The Success of Reaganomics

[Jroc]

"middle class shrank"...Maybe a lot of them moved up.

Yup, and maybe a lot of the foreclosures, layoffs, and pay cuts will only lead to gated communities, right?

Are you another one of those $45K/yr droolers fighting to protect the millions and millions you're sure to earn someday, somehow, in some way? You take a bite on that one, pilgrim?

Nah.. I'm setting back waiting for the government to make everybody as equally miserable as you.

 

[JohnnyApplesack]

Nah.. I'm setting back waiting for the government to make everybody as equally miserable as you.

If money didn't stop my misery, why would it stop yours?

No doubt I pay more federal taxes alone than you gross.

 

[Jroc]

I'm for crucifying the rich on their cross of gold

Is that going to make you're life any better?

"The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

"By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans hope to deflect attention from the big story.

Wrong conservatives want everybody to have a chance to be wealthy.

"That’s the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.

Please explain why the richest 1% deserve a greater share of American wealth?

Maybe they earned it there in not a limit to the wealth that can be created, exept in a socialist ,communist, marxist system.

 

[Jroc]

Nah.. I'm setting back waiting for the government to make everybody as equally miserable as you.

If money didn't stop my misery, why would it stop yours?

No doubt I pay more federal taxes alone than you gross.

Good.. I'm happy for you, but you can always pay more if you want. The problem with liberals is they want to take your money, and spend it for you. I choose to spend my money myself thank you.

 

[georgephillip]

I'm for crucifying the rich on their cross of gold

Is that going to make you're life any better?

"The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

"By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans hope to deflect attention from the big story.

Wrong conservatives want everybody to have a chance to be wealthy.

"That’s the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.

Please explain why the richest 1% deserve a greater share of American wealth?

Maybe they earned it there in not a limit to the wealth that can be created, exept in a socialist ,communist, marxist system.

The rich nailed humanity to a cross of gold thousands of years ago. Probably about the time the first private fortunes appeared.
Ending that terror would make everyone's life better.
Except the rich (and those who want to become rich)

Some conservatives may want everybody to have an equal opportunity to obtain wealth but that doesn't mean all conservatives do.

Cutting thousands of public school teacher jobs across the country at the same time billionaires continue paying taxes at 15% proves some conservative are happy to deny others a middle class existence, much less a life of wealth.

Why do you think the richest 1% earned about 11.6% of total US income in 1983 and take home over 20% today?

Did their earnings depend on bribing Republicans AND Democrats to write tax policies that shifted a large percentage of the tax burden off FIRE incomes and onto labor and small businesses?

There is a finite limit on national income each year.

Why have the rich increased their share during the last two years when millions of workers have lost their jobs and houses?

Do you sense a connection?

 

[uscitizen]

there in not a limit to the wealth that can be created


LMAO, you used to work for Enron?

 

[Dot Com]

Are you another one of those $45K/yr droolers fighting to protect the millions and millions you're sure to earn someday, somehow, in some way? You take a bite on that one, pilgrim?

More than a few conservatives, that I've encountered on other boards, are cheerleaders for the top 1% AS IF they will get there one day too. The wage gap has been increasing, and exponentially so, but the ideologues defend their resultant diminished purchasing power on principle. They don't seem to realize that theres "rich" and then theres "Koch Bros rich".

 

[Jroc]

I'm for crucifying the rich on their cross of gold

Is that going to make you're life any better?



Wrong conservatives want everybody to have a chance to be wealthy.

"That’s the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.

Please explain why the richest 1% deserve a greater share of American wealth?

Maybe they earned it there in not a limit to the wealth that can be created, exept in a socialist ,communist, marxist system.

The rich nailed humanity to a cross of gold thousands of years ago. Probably about the time the first private fortunes appeared.
Ending that terror would make everyone's life better.
Except the rich (and those who want to become rich)

Some conservatives may want everybody to have an equal opportunity to obtain wealth but that doesn't mean all conservatives do.

Cutting thousands of public school teacher jobs across the country at the same time billionaires continue paying taxes at 15% proves some conservative are happy to deny others a middle class existence, much less a life of wealth.

Why do you think the richest 1% earned about 11.6% of total US income in 1983 and take home over 20% today?

Did their earnings depend on bribing Republicans AND Democrats to write tax policies that shifted a large percentage of the tax burden off FIRE incomes and onto labor and small businesses?

There is a finite limit on national income each year.

Why have the rich increased their share during the last two years when millions of workers have lost their jobs and houses?

Do you sense a connection?

Look Georgie.. The problem with you is, you don't like your life, and you want to find someone or something to blame for your misery. A wealthy person as no affect on your life, a wealthy person becoming less wealthy is not going to make your life better, You can only improve it yourself, and setting back angry and complaining is not going to do anything but make you more miserable

 

[Dot Com]

A republic cannot survive w/o a middle class.
The ‘mind-blowing’ surge of wealth inequality in America - Sahil Kapur - Washington Microscope - True/Slant

Apr. 9 2010
The ‘mind-blowing’ surge of wealth inequality in America

FDR’s Fed chairman Marriner S. Eccles explained in kitchen-table discourse why this matter is so damaging to the national economy: “As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped,” he said.

 

[georgephillip]

"Tax Wealth As Much As Work
June 11th, 2008

"Eliminate the Tax Preference for Income from Corporate Stock Dividends and Capital Gains

"Revenue: Estimated $100 billion a year

"Our proposal is that all income – wages, corporate stock dividends or capital gains –be taxed with the same graduated rates that exist for ordinary earned income. Lower income earners would pay at low rates and higher income earners would pay at higher rates.

"This would greatly simply the federal tax system and generate an estimated $100 billion a year."

Working Group...

 

[uscitizen]

ALL personal income should be the same as far as personal income tax is concerned..
You do not want to pay taxes on capital gains? Reinvest it.
Take the cash and pay the taxes.

 

[gekaap]

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any reason to not favor such a plan, or at least its basic concept. There are probably some things that should be exempt under such a system. I'm not a fan of double taxing the same dollars, so things like dividends on stock options bought outright (not provided as part of a compensation package for work) are one thing I think should not be taxable. But definitely the concept has a good sound to me.

 

[uscitizen]

Why exempt dividends? they are income aren't they?

 

[Dot Com]

Why exempt dividends? they are income aren't they?

For the REALLY wealthy, that makes up a considerable amt of their income no? Their defenders claim that their dividend pay-outs are a result of *cough* "work" :-D Since when is hiring a broker considered work?

 

[uscitizen]

I sort of lean towards having a higher tax rate on non wage income since you did not really have to work for it.
But would gladly settle for ALL personal income being taxed the same way.

that is all personal income you have not previously paid tax on.
ie SS benefits until you draw out more than you paid in.

 

[JohnnyApplesack]

Why do the middle-to-lower-middle class right wingers you see here and elsewhere fight so hard for their masters?

Stockholm Syndrome?

Low IQ?

Naive beyond comprehension?

Stupid as Glenn Beck?

 

[Dot Com]

Why do the middle-to-lower-middle class right wingers you see here and elsewhere fight so hard for their masters?

Stockholm Syndrome?

Low IQ?

Naive beyond comprehension?

Stupid as Glenn Beck?

Thats the $64,000 Question. Their reps just throw RW social issues (red meat) their way every now and then like gay marriage & flag burning. It keeps them from thinking about their declining, real income.

 

[JohnnyApplesack]

Thats the $64,000 Question. Their reps just throw RW social issues (red meat) their way every now and then like gay marriage & flag burning. It keeps them from thinking about their declining, real income.

That question I posed keeps JUMPING out at me every time I read one of their rw talking-point-du-jour posts, hot off the Limbo or Blechh show. Like an army of little digital voice playback machines they chirp in harmony, perfect pitch. Always the same slogans/red herrings/straw man arguments. This same variety of right wing zealotry has been going on for freakin ever, but the internet, AM hate radio and a dedicated 100% whack network like Fixed News......the reactionary screed is amplified beyond the usual historic levels.

But it's a two-edged sword - like we're starting to see with the Cairo Effect. It could very well come right back to haunt these Teahadis with a tremendous backlash. The people might just wake up, and this latest silly hissy fit will be over once again, for now.

 

[Jroc]

Thats the $64,000 Question. Their reps just throw RW social issues (red meat) their way every now and then like gay marriage & flag burning. It keeps them from thinking about their declining, real income.

That question I posed keeps JUMPING out at me every time I read one of their rw talking-point-du-jour posts, hot off the Limbo or Blechh show. Like an army of little digital voice playback machines they chirp in harmony, perfect pitch. Always the same slogans/red herrings/straw man arguments. This same variety of right wing zealotry has been going on for freakin ever, but the internet, AM hate radio and a dedicated 100% whack network like Fixed News......the reactionary screed is amplified beyond the usual historic levels.

But it's a two-edged sword - like we're starting to see with the Cairo Effect. It could very well come right back to haunt these Teahadis with a tremendous backlash. The people might just wake up, and this latest silly hissy fit will be over once again, for now.

thats so sweet two little left wingers praising each other's stupidity....how touching.

 

[Londoner]

Net worth of families earning between $20,000 and $50,000 annually grew by 27%

The numbers being circulated by the Reagan Legacy Project have been roundly discredited, most notably by Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman.

The middle 20% didn't see a 27% rise. Between '83-'89 their net worth grew only 7%, from 55,000 to 58,800**

The real winners were the top half, whose net worth grew from 7.2 to 9.1 million = 26.9%. [The Reagan Legacy Project is famous for applying their gains to the middle 20 percent]

**The growth of the Reagan years is illusory on many levels. First, Reagan created historic deficits, in part because of highly questionable weapons contracts for things like Star Wars, but also because he was creating an uber-Pentagon to centrally manage global markets. He increased the federal workforce over Carter, who was socially, militarily, and fiscally more conservative. He never cut spending to match his historic revenue shortfall. Reagan made Government more expensive for future Americans. Because so much money became concentrated in so few hands, citizens and government under Reagan began to over-rely on debt. Indeed, under Reagan, America went from creditor to debtor nation. Reagan was the original Big Government Conservative. He was the first modern president to abandon pay as you go. Reagan's followers have brilliantly hid is economic record so they can continue his disastrous policies (which merely concentrates political and financial power around a small group of interests).

Lastly, the Reagan years are problematic because they reflect a time during which America was misallocating resources with artificially cheap oil, building massive energy sucking suburbs, big box stores, SUV's, and McMansions. These things would prove to be our death when the age of cheap oil ended and gas went north of 3$. Reagan convinced America to over-rely on cheap oil, and he hid the military cost of stabilizing the middle east off budget, in emergency spending measures. One of his aids famously quipped (and was fired): "if Americans knew what they were really spending on oil, the Carter alternative energy movement would be back tomorrow". Reagan and Big Oil crushed energy competition through every manner of market and political manipulation.

Reagan's policies began the trend of moving American manufacturing to Asian sweatshops for the purpose of giving capital a higher return. This had the effect of making one group wealthy, while another group lost solid jobs and thus required more and more debt to drive consumption. Reagan also deregulated finance, leading to the era of mergers and acquisitions. [Surely you remember the merger mania of the 80s] This created "too big to fail monopolies" whose very size gave them bailout insurance. Their leverage over the economy not only allowed them to buy Washington, but they had no incentive to curb risk. You can't get monsters like AIG (who burned trillions of taxpayer dollars in a derivative ponzi scheme) without the Reagan Revolution which completely ignored the Sherman Act and anti-trust regulation.

America swallowed poison in 1980.