A Must read

[Skull Pilot]

The Obama Rosetta Stone

The Obama Rosetta Stone - WSJ.com

Barack Obama has written two famous, widely read books of autobiography -- "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope." Let me introduce his third, a book that will touch everyone's life: "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise. The President's Budget and Fiscal Preview" (Government Printing Office, 141 pages, $26; free on the Web). This is the U.S. budget for laymen, and it's a must read.

Turn immediately to page 11. There sits a chart called Figure 9. This is the Rosetta Stone to the presidential mind of Barack Obama. Memorize Figure 9, and you will never be confused. Not happy, perhaps, but not confused.

One finds many charts in a federal budget, most attributed to such deep mines of data as the Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The one on page 11 is attributed to "Piketty and Saez."

Either you know instantly what "Piketty and Saez" means, or you don't. If you do, you spent the past two years working to get Barack Obama into the White House. If you don't, their posse has a six-week head start on you.

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, French economists, are rock stars of the intellectual left. Their specialty is "earnings inequality" and "wealth concentration."

Messrs. Piketty and Saez have produced the most politically potent squiggle along an axis since Arthur Laffer drew his famous curve on a napkin in the mid-1970s. Laffer's was an economic argument for lowering tax rates for everyone. Piketty-Saez is a moral argument for raising taxes on the rich.

A "moral" argument. tell me is it "moral" to confiscate one's property when that property was not acquired through illegal means?

As described in Mr. Obama's budget, these two economists have shown that by the end of 2004, the top 1% of taxpayers "took home" more than 22% of total national income. This trend, Fig. 9 notes, began during the Reagan presidency, skyrocketed through the Clinton years, dipped after George Bush beat Al Gore, then marched upward. Widening its own definition of money-grubbers, the budget says the top 10% of households "held" 70% of total wealth.

Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute criticized the Piketty-Saez study on these pages in October 2007. Whatever its merits, their "Top 1%" chart has become a totemic obsession in progressive policy circles.

Turn to page five of Mr. Obama's federal budget, and one may read these commentaries on the top 1% datum:

"While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not.

"

I would like some sort of evidence that every single "evil" rich person did not play by the rules or did not live up to their responsibilities.

It seems Obama thinks that the responsibility of the rich is to pay for everything he wants.

"Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected."

"There's nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few. . . . It's a legacy of irresponsibility, and it is our duty to change it."

No prudent investment in these things were ignored by self aggrandizing politicians more concerned with getting reelected and securing their "legacies" than in doing the right thing.

Mr. Obama made clear in the campaign his intention to raise taxes on this income class by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. What is becoming clearer as his presidency unfolds is that something deeper is underway here than merely using higher taxes to fund his policy goals in health, education and energy.

The "top 1%" isn't just going to pay for these policies. Many of them would assent to that. The rancorous language used to describe these taxpayers makes it clear that as a matter of public policy they will be made to "pay for" the fact of their wealth -- no matter how many of them worked honestly and honorably to produce it. No Democratic president in 60 years has been this explicit.

when the president said "it's time to do away with childish things" in his inaugural address, he obviously didn't include childish jealousies or class based vindictiveness.

Complaints have emerged recently, on the right and left, that the $787 billion stimulus bill will produce less growth and jobs than planned because too much of it goes to social programs and transfer payments, or "weak" Keynesian stimulus. The administration's Romer-Bernstein study on the stimulus estimated by the end of next year it would increase jobs by 3.6 million and GDP by 3.7%.

That's just hilarious. And when those estiamtes prove to be wrong, what will the president do?

You guessed it.....raise taxes and not just on the "rich".

One of the first technical examinations of the Romer-Bernstein projections has been released by Hoover Institution economists John Cogan and John Taylor, and German economists Tobias Cwik and Volker Wieland. They conclude that the growth and jobs stimulus will be only one-sixth what the administration predicts. In part, this is because people anticipate that the spending burst will have to be financed by higher taxes and so will spend less than anticipated.

Gee isn't that what I've been saying all along?

New York's Mike Bloomberg, mayor of an economically damaged city, has noted the pointlessness of raising taxes on the rich when their wealth is plummeting, or of eliminating the charitable deduction for people who have less to give anyway.

True but irrelevant. Mayor Bloomberg should read the Obama budget chapter, "Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities." The economy as most people understand it was a second-order concern of the stimulus strategy. The primary goal is a massive re-flowing of "wealth" from the top toward the bottom, to stop the moral failure they see in the budget's "Top One Percent of Earners" chart.

The White House says its goal is simple "fairness." That may be, as they understand fairness. But Figure 9 makes it clear that for the top earners, there will be blood. This presidency is going to be an act of retribution. In the words of the third book from Mr. Obama, "it is our duty to change it."

In other words, Obama's ultimate goal is to tell you how much you should be able to earn.

 

[editec]

I would like some sort of evidence that every single "evil" rich person did not play by the rules or did not live up to their responsibilities.

It seems Obama thinks that the responsibility of the rich is to pay for everything he wants.

God you can be such a fucking tool sometimes, Skull.

I hope the superrich are paying you very well for the asskissing you just gave them.

 

[Skull Pilot]

I would like some sort of evidence that every single "evil" rich person did not play by the rules or did not live up to their responsibilities.

It seems Obama thinks that the responsibility of the rich is to pay for everything he wants.

God you can be such a fucking tool sometimes, Skull.

I hope the superrich are paying you very well for the asskissing you just gave them.

So in your opinion, every single "super evil, super rich" person somehow broke the law and shirked his responsibilities to acquire his wealth?

 

[cunclusion]

Skull the rich most of the time have so many ways of getting out of paying taxes most of the time they dont even pay the 30+ percent they are suppose to. So why are you whining about it.

 

[editec]

I would like some sort of evidence that every single "evil" rich person did not play by the rules or did not live up to their responsibilities.

It seems Obama thinks that the responsibility of the rich is to pay for everything he wants.

God you can be such a fucking tool sometimes, Skull.

I hope the superrich are paying you very well for the asskissing you just gave them.

So in your opinion, every single "super evil, super rich" person somehow broke the law and shirked his responsibilities to acquire his wealth?

So in your opinion no super rich people had anything to do with that complaint?

 

[auditor0007]

Skull the rich most of the time have so many ways of getting out of paying taxes most of the time they dont even pay the 30+ percent they are suppose to. So why are you whining about it.

That's why we should have a flat tax on all income with only a few basic deductions, the mortgage interest deduction not being one of them.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Skull the rich most of the time have so many ways of getting out of paying taxes most of the time they dont even pay the 30+ percent they are suppose to. So why are you whining about it.

You are obtuse.

Did you miss the part where taxing the evil rich won't bring in the revenue needed for Obama's vision?

If you think you won't be paying higher taxes, you, sir, are an idiot.

 

[Skull Pilot]

God you can be such a fucking tool sometimes, Skull.

I hope the superrich are paying you very well for the asskissing you just gave them.

So in your opinion, every single "super evil, super rich" person somehow broke the law and shirked his responsibilities to acquire his wealth?

So in your opinion no super rich people had anything to do with that complaint?

Just as many "good" poor people broke the law and shirked their responsibilities as those "Bad" rich people did.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The Obama Rosetta Stone

The Obama Rosetta Stone - WSJ.com

One finds many charts in a federal budget, most attributed to such deep mines of data as the Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The one on page 11 is attributed to "Piketty and Saez."

Either you know instantly what "Piketty and Saez" means, or you don't. If you do, you spent the past two years working to get Barack Obama into the White House. If you don't, their posse has a six-week head start on you.

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, French economists, are rock stars of the intellectual left. Their specialty is "earnings inequality" and "wealth concentration."

Thanks for an educational heads-up.

when the president said "it's time to do away with childish things" in his inaugural address, he obviously didn't include childish jealousies or class based vindictiveness.

That's just hilarious. And when those estiamtes prove to be wrong, what will the president do?

A major problem is that we do not have an objective investigative news media to bring same to light, and to hold his feet to the fire. Who was it that sheparded the herd into voting for this thin-resumed, hardly-experienced left-winger?

You guessed it.....raise taxes and not just on the "rich".

New York's Mike Bloomberg, mayor of an economically damaged city, has noted the pointlessness of raising taxes on the rich when their wealth is plummeting, or of eliminating the charitable deduction for people who have less to give anyway.

True but irrelevant. Mayor Bloomberg should read the Obama budget chapter, "Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities." The economy as most people understand it was a second-order concern of the stimulus strategy. The primary goal is a massive re-flowing of "wealth" from the top toward the bottom, to stop the moral failure they see in the budget's "Top One Percent of Earners" chart.

The White House says its goal is simple "fairness." That may be, as they understand fairness. But Figure 9 makes it clear that for the top earners, there will be blood. This presidency is going to be an act of retribution. In the words of the third book from Mr. Obama, "it is our duty to change it."

So when the Captains of the Democrat Party march up to the WH and say "enough," as did the GOP Captains with Nixon? Or do they prove that power to the party surpasses benefit to the country?


Four More Years.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Skull the rich most of the time have so many ways of getting out of paying taxes most of the time they dont even pay the 30+ percent they are suppose to. So why are you whining about it.

The top 1% of earners make 22% of the wealth, but pay 40% of the taxes. In fact, it was 36% before President Bush's tax cuts. Our tax system is progressive.

 

[Old Rocks]

A simple point here. At a time when we had the greatest gap in wealth between the very wealthy and everybody else, we had the First Great Republican Depression. Except we exceeded that gap in 2008. And where are we right now? On the edge of the Second Great Republican Depression.

 

[driveby]

Did any of you "the rich are evil" clowns ever stop to think that the poor and middle class avoid paying taxes too ? I can't tell you how many small businesses and sub contractors i know of that have went without paying ANY taxes at all, for years.

 

[driveby]

A simple point here. At a time when we had the greatest gap in wealth between the very wealthy and everybody else, we had the First Great Republican Depression. Except we exceeded that gap in 2008. And where are we right now? On the edge of the Second Great Republican Depression.

Too many lazy fucks thta don't want to earn their way up in this generation and Obama continuing to try and enable these losers is part of what's causing this Democrat Depression......

 

[Annie]

A simple point here. At a time when we had the greatest gap in wealth between the very wealthy and everybody else, we had the First Great Republican Depression. Except we exceeded that gap in 2008. And where are we right now? On the edge of the Second Great Republican Depression.

A simpler point here. How has 'everyone else' done as far as what their standard of living is? Are the 'poor' in 2009 substantially better off than 'the poor' of 1975? Addressing issues like housing, food, ability to access health care, buy incidentals?

 

[Old Rocks]

A simple point here. At a time when we had the greatest gap in wealth between the very wealthy and everybody else, we had the First Great Republican Depression. Except we exceeded that gap in 2008. And where are we right now? On the edge of the Second Great Republican Depression.

A simpler point here. How has 'everyone else' done as far as what their standard of living is? Are the 'poor' in 2009 substantially better off than 'the poor' of 1975? Addressing issues like housing, food, ability to access health care, buy incidentals?

How many people were dropping from being homeowners in 1975 to being homeless and living in a car? What was the foreclosure rate in 1975? How about the unemployment rate? What was the health of our major business enterprises compared to what it is today?

Annie, we were not on the edge of a precipace dropping into the Second Great Republican Depression in 1975. Thing did not immediatly get terrible in 1929 and 1930. We have not yet finished the first quarter of 2009. The Monday Meltdown of 2008 is still hanging over us.