Simple questions - never answered.

[CurveLight]

1. Cut capital gains to 5%.

2. No corporate income tax for the first 5 years of any new business

Effect: GDP doubles in 5 years

In 5 years the business can close and re-open a new biz and never have to pay the taxes. Great plan!

 

[blu]

the 5 year idea would never work. people would just start up new businesses and transfer things around

 

[The Rabbi]

Yes, clearly the Stimulus was a failure and because it was too small...$850B is ******* peanuts!

We needed a Stimulus of um, er, scientifically speaking, um using round numbers, um $5 Trillion. Yeah, that seems right, $5 Trillion of Stimulus an we could have kept unemployment to 9% ...I'm sure of it

The house Frank, fix the roof or let nature take its course? No idiotgram or hyperbolic response is acceptable.

Republican answer: Patch the roof for right now. Save money for new roof by skipping shopping trips.
Democratic Answer: Viva Las Vegas!!

 

[The Rabbi]

1. Cut capital gains to 5%.

2. No corporate income tax for the first 5 years of any new business

Effect: GDP doubles in 5 years

In 5 years the business can close and re-open a new biz and never have to pay the taxes. Great plan!

You've obviously never worked in a business. I mean as something other than "fluffer".

 

[JBeukema]

I'm sure a slumlord can tell us all about business...

 

[The Rabbi]

I'm sure a slumlord can tell us all about business...

Ahh, did I hurt your little feelings?

Get over it.

 

[Bern80]

Honestly, have you ever read the fine print on a credit card application/letter changing the rules? I haven't, but we use a credit card for nearly all purchases, and pay it off each month. In this way we get a nice cash back check from Discover and AEX; now our credit union visa is doing the same.
However, my kids when in college before the meltdown used to get offers for credit cards several times a month, or more often.

If your paying off your credit card each month, as a responsible user of a credit card, is there much in that small print that's really going to affect you? And even if you don't what right do have to bail on the implicit agreement we all make when using a credit card? People need a healthy dose of perspective where credit cards are concerned and see the relationship between you and the credit card company for what it is. That is a company who is agreeing to pay for the things you want but can't afford in exchange for the implicit promise you will pay them back later. And given the amount of credit card debt there is out there you can make the argument that one side isn't living up to their end of the deal, but it sure as hell is NOT the credit card companies.

Too many people spend today and worry about it later. Or make minimum payments and pay outrageous fees. Do I believe such people ought to get bailed out? No. Neither do I believe banks ought to get bailed out for making foolish loans.
That said I don't believe allowing a large bank or company to fail is wise, or to bail them out is socialism. Sometimes ideology needs to give way to pramatic solutions. And I abhor unproven ideas offered as immutable truths.

Why is bailing a company out pragmatic? Survival of the fittest, which is essentially what I am advocating, isn't some unproven solution. It's how nature works. It ensures the survival of the whole. It keep the weak from bringing down the rest of society. That is cruel and certainly not something I would apply on an individual basis, but it is something that should be allowed to happen where private business is concerned.

 

[sangha]

I've answered this any number of times. This seems to be a pattern with Progressives that I need to repeat myself countless times only to have it ignored and have them trot out their psuedo-Intellectual talking points.

One more time for the learning disabled.

If I was that homeowner I would utter a phrase never heard before in Washington DC: "We can't afford it" For example, the roof is leaking but we're spending money to do research on how primates respond to classical music, or spending money to build sidewalks in upstate NY.

What that means in reality is we close the Depart of Education, we sell Fannie and Freddie, we have an immediate freeze in all spending, we let the private sector expand the sources of energy, we cut capital gains tax to 5%, we have a 5 year tax holiday on any new business, we repeal ObamaCare in favor of the Whole Food Care program and so on and so on

Republican "solutions" have led to an explosion of debt

The repubsa ren't too good at creating jobs either

The Bush Administration's Dismal Jobs Record | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Do you perhaps have a visual aid of this substituting which party was president with which party controlled congress (seeing as how it's congress that actually sets the budget and all).

Here's some good visuals. The three-part bar at the bottom indicates which party held the WH, the House and the Senate (red for repub, blue for dems)

US Inflation Adjusted Deficit History

 

[sangha]

"Trickle down" was an unfortunate term to be coined because it triggers an image different than Reagan intended. Reagan, as all supply sider capitalists know, knew that poor people don't create jobs. Only successful, prosperous people create jobs. And since it is mostly successful, prosperous people who are the rich, that translates to:

It is necessary for people to become rich in order for there to be jobs available to the poor.​

And once you start creating jobs for the poor, the prosperity doesn't 'trickle down'. It 'bubbles up'. Put 10 million people to work in permanent jobs who aren't working now and you have 10 million new consumers who will increase activity to produce the consumed good and soon 10 million more are at work. And it continues to 'bubble up' from there. And all those new taxpayers who are paying into instead of draining the system will start bringing down the deficits. If we do it well enough, we'll eliminate the deficits and start bringing down the debt.

Cutting the capital gains tax; making the Bush tax rates permanent for another decade or so, etc. will spur the 'rich' to take the risk to get back to work and hire those first 10 million or more permanent workers. History has proved that this works time and again.

We aren't saying eliminate all taxes. That would be stupid. But we can eliminate all the government doesn't absolutely have to have and let a growing economy and GDP do its work.

It does require the political class to accept a smaller instead of ever increasing government. And it does require the elite class envy group to understand that a rising tide lifts all boats, even those of the rich.

The rich have become richer. The wage and earnings gap has become wider. The jobs those beneficent rich were supposed to create were created overseas. Thanks supply siders! You made it so easy for the rich they no longer have the troubles the vast majority has!

Consumer spending drives the economy. The rich aren't in sufficient numbers to rely on their spending. The vast majority of consumers have been screwed blue by supply side economics. If the supply siders decided to trickle the benefits on those who do the most spending, the rich would still get rich and the jobs would be right here making the goods the consumers want.

 

[Nosmo King]

"Trickle down" was an unfortunate term to be coined because it triggers an image different than Reagan intended. Reagan, as all supply sider capitalists know, knew that poor people don't create jobs. Only successful, prosperous people create jobs. And since it is mostly successful, prosperous people who are the rich, that translates to:

It is necessary for people to become rich in order for there to be jobs available to the poor.​

And once you start creating jobs for the poor, the prosperity doesn't 'trickle down'. It 'bubbles up'. Put 10 million people to work in permanent jobs who aren't working now and you have 10 million new consumers who will increase activity to produce the consumed good and soon 10 million more are at work. And it continues to 'bubble up' from there. And all those new taxpayers who are paying into instead of draining the system will start bringing down the deficits. If we do it well enough, we'll eliminate the deficits and start bringing down the debt.

Cutting the capital gains tax; making the Bush tax rates permanent for another decade or so, etc. will spur the 'rich' to take the risk to get back to work and hire those first 10 million or more permanent workers. History has proved that this works time and again.

We aren't saying eliminate all taxes. That would be stupid. But we can eliminate all the government doesn't absolutely have to have and let a growing economy and GDP do its work.

It does require the political class to accept a smaller instead of ever increasing government. And it does require the elite class envy group to understand that a rising tide lifts all boats, even those of the rich.

The rich have become richer. The wage and earnings gap has become wider. The jobs those beneficent rich were supposed to create were created overseas. Thanks supply siders! You made it so easy for the rich they no longer have the troubles the vast majority has!

Consumer spending drives the economy. The rich aren't in sufficient numbers to rely on their spending. The vast majority of consumers have been screwed blue by supply side economics. If the supply siders decided to trickle the benefits on those who do the most spending, the rich would still get rich and the jobs would be right here making the goods the consumers want.

Nonsense. Until the housing bubble burst in 2008, we had at or near full employment. Anybody who really wanted to work could and could earn a living wage. The deficits were coming down dramatically year after year and, if the housing bubble hadn't burst, I do believe we would have achieved a balanced budget within the next year or two. Maybe you don't like supply side, but it sure as hell beats anything the so called 'progressives' have come up with to replace it. Totalitarianism, Socialism, Communism, Marxism--all have escalated the misery index, eroded freedoms AND opportunity EVERY SINGLE TIME they've been tried.

People who are willing to destroy just about about principle embraced in the concept of the USA in order to punish the 'rich' may just get their wish one of these days. But when they do, we will have given up all or most of the principles that had made us the greatest nation the Earth has ever seen.

Is it worth it just because you are so damned jealous of the rich?

First, lose the whole angry Tea party political lexicon. Totalitarianism, Socialism, Communism, Marxism is not only literally incorrect but serves only as a distraction for the serious problems we face. I'd rather not dissect political philosophies and their economic agendas. Let's just consider the case for trickle down or supply side economics.

The net results, in spite of the anticipated results, has been a growing disparity of earnings for the wealthiest to the poorest with a real disparity shown among the middle class. This middle class was the manufacturing labor base of this country. Middle class incomes sufficient to raise a family, buy a home, a car and with a little sacrifice, even college for the kids.

Then, we got our first taste of supply side in the 80s. Factories shut down, mills closed, workers were laid off and the real means of production, the infrastructure of those mills and factories were disassembled and shipped overseas, usually to Asia. Worker productivity went up none the less and still the companies (the job providers under supply side) asked for further give backs by the workers. Wages, pensions, health care were all reduced or eliminated as the cost of doing business. And yet the rich got richer. And the wages and benefits for the workers got smaller.

This supply side economics has been a total failure to workers, their families and their communities all through the industrial heartland of this country. Believe me, I live in the upper Ohio Valley adjacent to Pittsburgh, Youngstown Ohio and only an hour and a half drive to Cleveland. There is no joy over coddling the rich and screwing the working family here. Maybe in some sun belt development where the 'industry' is greeting folks at Wal*Mart, but not in the area of this country most responsible for her greatness and wealth.

This nation established its business community just as the 20th century was opening with laws that busted up monopolies and trusts. That legislation truly opened the marketplace to competition and innovation. Supply side is, by its effect, divisive and destructive to the opportunity to become truly self sufficient where the industrial worker, the backbone of the middle class, is concerned.

 

[The Rabbi]

Don't you have a toilet to inspect or something? Leave economics to people who actually know something about it.

 

[loosecannon]

Don't you have a toilet to inspect or something? Leave economics to people who actually know something about it.

That certainly would not include you! Silly Rabbi!

My coherency meter breaks every time you post bullshit!

 

[The Rabbi]

Don't you have a toilet to inspect or something? Leave economics to people who actually know something about it.

That certainly would not include you! Silly Rabbi!

My coherency meter breaks every time you post bullshit!

A little knowledge gained by Google is an absurd thing.

 

[Bern80]

"Trickle down" was an unfortunate term to be coined because it triggers an image different than Reagan intended. Reagan, as all supply sider capitalists know, knew that poor people don't create jobs. Only successful, prosperous people create jobs. And since it is mostly successful, prosperous people who are the rich, that translates to:

It is necessary for people to become rich in order for there to be jobs available to the poor.​

And once you start creating jobs for the poor, the prosperity doesn't 'trickle down'. It 'bubbles up'. Put 10 million people to work in permanent jobs who aren't working now and you have 10 million new consumers who will increase activity to produce the consumed good and soon 10 million more are at work. And it continues to 'bubble up' from there. And all those new taxpayers who are paying into instead of draining the system will start bringing down the deficits. If we do it well enough, we'll eliminate the deficits and start bringing down the debt.

Cutting the capital gains tax; making the Bush tax rates permanent for another decade or so, etc. will spur the 'rich' to take the risk to get back to work and hire those first 10 million or more permanent workers. History has proved that this works time and again.

We aren't saying eliminate all taxes. That would be stupid. But we can eliminate all the government doesn't absolutely have to have and let a growing economy and GDP do its work.

It does require the political class to accept a smaller instead of ever increasing government. And it does require the elite class envy group to understand that a rising tide lifts all boats, even those of the rich.

The rich have become richer. The wage and earnings gap has become wider. The jobs those beneficent rich were supposed to create were created overseas. Thanks supply siders! You made it so easy for the rich they no longer have the troubles the vast majority has!

Consumer spending drives the economy. The rich aren't in sufficient numbers to rely on their spending. The vast majority of consumers have been screwed blue by supply side economics. If the supply siders decided to trickle the benefits on those who do the most spending, the rich would still get rich and the jobs would be right here making the goods the consumers want.

Does this chart not indicate that even though the rich are getting richer, so are the poor just by as much?

 

[Wry Catcher]

Don't you have a toilet to inspect or something? Leave economics to people who actually know something about it.

That certainly would not include you! Silly Rabbi!

My coherency meter breaks every time you post bullshit!

A little knowledge gained by Google is an absurd thing.

You have as little knowledge as anyone, Rabbi. Why not look at the graphs and comment.

 

[Foxfyre]

How about we use some more honest numers re the debt? And also let's take into account that the most dramatic increases from 1980 on were not mostly due to discretionary spending but due to the explosion of entitlements as the piper demanded to be paid. Each new entitlement doesn't usually show up as a problem until for years, sometimes decades.

U.S. debt from 1940 to 2009. Red lines indicate the Debt Held by the Public (public debt) and black lines indicate the gross debt, the difference being that the gross debt includes funds held by the government (e.g. the Social Security Trust Fund). The second chart shows debt as a percentage of U.S. GDP or dollar value of economic production per year. Data from U.S. Budget ' tables at whitehouse.gov/omb and other tables listed when you click on the figure. Note that the top panel is deflated to 2009 dollars and not in nominal year dollars.

 

[sangha]

The rich have become richer. The wage and earnings gap has become wider. The jobs those beneficent rich were supposed to create were created overseas. Thanks supply siders! You made it so easy for the rich they no longer have the troubles the vast majority has!

Consumer spending drives the economy. The rich aren't in sufficient numbers to rely on their spending. The vast majority of consumers have been screwed blue by supply side economics. If the supply siders decided to trickle the benefits on those who do the most spending, the rich would still get rich and the jobs would be right here making the goods the consumers want.

Does this chart not indicate that even though the rich are getting richer, so are the poor just by as much?

No. It does not

 

[The Rabbi]

That certainly would not include you! Silly Rabbi!

My coherency meter breaks every time you post bullshit!

A little knowledge gained by Google is an absurd thing.

You have as little knowledge as anyone, Rabbi. Why not look at the graphs and comment.

And much more than you.

The numbers are clear. Obama and the Democratic COngress has radically increased spending in a recession, causing the deficit, and therefore the national debt, to skyrocket. Even if it doesn't show up entirely this year, the government's own projections for years out show massive, unsustainable, increases.

This is just fact. It is obvious to anyone not blinded by partisanship. It is a chief reason the Dems lost so badly yesterday.
My question is, what are Democrats going to do about it?

 

[Trajan]

Simple solution, which benefits the few. Unless you believe the profit generated will trickle down.
Consider, corporate and industrial profits are today being used to influence elections more than in anytime past, not being used to hire the unemployed and expanding our economy. The spread between the wealthiest and the middle class is greater than at anytime but for the period before the '29 Crash.
The average middle-class American doesn't pay capital gains, his/her investments are generally in IRA's which are taxed as ordinary income when taken as retirement income and tax free when invested in a Roth.
Frank, you're not smart enough to be a wealthy person - unless you have inhertited wealth or are a drug dealer - so why do you believe what you believe?
[brainwashed** I suspect]
** maybe only a light rinse was required.

It's so hard to discuss economics with someone who learned about the private sector from reading "Das Kaiital" or Paul Krugman.

I think it's pretty clear which of us has a grasp on the private sector and who has only lyrical knowledge about it.

Thanks for pointing out that I read, and have read articles by Krugman as well as excerpts from Dos Kapital (though I must have missed Das Kaital) as an undergrad, and most of the works of the 18th and 19th Century political theorists who influenced our founding fathers.
You, Frank, seem to post contemporary new right bull shit, which suggests your 'learning' has been from secondary sources, most or all of which might be classified as propagandists and members of the Ministry of Truth (those RW authors who choose to re-write history).

so when the tax cuts and regulatory loosening that will sooner or later occur as even the dumbest well, maybe, see them as the last resort and the economy takes off as a result of such, as it has in the past, what will be your excuse this time?

 

[sangha]

A little knowledge gained by Google is an absurd thing.

You have as little knowledge as anyone, Rabbi. Why not look at the graphs and comment.

And much more than you.

The numbers are clear. Obama and the Democratic COngress has radically increased spending in a recession, causing the deficit, and therefore the national debt, to skyrocket. Even if it doesn't show up entirely this year, the government's own projections for years out show massive, unsustainable, increases.

This is just fact. It is obvious to anyone not blinded by partisanship. It is a chief reason the Dems lost so badly yesterday.
My question is, what are Democrats going to do about it?

If wingnuts didn't lie, they'd have nothing to say

Obama's budget cuts the deficit in half over 5 years

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S PROPOSED BUDGET SLASHES DEFICIT IN HALF IN JUST FIVE YEARS | Flickr - Photo Sharing!