that would be this part: (quoting you from first page)
suggesting that people are bitching ‘whining’ about the economy as a political ax to grind (vs., say a painful economic reality for them) and suggesting that since ‘here where the rubber meets the road’ (ie in your corner’) they’re full of it. I’d interpret that as “rubbing your nose in it”. Yep, sure would. YMOV.
and I suggested that the snippet you focused on was one small part of the overall picture. And suggested some other pieces of data to look at to get a larger view. Obviously up to you if you wish to.
Wd:Overtaxing the only segment of the economy still growing in an attempt to fund the Government programs replacing benefits and jobs formerly offered by large corporations in the boom years of the Cold War seems to me to be a perfect recipe for killing off what is working in the name of saving something dying, rather than looking to find new solutions for a 21st century world economy.
Nobody’s suggesting an increase in taxes on small businesses, as far as I know. It’s the personal income tax of those with the highest incomes that’s targeted for an increase.
The class warfare aspect of the “tax the rich until they bleed” philosophy bugs me as well. When did working hard and making money become something that is deserving of scorn or make one an acceptable target for extra fiscal penalties?*
This is empty rhetoric. Nobody around here (except maybe Reeder with his “crony” theories) is advocating class warfare or saying that we should “scorn” the rich. All we’re pointing out is that the current tax policies are bleeding the Treasury white, our national deficits and debt are unsustainable, and we can most painlessly and most efficiently restore some of the revenue by a modest tax increase on the segment of the population whose incomes have been increasing the most lavishly.
The majority of “rich” people I know (I don’t know any hyper-rich folks, but I do know a few millionaires and a number of people making several hundred K per year) work 40-80 hours a week or more. They are not debutants but hard workers who have gotten where they are through perseverance and effort.*
The majority of non-rich people I know also work 40-80 hours a week or more, and they put in a lot of perseverance and effort too. I don’t see why they are not as deserving of the basic amenities of life—decent housing, healthcare, education, social services, steady employment—as the people whose 40-80 hour weeks happen to net them incomes several thousands or tens of thousands of times greater.
What about that makes them deserving of an extra tax burden other than it’s easy to hold them up to people not making as much money as legitimate targets, creating a perfect “us VS Them” mentality?
More empty rhetoric. Actually, more progressive taxation and less income inequality actually diminishes the “us vs. them” mentality. It’s when the rich are prospering marvelously and the non-rich are struggling desperately that class antagonism gets really ugly, as Knorf pointed out.
I posted that information to destroy the lame argument that “these small businesses generate a lot of jobs!” Did I say “fuck them”? No.
I also don’t say “fuck anyone who makes over $200,000 a year! Ha HA!” Kerry’s plan calls for selective rollbacks of Bush’s Tax Cuts. My guess would be, that a small business that has their tax cut rolled back will be affected as much as an individual making over $200,000/year having their tax cut rolled back.
So, the top 1% of individuals will be affected by the roll backs, and 3% of “small businesses” (the ones, I would guess, in a higher tax bracket) will be affected by the roll backs. Personally, I wouldn’t expect these roll backs to throw most of the small business owners out on the street; I’m sure Bush would like me to think so, however.
LilShieste
European companies have ‘incentives’ (tax penalities) to encourage them to stay at home, but that sort of protectionism hasn’t helped the unemployment rate in the bigger nations over there. Last I heard, the unemployment rates in France and Germany were over 9%.
I wasn’t asking. I would be happy to take this opportunity to relieve you of your errors.
A quick trip to the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals:
I do not think we even have to discuss the disgraceful slide of real hourly compensation in both business and in the manfucturing sectors.
As for the unemployment rate approaching natural, this is also nonsensical. Persons are only considered “unemployed” if:
These criteria are so loose that many individuals surveyed are classified as no longer in the labor force. The unemployment rate, of course, is:
A more instructive statistic in this context is the employment-population ratio, the employed as a percentage of the entire population. This is a dismal (and unchanged) 62.3%.
Nice ploy, slectively reading what you want to hear, and constructing strawman arguments. :dubious:
You know what else is a “nice ploy”? The term “tax relief”; it automatically causes the reader/listener/audience to associate taxes with evil. But hey, whatever works, right?
LilShieste
Brutus:Last I heard, the unemployment rates in France and Germany were over 9%.
As of [url=“http://www.oecd.org/document/43/0,2340,en_2649_33715_33703595_1_1_1_1,00.html”]September 2004, though, the rates in three other EU countries were under 5%, and in three others lower than 7%. Bear in mind also that a lot of people would prefer to spend more time unemployed with decent unemployment benefits, housing, transportation, education, healthcare, etc., than get out of unemployment faster with a $7-an-hour job that doesn’t stop them from dragging ever deeper into debt and losing their apartment, car, and health insurance.
That’s what they are. The tax is being raised to where it was (or slightly lower than where it was) before the current Administration’s tax cuts. In other words, those tax cuts are being rolled back. In fact, at present they’re scheduled to roll back automatically after the “sunset” date, unless new legistlation is passed to prolong them.
Speaking “anecdotally”, I still have my job, and my pay is still the same. However, I know plenty of people who were laid off. Those who got new jobs ended up with less pay and less benefits. Many got caught in a new wrinkle. Their employers made sure they never quite got 40 hours a week. That way, they would be listed as part time, and got no benefits at all. These same employers would deliberately juggle the schedules so nobody ever got their full time work week. I see this as being a lot of “small businesses” taking advantage of a bad situation. However, no matter how bad it gets, the boss always gets his money and gives himself nice “bonuses and presents”.
Ohhhhh, I see! You’re saying my former company didn’t find the government’s encouragement of outsourcing to overseas companies advantageous, and didn’t benefit from them. They didn’t actually contract with Tata, and Tata’s employees didn’t take over our work. Half of the programmers, half of my department, and half or better of other departments didn’t get laid off when Tata came on board! You’re saying I’m really not working for half of my previous salary, and I really am contributing to the economy! And we actually have more jobs since we don’t have this “protectionism”.
Gosh, I feel so much better! :rolleyes:
You can say what you want, but I’m worse off than I was four years ago; and so are hundreds of thousands or millions of others.
Listen to yourselves here. It’s not leftist “soak the rich” class-warfare rhetoric that’s provoking anger and resentment. It’s the fact that so many people are genuinely struggling economically, and when a few of them bitch about it, you’re shrugging them off with accusations that they’re just “grinding political axes” and “scorning the rich” and “taxing the rich until they bleed” and “bitching and whining” and “full of it” and all that.
Basically, you seem to be saying that a small tax increase on the most prosperous, who have been growing richer fastest, is a more serious problem, and less acceptable, than the longer employment searches, lower-quality jobs, disappearing benefits, greater indebtedness, and shrinking incomes of the average worker.
Nobody wants class warfare. But in fact, you’re shortsightedly doing all you can to encourage it.
I never said anything of the sort. I didn’t have to. I simply quoted the BLS’ testimony as to the contraction of productivity growth. Productivity growth is lower this quarter than it has been since 2002.
Perhaps something confuses you about the word lie?
milroyj:your contention that productivity has decreased is a bald-faced lie.
Maeglin didn’t contend that “productivity has decreased.” What he said (via a sarcastic inversion) is that we don’t have unprecedented productivity growth. And that’s true, we don’t, because productivity growth has been dropping.
(Productivity itself continues to increase, but the rate of productivity growth is slowing—that’s the “deceleration” part.)
Weirddave loves to criticize and talk out of his ass. He will speak the Bush party line as if it was reality. His delusions are so fucking deep, they could be mistaken for oceans.