumers can't keep the supply demand game going.

We've been here before, remember.

Now, I do NOT have the simple solution to getting from where we currently are to where I think we should be.

Not unless we want to undergo a complete rethink of the economic system extant.

And nobody in power wants that editecian solution, I suspect, because I do not think minor tinkering is going to solve this problem.


I am perfectly content with a capitalist system which allows capitalists to live like kings, just so long as the working class does well, too.

But that is not the system we currently have. We had that and we threw it away so that our superwealthy could be even supier super-wealthy.

Done properly, I think that no system harnesses mankinds productivity as well as capitalism can. I am a firm believer in the basics of the system.

But done inproperly, I think that no system can be more repressive than capitalism, either, and I think that's where we're headed, right now.

Basically unchecked capitalism is a snake that eats its young and old and infirmed first, then it eats itself.

Sadly, we have allowed our economic system to reach a stage where the superwealthy have taken such a lion's share of the game, that there isn't enough offal left behind for the rest of us to scavange enough to keep going.


Those of you somewhere higher up on the social order are going to have to accept the fact that if the foundation upon which your wealth is based (the ability of the system to exploit the labor of those for whom many of you have contempt...the uneducated and people you think of as your inferiors) becomes so rapacious that it kills those little folks who do so much of the work it takes for you to enjoy the benefits of this society, then your advantages will evaporate rather quickly as fewer and fewer of the poor are willing to work themselves to death on your behalf.

You have money in the bank?

Great, it will be worthless of enough workers don't produce value for you to purchase.

Stocks?

Well, you've seen what happens to them, haven't you? Stocks depend on our consumer economy to have value.

Homes? Try to sell them.

But you've got your guns, right?

Pray to Christ it doesn't get so bad that you actually need them. The revolution will not come with flags waving and glorius and noble liberating freedom, the revolution will start out as crimes agains tthe weakest of us first, and as life becomes unbearable for more and more of us, that crime becomes pandemic.

The poor huddled masses for which many of you have abject contempt are not likely go go gently into the night. And when their poverty become YOUR POVERTY, you will not likely go gently into that night, either.

Losers they may be, (or some of you might become) even rats will attack when they are cornered.

some of you want Libertopia?

You might very well get that if we don't solve the surrent economic mess.

I syuspect few of you will really like it as much as you think you will.

Reality is not a social science fiction.

Robert A Heinlien was wrong.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Germany 1933-1939?

Of course, they had to make some modest changes to their formerly democratic republican social system overall, too, didn't they?

But Germany did go from a completely bankrupted nation with super-hyperinflation to the world's most productive military power in less than a decade.

The thing about our current problem is that it is artifical. Artifical in the sense that all economic systems are basically man-made systems. But we agree to the rules of that system and then we play it out and see how it works.

Thanks to the amazing productivity of capitalism, there is no huge shortage of anything at all that people actually need to live. There are problems of course, but they are hardly insurmoutable

But also thanks to capitalism, there is a huge disparity between how the rewards of capitalism are being divided.

Basically the way we do the accounting to distribute the wealth is a bit out of kilter.

So this problem is manmade.

We have cobbled together a consumer economy, but we have also allowed that system to put so much of the profits of it into the hands of the capital class, that the consumers can't keep the supply demand game going.

We've been here before, remember.

Now, I do NOT have the simple solution to getting from where we currently are to where I think we should be.

Not unless we want to undergo a complete rethink of the economic system extant.

And nobody in power wants that editecian solution, I suspect, because I do not think minor tinkering is going to solve this problem.


I am perfectly content with a capitalist system which allows capitalists to live like kings, just so long as the working class does well, too.

But that is not the system we currently have. We had that and we threw it away so that our superwealthy could be even supier super-wealthy.

Done properly, I think that no system harnesses mankinds productivity as well as capitalism can. I am a firm believer in the basics of the system.

But done inproperly, I think that no system can be more repressive than capitalism, either, and I think that's where we're headed, right now.

Basically unchecked capitalism is a snake that eats its young and old and infirmed first, then it eats itself.

Sadly, we have allowed our economic system to reach a stage where the superwealthy have taken such a lion's share of the game, that there isn't enough offal left behind for the rest of us to scavange enough to keep going.


Those of you somewhere higher up on the social order are going to have to accept the fact that if the foundation upon which your wealth is based (the ability of the system to exploit the labor of those for whom many of you have contempt...the uneducated and people you think of as your inferiors) becomes so rapacious that it kills those little folks who do so much of the work it takes for you to enjoy the benefits of this society, then your advantages will evaporate rather quickly as fewer and fewer of the poor are willing to work themselves to death on your behalf.

You have money in the bank?

Great, it will be worthless of enough workers don't produce value for you to purchase.

Stocks?

Well, you've seen what happens to them, haven't you? Stocks depend on our consumer economy to have value.

Homes? Try to sell them.

But you've got your guns, right?

Pray to Christ it doesn't get so bad that you actually need them. The revolution will not come with flags waving and glorius and noble liberating freedom, the revolution will start out as crimes agains tthe weakest of us first, and as life becomes unbearable for more and more of us, that crime becomes pandemic.

The poor huddled masses for which many of you have abject contempt are not likely go go gently into the night. And when their poverty become YOUR POVERTY, you will not likely go gently into that night, either.

Losers they may be, (or some of you might become) even rats will attack when they are cornered.

some of you want Libertopia?

You might very well get that if we don't solve the surrent economic mess.

I syuspect few of you will really like it as much as you think you will.

Reality is not a social science fiction.

Robert A Heinlien was wrong.

The answers lie in fair taxes and relevant public education.

These are the two things that the investor class been trying to thwart for the last 75 years...

Unfair taxes that favor the wealthy have been nicely taken care of by the republicans on the payroll...

Non-relevant Public Education and the dumbing down of America has been handled by the liberal democrats they own...

When We, The People demand fair taxes for both living in and doing business in America and when We, The People demand relevant education, as an entitlement, that is presented as and received as a gift from The People, we will be back on the right road - until then, we are treading water at best.

-Joe