They're not laughing with you ...

[marmar]

from the Detroit Metro Times:





They're not laughing with you ...
These tax truths explain how the rich are hosing the rest of us.

By David Cay Johnston
Published: April 13, 2011


For three decades we have conducted a massive economic experiment, testing a theory known as supply-side economics. The theory goes like this: Lower tax rates will encourage more investment, which in turn will mean more jobs and greater prosperity — so much so that tax revenues will go up, despite lower rates. The late Milton Friedman, the libertarian economist who wanted to shut down public parks because he considered them socialism, promoted this strategy. Ronald Reagan embraced Friedman's ideas and made them into policy when he was elected president in 1980.

For the past decade, we have doubled down on this theory of supply-side economics with the tax cuts sponsored by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, which President Obama has agreed to continue for two years.

http://metrotimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.1131602.1302699574!/image/3356141900.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_335/3356141900.jpg

You would think that whether this grand experiment worked would be settled after three decades. You would think the practitioners of the dismal science of economics would look at their demand curves and the data on incomes and taxes and pronounce a verdict, the way Galileo and Copernicus did when they showed that geocentrism was a fantasy because Earth revolves around the sun (known as heliocentrism). But economics is not like that. It is not like physics with its laws and arithmetic with its absolute values.

Tax policy is something the framers of the Constitution left to politics. And in politics, the facts often matter less than who has the biggest bullhorn. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/news/they-re-not-laughing-with-you-1.1131600

[malaise]

1. Must read

Rec

[Oceansaway]

2. K&R...n/t

[Search4Justice]

3. K & R

[PA Democrat]

4. David Cay Johnston is one of the best writers/ reporters out there when it comes to tax policy.

I read his book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else when it was first published and I was shocked.

I knew our tax system was unfair, but was appalled to read how much of our tax code is written by lobbyists and special interests and then introduced and voted into law by our supposed representatives who don't have a CLUE about the actual contents of the bill.

Thanks for posting this article. I am bookmarking it for future use when some of my misinformed family members and acquaintances start spouting right wing talking points nonsense on taxes.

[CrispyQ]

5. An excellent article worth reading.

k&r

[Kablooie]

6. What? You take empirical data SERIOUSLY? What a small mind.

Empirical data is only useful as a propaganda tool.
All other uses are bogus.


:sarcasm:

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. The base fallacy behind supply side economics is that corporations

are not meant to produce 'goods' - they are meant to produce profits for the stockholders. The idea that lower taxes increase investments in production of goods, which thereby generates greater profits, ignores the simple fact that lower taxes can just skip the 'production of goods' part of it and go directly into the stockholders' pockets, thus achieving the same end without anyone getting their hands dirty.

The only way supply-side could work is if there was a mechanism by which the lowered taxes could ONLY be re-invested in the company with an eye to increasing/improving production and benefiting the employees (as that old fascist Ford did) so the employees could actually buy the products they are making. You can't have a consumer economy if the consumers have no money to spend.

And, as a huge part of this is on Wall Street, which actually produces NOTHING, the tax cuts would be disallowed for them. Factory owners get taxed at 29% - banks and money traders get taxed at 60%. Moving paper around is NOT investing.

[Keith Bee]

8. A sad K&R

:(

[SoCalDem]

9. Champagne & caviar for the Upper's..bread & circuses for the Lowers

Look at the public "silliness" that went on during the depression..

dance marathons, pier-diving horses, wing walking, pole sitting, mega amusement parks, promotions at movie theaters...it was a way to placate the masses so they might have a little "fun" in the otherwise dreary lives.

Today we have American Idle (intentional spelling), some "award" show almost every week, "Fun-time with the TrashCashians", "Make Me a Dress in 30 Minutes", "Abuse Night with The Donald", "Let's Play Pretend" News 24/7, "Prison Peep Show", "Hidden Camera Pervert Catchers", etc.

The difference today is that we just sit and watch a screen while others amuse us..in the 30's at least people got out of their homes & did some of the silliness for themselves