Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Poll: Which US presidential candidate do you like best?

Thanks for the post, Ann. I always like to hear your opinion.

First I never said that rich people should get all the tax cuts. Notice I've always mentioned across-the-board tax cuts for everyone. Tax cuts for the rich only aren't going to help too much either. Rich people who invest aren't going to get much money if their customers can't buy anything. Taking into consideration that demand is low, and you know companies always forecast demand, companies will also cut back on investment. The problem I have with most politicians is that, first assuming they even support tax cuts, they always want to insist on "targeted" tax cuts that only go to people who aren't rich (and the politician always gets to define what rich means, and that figure always seems to go down every year). A supply-side cut would go to everyone equally. Granted 10% to someone making $30,000 a year isn't as much as someone making $300,000, but ask what $3,000 means to that person making $30,000 versus a $3,000 cut going to somebody making $300,000? It wouldn't mean nearly as much to the rich person, so by necessity a larger dollar amount will go to the richer person even if the percentages are even. Populism always sounds good but doesn't make for sound economic policy.

This is an extremely misleading statement. By whose measurement are the biggest tax breaks always going to the rich? I've never seen one in my lifetime. While those at the top usually get a larger amount, dollar-wise, they NEVER get a bigger percentage. In fact, the people at the top always get a smaller percentage. I've been watching politics for a very long time and I've never even seen a proposed tax break that gives the rich more as a percentage. In fact, after every single tax cut I've ever seen enacted, the proportion of taxes paid by the wealthy always goes up, not down. The top 1% make 25% of the income here in the states but they pay almost 50% of the taxes. The top 5% pay about 70% of the taxes. The bottom 50% pay just a bit more than 3% of the taxes, keeping in mind median family income is around $58,000. With percentages like that, just how much bang are you going to get with a "targeted" tax cut?

Wow, here's another statement that shows mindset. Nobody gives the rich anything. The rich weren't always rich. They had to make their money. While there are always children who get their money from their wealthy parents, at some point their parents made their money. It wasn't handed to them. The job of government is not to make sure all outcomes are equal. Government's job is to make sure opportunities are as equal as they can be. People, for the most part, are free to rise as high as their abilities can take them. There's a reason America doesn't have royalty. They saw royalty back in the 1700's and wanted no part of it. The society was set up so that class didn't exist. There was no bourgeoisie versus the peasants. Everyone was free to grab the opportunities that were available to them. No one can guarantee outcome, though.

Back to tax cuts, letting people keep more of what they earned isn't "giving" them anything. Once more the language has been altered in so many people's mindsets that the thought of letting people keep what they've earned is somehow a gift.

As for societies that are poor like Chad, you're right, besides the fact that no one's wealthy enough to invest. There's a missing ingredient besides the lack of rich people. It's a lack of freedom. Money without freedom doesn't mean anything either if you aren't free to do with your money as you wish. In places like Chad or even Saudi Arabia, where there's money galore, there isn't any freedom. The normal people are generally oppressed and don't get much, if any, of the benefits a capitalistic society could give them.

I don't expect them to. That's the great thing about capitalism. You said that capitalism is based on trust that rich people will do what's best for society. That actually isn't really a prerequisite for capitalism. The beauty of it is that people working for themselves in order to better themselves also end up benefitting others whether it's through giving many people jobs or buying a yacht made by those workers in Connecticut who now have a bit more job security, unlike when Bill Clinton raised a luxury tax on yachts and found workers being laid off by the thousands forcing him to retract the tax increase. Granted, you're right. There's not much stopping someone from shipping their money off to a Swiss Bank or buying a yacht made from another country. First with the Swiss Bank, that's money sitting around doing nothing. Rich people don't like money that isn't working for them. In their own self-interest, they would prefer to invest it in order to make more money for themselves rather than stuffing it away in a sock or just making simple interest on a bank account. Capitalism is based on self-interest. The interests of individuals work together to make everyone better off rather than relying on altruism, which is actually a failing of socialism and communism. Those types of economic systems are solely based on altruism and not at all on self-interest. The only effect is to make everyone equally poor. That's actually why they fail so miserably because people inherently aren't completely altruistic as a whole. Granted communism also tends to create a fabulously wealthy oligarchy that lords it over their "comrades," so socialism has one benefit communism doesn't have, a political yoke that doesn't need to be thrown off.

I contend that the reason why capitalism works and socialism and communism don't is because capitalism is based on human nature. Socialism and communism are not based on human nature. Socialism and communism only work if universal altruism can be achieved. We all know that's impossible. Despite Lois and Clark, Utopia simply doesn't exist. That's why communism failed. Socialism will eventually fail as more and more people stop working and the overburdened welfare state collapses under its own weight. The US suffers from this somewhat, too. The debt bomb we have facing us is based on two very socialistic programs, Social Security and Medicare. Unless those programs are made more capitalistic, they will implode and take us down with them.

You also talk about people staying poor and transferring money to the rich. It's more static thinking. For instance studies in the 1980's showed that Reaganism benefitted many in the lower rungs. While statistics showed a consistent count of people in the lower income ranges, the studies showed they weren't all the same people. One of the groups that benefitted the most were minorities, who started their businesses and owned their first homes. The great thing about a capitalist society is the ability to move from dirt poor to fabulously wealthy. Even if you don't make it to the top 1%, many do make a very comfortable living. Additionally, an economy is not a zero-sum game. For some reason leftist politicians always seem to think that the rich making money somehow takes away from those earning less. I'm glad to see you didn't fall for that with that study you mentioned about people given the option of getting richer at the expense of falling behind those who got even richer than they did. You at least acknowledge it isn't a zero-sum game, which most on the left can't seem to bring themselves to admit. I have to say, despite that study, making everyone a bit wealthier can't be a bad thing. Most leftist politicians, instead, seem to favor class envy, always pitting the rich against the poor for their own political benefit.

I find it interesting that that study says people would rather lose money and stay equal with others than to be better off, yet losing ground. It does show how psychology plays into socialism and communism. People would rather that everyone be equally poor than have everyone better off at the risk of having a class of rich. That it's essentially like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Where and when was this survey taken? Was it taken in a country with socialist propensities anyway? If it was, i could understand the mindset. I would doubt that that opinion is universal.

As for the part about money flowing out of the country, the capitalistic system also takes that into account. When money flows out, the value of the currency does tend to depreciate. And if money flows in, it appreciates. That becomes an equalizer. Given a system that is efficient, eventually those imbalances work themselves out. I put in China as a great unequalizer. They artificially hold their currency low in order to make everything cheaper than they ordinarily would be. The true course of supply and demand would eventually strengthen the Chinese yuan, smoothing out any trade surpluses they might have with other countries. But since they do not place their currency as a free floating entity, they have the effect of disrupting the normal flow of capitalism. That is why the trade balances continue to worsen because supply and demand cannot be made to be equal.

As Pam pointed out, there are benefits to having this trade with China, even at the cost of a weaker dollar. People are able to buy a lot of things they may not have been able to afford if they had been made in the US with it's higher wages and higher cost of manufacturing. While it's damaging to the dollar, it's not all bad.

On Bjorn Borg, I recall reading an article about that Swedish 103% top marginal tax rate Sweden used to have where he was one of the people who declared his residency to be elsewhere to avoid paying the tax even though he still lived in Sweden. He also made almost all of his money outside of Sweden.

On George W. Bush, it's hard to say what would happen. He did okay for himself in business. He made his money himself. It wasn't inherited. Whether he got his opportunities through his father's name, I couldn't say. But once he did get in the door, he made the most of it. He's reasonably bright. Remember he had better grades than John Kerry, the genius, at Yale.

On the business of him being in Vietnam, one of the things brought out by yet another Democratic October surprise was the falsified documents that cost Dan Rather his job opening up the door to finding out just what happened in the days of Vietnam. What few in the press reported, because it didn't jive with Bush the draft dodger was that he volunteered for a regiment in the Texas Air National Guard that was in Vietnam at the time he signed up. By the time he got in after a waiting period and basic training, the unit had rotated out. On that whole issue of his using dad's name to get in, the commander of his unit mentioned that it was easy to get in as an officer. There were waiting lines for enlisted personnel but none for officers, so anyone could have gotten in who had qualified with a college education. Once he did get in, he volunteered for Palace Alert three times, a program that would have sent him directly to Vietnam and into active combat. He was denied all three times with the reason being that he did not have enough hours in the type of jet he flew to qualify. So a man who was vilified for dodging the draft in reality had volunteered for a unit already in Vietnam and then tried to get there three times, only to be turned down. Didn't hear that much in the mainstream press, did you?

I should say that I am not advocating pure capitalism by any means. Capitalism has its own problems. It's here that government can actually play a role by leveling the playing field. There are excellent reasons why monopolies are generally illegal and why collusion is a bad thing and why insiders are scrutinized for illegal stock trades that can make them rich based on insider information.

Government's job is to ensure fair competition. It's still competition, though. It's when fair competition exists that capitalism blooms.

Roger, you claim that a tax cut of $3,000 for a person who makes $30,000 is for all intents and purposes the same as a tax cut of $30,000 for one that makes $300,000. Well, here is where I disagree. Because I'll insist that the person who got $30,000 got ten times more than the one who got $3,000.

That's what I mean by funneling off or siphoning off more and more of society's wealth to those who are already rich. Because I think that is exactly what you are doing when you give ten times more to the person who already has ten times more than the other.

Sorry about not answering that question, at least not directly. Instead, I want to call into question why we talk about percentages at all, and what we mean by "targeted" tax cuts. Let me start by the targeted tax cuts. If I get you correctly, you use that term to describe tax cuts that go primarily to the poor and median families. A targeted tax cut directed at them would mean, I guess, that people who earn below a certain income get a higher percentage of their taxes cut. That is, if you are poor, you only need to pay 5% tax, but if you are rich, you have to pay 10%. That sounds unfair, yes. But do you know how you could make the problem go away?

It's easy. Don't target anyone. Don't talk percentages. Don't make the tax cuts a percentage of the taxes people pay already. Make the tax cut a fixed amount, and give the same fixed amount to everybody. Say that everybody gets a tax cut of exactly $10,000. So some people don't make enough money to pay that much in tax? Well, good for them! They don't have to pay any tax at all. Others are so rich that they pay millions in tax. Well, they get a tax rebate of exactly $10,000, just like everybody else. What an easy system!

This is an interesting statement, and it is correct, up to a point. As long as the rich have to pay taxes, it is true that money is taken from them. It could be argued that very many didn't deserve the money they earned in the first place, that they came by it by tricking or fooling others or by playing the money market or the IT market or some other kind of market in such a way that they ended up earning huge amounts of money that others lost. Or they got the money by inheriting it. On the other hand, it is certainly also possible that they made it fair and square, by working hard and doing things that benefitted all of society. Whatever the case, when they had to pay taxes, money was taken from them.

That's true. But if you are going to have a society at all, it is going to cost money to run it. That money has to come from somewhere. Different societies come by the money they need by different means. In medieval Europe, the nobility didn't pay any taxes at all, so the money was taken from the peasants, who already had so little. Ah, but there were many of them, and their total income and property, and their total work capacity, wasn't so bad. The peasants could be made to give half of what little they had to the king, the nobility and the church. Besides, they could also be made to work without pay for the upper classes, almost as if they were slaves.

Another kind of "society" is the mob. It finances itself by extortion, by forcing ordinary people to pay for "protection". This, of course, is also a kind of "tax".

There are also clans, which finance themselves by treating their own members as human assets, particularly women and children, who can be married off or sold on various terms. The clans' young men can be used as work horses, as drug couriers etcetera.

Personally, I think it is a splendid idea to make the rich pay most of a taxes that a society is going to need. I actually think that that is probably the only really humane way of getting a society the income it needs.

For all of that, Roger, yes, it is true that the tax system is taking money from the rich, rather than giving it to them. What is the alternative?

But I insist that the system does give money to the rich, all the same. The system is stacked in favor of those who are already rich.

Remember the IT bubble? I remember that you, Roger, harshly criticized Clinton for his handling of that. And I have no doubt that he could have done better. For all of that, who did most of the "blowing up" of that bubble? Was it the little people who, at most, had a few hundred dollars to invest? I don't believe it. I believe that the biggest players, the most important "inflaters" of that bubble, were people who had a lot of money to invest. Rich people.

More interestingly, when that bubble burst, very many people lost a lot of money. Many rich people made huge losses, but poor people too, who had never even played the market, lost out too. An not inconsiderate part of the money needed to keep society going had been speculated away on a capitalist wheel of fortune.



When the wheel stopped turning, so many people found themselves broke. Even many of those who had never staked any money at all suffered.

But the money invested in that wheel of fortune didn't disappear. Somebody made off with it. Somebody made a fortune on it. Much of society took a beating, but somebody got filthy, filthy rich.



If that person had stolen the same amount of money from a bank, I guess he (or she) would have gone to prison for life. But if you play the capitalist wheel of fortune, you can bring all of society to its knees financially and make off with an unbelievable fortune, and the law can't touch you for it.

Let me give you another example. This is Lars-Eric Petersson, who was executive officer at Sweden's largest insurance company, Skandia.



Skandia insures maybe half of all Swedes. We in Sweden are dependent on Skandia when we need insurance. You see those figures on the right of Peterson? The first figure, 185 Mkr, stands for 185 million Swedish krona, about $30,000,000, which Peterson was accused of simply taking from Skandia - from the money which was meant to cover costs for the Skandia policy holders - and giving it to members of the boards. (The members of the boards were, excuse me for using the expression, Petersson's buddies.)

The other figure, 37 Mkr, about $6,000,000, is the amount that Petersson was accused of taking from the Skandia policy holders and giving to himself as an added pension.

I said that the members of the boards of directors of Skandia were Petersson's buddies, while he himself was the executive officer. Well, there's more. Peterson himself was a member of the boards of many other important Swedish companies. Guess what? It was one or other of his buddies who was the executive officers of those other companies. They showed their loyalty to Petersson by giving him a huge salary as well as extremely hefty fringe benefits of literally all kinds. No wonder he had to pay them back by taking 185 million Swedish krona from the policy holders of Skandia and giving them to his rich pals.

There is still more. Executive officers of big companies in Sweden routinely get big, big extra bonuses every year. Why do they get them? Well, maybe because they have fired a lot of workers or closed down a production unit or two, so that they have cut the company's costs and helped it make a bigger profit. Sometimes, though, the company makes a loss, sometimes even a big loss, but the executive officer (and usually quite a few members of the boards) still get a handsome bonus. Why do they get it? Because the company is doing so well? Uh... because they themselves are such big and important people and it wouldn't be right if they didn't get a couple of extra millions just because they hold such an important position in society?



This is a mug shot of Bill Gates from 1977. Isn't it adorable? I have no problem with people like Bill Gates being rich. I don't begrudge geniuses their success. But I have a big, big problem with the idea of society stratifying into classes, where those who belong to the rich get richer just because they were rich in the first place.

I hate when people talk about raises as percentages of incomes or tax cuts as percentages of the tax people pay. Because it is when you talk about percentages that you can make a poor person's raise of a hundred dollars sound just the same as a rich person's raise of a million dollars. But those two raises are not the same! They are not! One of them is ten thousand times greater than the other!

But raises are also a cumulative thing. If you are going to give the same income hike percentage to a rich and to a poor person for a number of years, the income gap between these two people will grow. Imagine that one person earns $100.000 a year and another person earns $10,000 a year. That means that the rich person earns $90.000 more than the poor person.

Now give both of them an annual raise of 10%, and keep doing that for ten years. After ten years, the rich person will have a yearly income of $235,795. The poor person will have an income of $23,579. Not bad! The poor person has more than doubled his income. You could even argue that he isn't poor any more. Yet the income difference between these two persons has grown. The difference used to be $90,000 in the richer person's favour. Now it is $212,215, more than twice as large as it used to be.

However, poor people rarely get an income hike of 10% per year. Rich people, however, frequently do. So while it is quite realistic to assume that a fairly average rich person will get a yearly raise of 10%, it is very unrealistic to assume that a poor person will get even the same percentage as a rich person. When it comes to real money, to actual dollars, the rich person leaves the poor person in the dust. And the stratified society gets cemented.

Ann

I do indeed. In the US, a person making $30,000 a year would be in a 15% tax bracket. A person making $300,000 would be in the 33% tax bracket. $3,000 would be roughly 2/3 of the first person's taxes while $3,000 would be 3% of the other guy's taxes. The second guy may barely notice he got a tax cut and wouldn't change his behavior while the first guy would consider that $3,000 to be a huge windfall. The whole idea behind tax cuts is to get somebody to change their behavior. The rich guy isn't going to be doing much differently and certainly isn't going to end up hiring anyone as a result. That's not much different than a "targeted" tax cut and ends up being mostly demand-side as a result. In other words, ineffective, if your goal is to promote economic activity. The tax system isn't meant to do social engineering. It's meant to stimulate economic activity. At least that's what it ought to be. The left always considers the tax code to be a method of redistributing income, not gaining money to run the government. Isn't that the whole goal, btw, to raise money to operate the government, as you said? To do that, wouldn't you want the most effective method of raising money?

In reality, even supply-side tax cuts always benefit the lower income levels disproportionately. Thousands of families always get removed from the tax rolls entirely while the burden on the rich gets bigger as a result. So many on the lower income levels get a 100% tax cut while the rich usually get something considerably smaller as a percentage. So where's the complaint?

It's highly unfair to say that the rich are all a bunch of criminals. I see pictures of Bill Gates in prison or claims that so many people are stealing or running protection rackets. Those who are actually stealing go to jail. Many white collar criminals do end up in jail. But to claim their income is the result of ill-gotten gains is an unfair thing to say. You can complain about bonuses all you want but the Boards of Directors who hand out bonuses are all subject to stock holders and can be voted out and fired if they do something considered egregious.

We also don't have a medieval tax system anymore when only the poor paid any taxes. The rich pay enormous taxes. Your wish is that they pay all the taxes. But there aren't enough rich people to do that and run a government. And if you take too much money, your economy will start to slide and you end up losing tax revenue as a result. But hey, as long as the rich suffer, who cares, right, according to your study that you wrote about?

Let me tell you about the Alternative Minimum Tax. It was an idea, of course by a liberal, to make sure that all rich people paid taxes even if they qualified for lots of different tax deductions. Basically, you fill out two different tax forms, the regular one and an AMT one. Whichever amount of tax is bigger is the one you end up paying.

It was intended to hit only a few thousand tax payers, total, those uber-rich who use tax deductions to end up paying nothing as a result. Well, those behaviors often include what many people do today. It's hard to find someone who isn't invested in the stock market today, whether it's through a 401K or in mutual funds or directly in their own company's stock. That thing that's intended to hit only a few thousand ultra-rich is projected to hit 23.4 MILLION taxpayers this year. In 2010, AMT is projected to hit 33 MILLION taxpayers. Again you have the law of unintended consequences.

That dot com bust didn't affect just the rich. It affected many lower and middle class families as well as they saw their stocks, mutual funds, IRA's, or 401K's vanish into thin air. Many lost their retirement savings who even a left-wing politician wouldn't classify as rich. Is that what you call only the rich participating in the bust?

I'm not defending the rich, btw. They don't need defending. You can soak them with taxes all you want and they'll come out on their feet, whether it's through hiding their income or reducing their economic activity. The goal through taxes is to gain money to run the government or to stimulate economic activity. If you want to accomplish those goals, then the people who are the job producers must be involved. If your goal is to redistribute income or social engineering, that's completely different. But it won't help you get money for paying for all those welfare state programs that will eventually drive socialist economies to their knees.

It's a common phrase but it's true. "You don't get a job from a poor person."

I see now that it was very unfortunate that I chose that mug shot of Bill Gates. Because my intention was absolutely not to show him as a criminal. I thought it was obvious that the mug shot was a joke. Let me repeat: I don't begrudge Bill Gates his money. I don't regard him as a criminal, but as a benefactor of society. And the same goes for other rich people who have made remarkable inventions or created a lot of jobs in their home countries.

I do, however, regard Lars-Eric Petersson and his ilk as criminals. I think that they are much bigger criminals than some of those people who are actually sent to jail by society. Petersson was prosecuted, by the way. However, just a few days ago he was found not guilty by an appeals court. The court ruled that it was not clear that Petersson had overstepped the bounds that were given to him as an executive officer, that it was not clear that he had had any criminal intent, and that it was not clear who was actually responsible for making so many million dollars disappear from Skandia. According to what market magazine Privata Affärer reported in 2003 about Skandia, the board of directors had for years channeled hundreds of millions of Swedish krona from the policy holders to the stock holders of Skandia, costing the stock holders billions and resulting in less money that could be paid to to the policy holders when they needed it in a case of emergency. But no one will ever be prosecuted for that.

That could be true, Roger. But an unfortunate truth in Sweden has been that people have literally had their jobs taken away from them by rich persons, who themselves got richer by costing others their jobs. Like I said, rich persons have been given extra money, extra benefits and bonuses for closing down production units, for selling their companies abroad and for taking jobs from Sweden. Sometimes, yes, the production units didn't make a profit, but very often they did. It was just that the CEOs and others felt that they could make an even bigger profit by closing their Swedish production units down and opening other units up in Lithuania or somewhere where the work force could be paid a fraction of what the workers would be paid in Sweden. These CEOs live in Sweden, operate in Sweden, and make money by taking jobs away from Sweden, making Swedes unemployed.

Ann

This is shifting the focus, but I've been reading about the Jeremiah Wright issue today. I had no idea. Have to say, it really changes my thoughts about Obama. I'm wondering how others have reacted to this?

c.

About the same way I reacted to the Geraldine Ferraro fiasco.

alcyone

Yeah. There are times when you can blame an underling for pulling tricks that the actual candidate couldn't get away with, doing the dirty work so the candidate can keep his/her hands relatively clean. But, more often, there are times when you can't blame the candidate for being associated with someone who mouths off or has nutty views or whatever.

Obama has said he's gone to this guy for spiritual advice, not political, and that he had no idea he harbored such offensive views. The comments in question weren't made in Obama's presence. I don't think you can blame him for it, and I'd apply the same standard to any other candidate in the same situation.

But, Paul, Obama was close to this guy for 17 years - how could he not be aware? It's that which left me really wondering. My first reaction was what Alcyone said. But the more I read, the less it seemed so.

c.

I'm going to stay on the same focus as before, sorry.

Why would you take money away from the common coffer of society and give it to a rich person who barely notices that he got an extra $30,000 that year? If he doesn't notice that he got more money, why give it to him in the first place? Why not take his extra $30,000 and give it to ten poor people instead? They, after all, will surely notice the extra money they got!

Anyway, I'm unimpressed with your tax rates. So if you make $30,000 a year you are in the 15% tax bracket, and if you make $300,000 a year you are in the 33% tax bracket? Well, I nominally make about $48,000 a year, but I only ever see about $30,000 of it, because I pay 40% tax. So what? I make do on my $30,000 a year, and I trust that the government will put my $18,000 to moderately good use.

Really? That system is meant to stop people from making all sorts of tax deductions? And it's going to hit 23.4 million taxpayers this year? And 33 million taxpayers in 2010? Well, wow. You know what tax deductions I make per year, Roger? I usually get a $150 rebate because I commute. Okay, I also get a $600 rebate because I save for my pension.

Don't you have any faith at all in your government's ability to put its tax revenue to good use? Let's talk about Medicare. Clearly the system doesn't work very well for America, since a lot of people are either completely uninsured or else insufficiently insured. What can you do to give medical care to those who are uninsured? You can give them care through charity. However, charity is given on a completely voluntary basis, and as far as I can understand, nothing stops the charity givers from making special requirements of those they may consider giving their money to. What if it is a religious charity? I am a non-religious person. Would a religious charity give money to me to pay for my medical costs, and expect nothing in return?

I am a non-religious, leftist person. Suppose my taxes were slashed in half, at the same time as the government stopped paying for medical care for Swedes. We would either have to pay for it ourselves or we we would have to rely on charity.

Now suppose that I am willing to give a part of the money I got from my tax cut to charity. And suppose that those in charge of the charity ask me who I want to give my money to. There are two persons who need it. One is a religious conservative, one is a non-religious person with leftist sympathies. Who do I give my money to? Really, there is no contest. I will give my money to the non-religious, leftist person, and if no one pitches in for the religious conservative, he will indeed be left to die.

But do I want such a system? Would I prefer it over the system we have now? NO!!!! I don't want people to be left to die because I don't share their views. I don't want people to be given care in proportion to how "desirable" or politically correct I find them. I want people to be given care irrespective of who they are and what views they hold! I don't want medical care to be allocated to people in accordance to how well-liked they are by charity-givers!

I just don't believe that the only way to stimulate the economy is to give people tax cuts, particularly in such ways that the richest people are the ones that get the most dollars from the tax cut. I don't see why the government can't use the money itself to do good things and make good investments in a society. Remember FDR? If I'm not totally mistaken, he took tax revenues and used them to hire people to build infrastructure in America. Roads, bridges, maybe railways, that sort of things. That was good for America. It was good for America to get infrastructure built, and it was good for the people who got hired to get jobs.

These days, much infrastructure in America is old and in need of repair. I remember that a bridge fell down a few months ago, probably in Minnesota. And a gas main blew in New York, making some people think that the city was under attack again. Instead of cutting taxes and just trusting rich people to put that money to good use, why doesn't the American administration take some of its tax revenue and use it to hire people to repair infrastructure all over the United States?

In Sweden, the government has been running many successful companies. For example, for the longest time it was the government which supplied all electricity to all Swedes. The government used tax money to meet the costs of producing electricity, but it was also absolutely obliged to keep prices reasonably low and to make the supply of electricity very dependable. And it worked very well.

Then some years ago, the government - then a Social Democratic government, but an unusually right-wing Social Democratic government - decided to sell and privatize the production of electricity in Sweden. Since then the price of electricity has skyrocketed. There is a bewildering array of suppliers of electricity that the consumers can choose between, but one thing is certain - even the cheapest of these suppliers is much more expensive than the government-supplied electricity ever was. Also, they are more undependable. A much-publicized case deals with a community in northern Sweden, where the electricity company has cut electricity for the street lights, leaving the community in pitch blackness during the long dark winter of the north.

Don't you believe that the government can use its tax revenue wisely at all? Don't you think it can do better with that money than just give it back to the rich?

I believe that a government can and should do better than that. That is why I define myself as leftist.

Ann

We never know each other completely. How much do you know about your priest/minister/whatever's political views? Or your accountant's? And how much does either one really reflect on you?

It's something to take into account, perhaps, but I personally wouldn't give it too much weight.

I wouldn't if it were my accountant.

But my minister is a different thing. There's a community involved there and the minister is the spiritual leader of that community. When his or her sermons include matters that are political then you know. I really find it hard to believe that Obama had no idea about what this man had been preaching. It just doesn't make sense.

c.

Ann,

Not so much, no. For instance, not long ago, here in San Diego County, there was a tax hike put in to pay for repairs to the roads, which are in a horrid state. Did the roads get fixed? No. The roads are still in a horrible condition. What happened was the money went in to a general fund and was siphoned off for other projects, most of which do not benefit a majority of the people in the county.

And remember Hurricane Katrina and how the dikes failed and New Orleans flooded? Those were supposed to have been maintained and upgraded and the local government didn't because they were so corrupt and used the money for other things.

So, no. I don't trust our government to spend my hard earned money.

Tara

Does this article make you feel any differently about it, Carol?

Here is another interesting link from another perspective, not likely found in most news articles.

A snippet:

alcyone

I'll return to my own main topic later, but it may be a few days. It's going to be a post that I need to compose carefully, and I have very little time this week.

Meanwhile, though, regarding Reverend Jeremiah Wright. I find it hard to take offense.

There are two ways of looking at blacks (and for that matter, women) in the American society. Both groups have had some of their rights taken away from them (blacks have arguably have pretty much all their rights taken away from them in the past). Both groups have made strides toward equality, but both groups still suffer from, well, being-treated-less-than-equal. There are, as I said, two main lines of attitude you can take to that, if you yourself are either black or a woman (or both). You can say to everyone that, yes, this is me, I'm black, or I'm a woman, but that's no big deal, since we've all agreed that all people are equal and have the same value. Or you can still rant and rave about unfairness and inequality. Me, I would recommend a combination of these two approaches, where, however, the "we-have-the-same-value" approach would dominate. It's better to talk about the future, to be sure, than to hang on to old wounds. Nevertheless, if you see people that still want to beat you up because of your race or gender, you have the right to speak up about old grievances.

It seems to me that Barack Obama is all for talking about what unites Americans, not what separates them. That's fine with me. Reverend Wright, however, still wants to focus on the bitter legacy of the past and the inequality that still makes blacks suffer. I don't blame him.

I don't quite believe Barack Obama when he says that he wasn't aware what views Reverend Wright holds. I think he knew. I think that a part of him agrees with Reverend Wright. Surely Obama must be aware of the injustice that is still there at least in parts of the American society. But for all of that, I believe that Senator Obama himself does not believe that confrontation is going to be the best way to further either the interests of the blacks in the United States, or the interests of the United States as a nation.

In other words, I think that what Reverend Wright may have said is, honestly, no big deal, and it does not reflect Barack Obama's own approach to himself and other blacks in the American society.

Last year, or maybe two years ago, the woman who was director of the shelters for battered women in Sweden put her foot in her mouth so badly that women's organisations in Sweden are still reeling. This woman, Ireen von Wachenfeldt, said in front of TV cameras that men are animals. Ahhhh gaaaahhhh!!!! Of course, because she spent all her time working with battered women, she had heard so many horror stories about brutal men. Nevertheless, everybody was totally outraged and horrified, and her incredible faux pas meant that her organisation got less money from the government the next year, would you believe it, even though the number of battered women in need of shelter has definitely not gone down.

People sometimes say things that horrify others. We can choose to focus on their incredibly unfortunate choice of words. Or we can try to understand what they really meant and why they said what they said. Last but not least, we can ask ourselves if these statements should be allowed to smear and call into doubt a much wider issue, such as if the shelters for battered women in Sweden still need as much financial support as before, or if Senator Obama is still reasonably trustworthy (at least as trustworthy as other politicians). I answer both questions in the affirmative.

Ann

You misread what I said in response to why everybody shouldn't get the same amount, not percentage. I said he probably wouldn't notice a $3,000 tax cut since his tax bill is large enough that he wouldn't notice such a small variation. He'd certainly notice a $30,000 tax cut considering that would be about a third of his total tax bill.

Wouldn't it be better to have the money go to use and create new jobs rather than just transferring it from one person who earned it to someone who didn't? It's amazing how much better people feel when they've earned what they have instead of having someone give them something that someone else earned for nothing. That isn't a tax cut. It's confiscation. In government-speak, that's called a transfer payment. If individuals do it, they'd be put in jail. I'm talking about giving back to everyone part of what they've earned and paid in taxes.

Frankly, government sucks at what they do and they waste billions every single year. I trust the people more than I do the government. People on the left trust government and not the people since they can't be counted on to do what's right with their money. Only leftist, elitist politicians know what's best for us. It's incredibly ironic. I trust a system where you don't need to rely on people's altruism, yet I trust the people. Whereas socialists believe in a system that completely relies on altruism, yet don't trust the people. Hmm.

As an aside, the Congress under Republican control did pass a $400 billion bill for rebuilding roads and bridges. I'll be surprised if half of it actually gets used for roads and bridges.

If you give a good tax cut to everyone, the whole economy benefits, the government gets MORE tax revenue due to higher economic activity and a broader tax base, and lots of people get jobs. If money is confiscated from the job creators, no new jobs are created. It's actually a good bet that jobs are lost. Government is applying tax policy to redistribute income as opposed to getting money for funding itself.

What is your goal of tax policy? From everything you've said, your goal is to redistribute income no matter the consequences to the economy just like in that study you cited. You sound like a believer in that "cut off your nose to spite your face" way of thinking where it's bad that rich people benefit even though everybody else does as well. My goal is to create an environment that helps the most people and makes everyone better, not just those at the bottom or at the top, and as a side benefit, broadens the tax base and raises tax revenues.

I'll start with the disclaimer that I don't support Obama and that I'd think he'd be terrible as president because he's a liberal and has never held a chief executive's job and has barely more than a year in his Senate job.

Having said that, I don't hold him accountable for what others have said. Without evidence that he believes what the preacher said, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Unless he gives me a good reason to doubt him, I consider him to be an honorable man. I've never cared for when the press does this whole guilt-by-association with a politician. Should we all be held accountable for what a good friend says, even a close spiritual advisor?

I'm at 1000 posts! Whee! Top Banana, here I come!

Thanks for the links. I'd checked the NY Times, as well as the Washington Post and LATimes, Slate and Salon before I posted my question.

The 2 links above focus on the overall theology that is being expounded by that Church and also by Wright. But they omit the political comments Wright has made and it's some of those that are troubling, (like "God Damn America") not because he doesn't have the right to say those things (he does!) , but because Obama regarded him as a "close personal/ spiritual confidant". He's used both terms, as well as referring to Wright as a mentor.

Would you regard someone as a close personal confidant if you did not approve of some of the things he said and advocated? The close, personal nature of that relationship is what is significant on this case. How do you chose a spiritual advisor?

I would not be concerned if Obama had been just a casual churchhgoer - not giving much thought to what's being said or usually not going, but that's not the case.

The other aspect of this relates to Obama's platform - he stresses harmony and condemns "divisiveness" yet Wright's rhetoric is divisive within the context of the larger American community.

Mr. Obama says now that he was not aware of those things, but that now that he is , he disavows them. But how could he not be aware, given the circumstances?

As well, since Clinton is blamed by most in the media for things her supporters say, I'm trying to understand why Obama isn't. Why the imbalance? They used to call Reagan the Teflon Man because nothing stuck to him. It's beginning to look like Obama has picked up that label

Roger said:
I mostly agree with this. (I can always think of an exception say if candidate X was hanging out with Adolf Hitler every Saturday night ) I do think the press gets carried away with it. Even worse, they take so much out of context and don't use consistent standards when reporting this sort of thing.

I agree with Alcyone's implication that Wright and Ferraro are of similar significance but the difference is the attention the media pays.

c.

But Wright isn't talking to the larger American community. That makes a world of a difference. A President needs to talk to the larger American public. A community leader building up a specific community working with a specific history does not and should not. Context means everything.

If Obama were to espouse that rhetoric, then it'd be something different and wholly inappropriate for his political position.

How many presidents have been friendly with Evangelical churches (even to the degree that Obama is to Wright)? The content of their messages is different, but the inflammatory rhetoric is the same, because its fundamentally directed at a specific (very narrow) audience. Unless a candidate runs on that message, I don't see why it has anything to do with the larger public. We like to think that churches have nothing to do with politics, but this is simply not true. The shock here is that instead of Wright's remarks being right-wing politically inflected, they are left-wing. This is clearly not something we're used to, add to that the race element (to which America is doubly sensitive) and it puts people on edge.

Plus, that this man was close to Obama, does not necessarily mean that all their conversations and activities were along the lines (or limited to) of his incendiary messages or that Obama just nodded his head.

Interesting, because I got the sense that the media went crazy over the Obama thing precisely because of his previous position as the darling. The clip of the Reverend has been playing on the news (Fox, CNN)non-stop since it came out.

Not to mention that most articles I've read definitely go for a similar angle and even a couple of liberal blogs I frequent are highly critical. I found around two or three in a mess of ten or fifteen that tried to look at the other side.

I don't think this is something the media is overlooking or going to overlook any time soon. I don't get a sense Obama is getting any special treatment because of it--I see no imbalance in this specific incident. The only thing I would weigh in on is that Clinton's side should have put a lid on the Ferraro thing immediately. Had they done so, that would have been more minor than it turned out. Lucky for them, this takes the cake. I wouldn't be surprised if it crushed Obama's chances myself.

So I would argue that because it happened right after the Ferraro thing, the glare might be a few notches up on Obama and certain pundits and especially conservatives are loving it. They've been waiting for a long time to pin something on him. I imagine it must feel like Christmas.

alcyone