What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[4est_4est_Gump]

Well-Intentioned and Uninformed
By Thomas Sowell
February 15, 2012 12:00 A.M.

‘Often wrong but never in doubt’ is a phrase that summarizes much of what was done a century ago by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the two giants of the Progressive era.

Their legacy is very much alive today, both in their mindset — including government’s picking winners and losers in the economy and intervening in foreign countries — as well as specific institutions created during the Progressive era, such as the income tax and the Federal Reserve System.

Like so many Progressives today, Theodore Roosevelt felt no need to study economics before intervening in the economy. He said of “economic issues” that “I am not deeply interested in them, my problems are moral problems.” For example, he found it “unfair” that railroads charged different rates to different shippers, reaching the moral conclusion that these rates were discriminatory and should be forbidden “in every shape and form.”

It never seemed to occur to Roosevelt that there could be valid economic reasons for the railroads to charge the Standard Oil Company lower rates for shipping their oil. At a time when others shipped their oil in barrels, Standard Oil shipped theirs in tank cars — which required a lot less work by the railroads because they didn’t have to load and unload the same amount of oil in barrels.

Roosevelt was also morally offended by the fact that Standard Oil created “enormous fortunes” for its owners “at the expense of business rivals.” How a business can offer consumers lower prices without taking customers away from businesses that charge higher prices is a mystery still unsolved to the present day, when the very same arguments are used against Walmart.

The same preoccupation with being “fair” to high-cost producers who lose customers to low-cost producers has turned antitrust law on its head, generations after the Progressive era. Although antitrust laws and policies have been rationalized as ways of keeping monopolies from raising prices for consumers, the actual thrust of antitrust activity has often been against businesses that charged lower prices than their competitors.

Theodore Roosevelt’s antitrust attacks on low-price businesses in his time were echoed in later “fair trade” laws, and in attacks by the Federal Trade Commission, another agency spawned in the Progressive era against “unfair” competition.

Woodrow Wilson’s Progressivism was very much in the same mindset. Government intervention in the economy was justified on grounds that “society is the senior partner in all business.”

The rhetorical transformation of government into “society” is a verbal sleight-of-hand trick that endures to this day. So is the notion that money earned in the form of profits requires politicians’ benediction to be legitimate, while money earned under other names apparently does not.

Thus Woodrow Wilson declared: “If private profits are to be legitimized, private fortunes made honorable, these great forces which play upon the modern field must, both individually and collectively, be accommodated to a common purpose.”

And just who will decide what this common purpose is and how it is to be achieved? “Politics,” according to Wilson, “has to deal with and harmonize” these various forces.

In other words, politicians, bureaucrats, and judges are to intervene, to pick winners and losers, in a complex economic process — a process of which they are often uninformed, if not misinformed, and in which they pay no price for being wrong, regardless of how high a price will be paid by the economy.

If this headstrong, busybody approach seems similar to what is happening today, that is because it is based on fundamentally the same vision, the same presumptions of superior wisdom, and the same kind of lofty rhetoric we hear today about “fairness.” Wilson even used the phrase “social justice.”

Woodrow Wilson also won a Nobel Prize for peace, like the current president — and it was just as undeserved. Wilson’s “war to end wars” in fact set the stage for an even bigger, bloodier, and more devastating Second World War.

But, then as now, those using noble-sounding rhetoric are seldom judged by the consequences of their ideas.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Q: You favor an increase in the capital gains tax, saying, “I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was 28%.” It’s now 15%. That’s almost a doubling if you went to 28%. Bill Clinton dropped the capital gains tax to 20%, then George Bush has taken it down to 15%. And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28%, the revenues went down.
A: What I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. The top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year--$29 billion for 50 individuals. Those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That’s not fair.
Q: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.
A: Well, that might happen or it might not. It depends on what’s happening on Wall Street and how business is going.
Source: 2008 Philadelphia primary debate, on eve of PA primary Apr 16, 2008




Obama's got a brand new budget! Campaign slogan too!

WE NEED 60 VOTES TO GET MY BUDGET OUT OF THE SENATE!

DAMNED REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTION!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

And you thought the military was the only budget Obama could cut!


There's NASA too!

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/291099/obama-wrecks-mars-program-robert-zubrin



Of course, we told you that when he announced we were going to abandon the Moon for Mars and all the "smart" people had a million reasons why going to the Moon and manned missions were a complete waste of time and we predicted, Obama's not going to Mars even with robots, he doesn't like technology...

A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States...,
John P. Holdren
White House Office of Science and Technology Director

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he [Barack Obama] charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering...,"
Charles Bolden

Not one thing there about Space.

If they don't produce proof of Glow Ball Warning, he won't even fund satellites.

That's private sector stuff. After you pay your new taxes, you're free to invest in stuff like that, as long as it's NOT-FOR-PROFIT!

We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we're asking young people to do. Don't go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we're encouraging our young people to do that.
Michelle Obama

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Obama knows what he wants and how to get it.

He wants to protect the ruling class from the wealthy outside of government, to make sure they no longer have a voice, or any sort of measurable clout, thus his new budget:

February 13, 2012
California's high-income taxpayers dropped sharply

Gov. Jerry Brown wants to hit California's highest-income taxpayers with billions of dollars in new taxes, and is jousting with other groups with their own tax-the-rich measures over which, if any, will win voter approval.

But the number of Californians with $500,000-plus annual incomes declined dramatically from 2007 to 2009 as the state's economy stagnated, leaving fewer to tax, the California Taxpayers Association points out in a compilation of data from the Franchise Tax Board.

The latest FTB statistical report covers the 2009 tax year, and Cal-Tax points out that it listed just 98,610 California tax returns with adjusted gross income of $500,000 or more, down nearly a third from the 146,221 in 2007. Data for 2010 are not yet available.

Those 98,610 tax returns were just over a half-percent of the 14.6 million returns filed for 2009, but they accounted for 18.8 percent of the taxable income and 32 percent of the income taxes paid that year.

Economists believe that most of the decline reflects lower incomes, rather than an exodus of high-income taxpayers from the state, but there are no hard data on that point.

Expanding the 2009 sample to the top 1 percent (144,071) drops the cutoff to just under $400,000 a year in adjusted gross income. The one-percenters accounted for 21 percent of the taxable income that year and 35.5 percent of the taxes levied.

At one time, the top 1 percent of California taxpayers accounted for half of the state's income tax revenues but their incomes, tied to stocks and other capital markets, declined the most of any income class and currently, state officials say, they are believed to provide about 37 percent of the state's income taxes. That decline accounts for much, if not most, of the state's revenue declines in recent years.

Those with adjusted gross incomes of $400,000 or more paid $25.7 billion in state income taxes for 2007, but two years later, that had dropped to $12.3 billion. Their taxable incomes had declined from about $278 billion to $156 billion.

http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolaler...dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter#mi_rss=Latest News

That's how you grow an economy!

Hire more government employees! Follow the Greeks...

 

[JohnnySavage]

Same thing happened in Maryland a few years ago. Virginia was very happy.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Same thing happened in Maryland a few years ago. Virginia was very happy.

We showed the map from the census of population flight and it meant nothing to the tax the rich crowd who imagine they are the 99%...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I see West Virginia is fleeing to the Big XII...

 

[JohnnySavage]

We outgrew our coon skin caps.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You'll love Texas, it's like they have a team for everything!

 

[JohnnySavage]

Do you have to wear shoes down there?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Cowboy boots and not much else...

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?p=39988425&posted=1#post39988425

 

[JohnnySavage]

I'll bring the hot tub to the tailgate party!

http://www.photobombing.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/hillbilly_hottub.jpg

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

They look all down under...

 

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

Hey Colonel Merc, Report! Here's Obama defending his bullshit with another lie.


Obama On Failed Promise To Cut Deficit In Half: "Recession Turned Out To Be A Lot Deeper"

So you're saying it's a lie that the recession turned out to be far deeper than anyone thought? Senility must be a bitch.

 

[Disgustipated]

"Well we're not there because this recession turned out to be a lot deeper than any of else realized," Obama said about his inability to cut the deficit in half.

Who the fuck is you editor? He should be FIRED!

 

[mercury14]

Of course it's improving. We'll soon see the improvements at the checkout, the pump, the decreased purchasing power, the next extension of the recession...

Yes, thanks for the reminder. You're on record on this very thread predicting hyperinflation, deflation, and stagflation. Your predictions are about two years old and therefore utter flops.


And you predicted a double-dip recession.

And when the economy improved you predicted a second double-dip recession.

And when the economy improved again you predicted a third double-dip recession

You predicted a plummeting stock market under Obama a whole heap of times, even as you were watching the Dow put on +6000 points.

You predicted that health care reform would wipe out the entire industry, then you watched the industry's stock prices skyrocket by more than 100%

When I lose at roulette I get to keep my chips on the table forever until it lands one of my number, right?

Umm no you lost. Every single one of your bets failed. We're clearing the table now AJ. Feel free to make new bets though.

I'm sure one day if the marble finds one of your bets you'll feel quite vindicated. You'll hold up your 1-19 track record and tell us you were right all along, wont' ya?

 

[unregistered]

 

[koalabear]

No, I'm saying Obama lied when he said most agreed with him. Most didn't agree with him, only most of you dummies on the left.

Then you have those that keep calling a depression a recession.

 

[Disgustipated]

No, I'm saying Obama lied when he said most agreed with him. Most didn't agree with him, only most of you dummies on the left.

That's not what you said at all. You said nothing of anyone agreeing with him. Senility must suck when you can't even remember what you C&Pd less than a day ago.

 

[richard_daily]

No, I'm saying Obama lied when he said most agreed with him. Most didn't agree with him, only most of you dummies on the left.

So you knew the recession that happened under W was horrible all along, and give full responsibility to the president who presided over the root of it?


Of course you did.

 

[koalabear]

All I know is I've been in a deep depression since Ken left.

We know, we know.

 

[unregistered]

 

[richard_daily]

We know, we know.

Were you friends with him on facebook like your lover vet?

 

[unregistered]