patrick.net

I am sure none of the rich would move their money/business offshore

Let them go. We don't need their money . . . we can print more.

As for their "business", if their business is rentierism their absence will improve things.

If you can find a way to force the rich to pay for your big government wet dream then more power to you.

~10 years ago things were in balance. What happened???

Exactly, sumpin aint right.

There's two kinds of people, those doing all of the talking, and those talking about them.

Margaret Thatcher: "The main problem with Socialism is that you always run out of other people's money."

Nomograph says

The only people I’ve *ever* heard arguing for a nanny state are you, Honest Abe, and RayAMerica. All of you have advocated government confiscation of gold and silver, and the installation of a wealth management program run by the federal government.

I've never advocated that, neither has AdHom or Abe. Do you dream this stuff up on your own or are you getting help from those drugs you're on?

RayAmerica says

The problems are solvable, but when you have basically an entire political movement (Dems & Repulicrats) based on taking from the haves and giving to the have nots, it makes it almost impossible to say the least.

Rightly so. If you'll think about it for a second, I'm sure you'll agree. When the country is 5% haves and 95% have nots, how exactly do you propose to cut spending enough to balance a budget? How do you think the economy will perform?

tatupu70 says

When the country is 5% haves and 95% have nots, how exactly do you propose to cut spending enough to balance a budget? How do you think the economy will perform?

Human nature is such that if you simply provide handouts to able bodied people, they will abuse the system. What people like you fail to realize is that there are enormous numbers of people that are lazy and unwilling to do anything other than receive something for nothing. I have personally known people like this. The only people that should receive welfare, etc. are those that are beyond helping themselves. If you made people clean parks, streets, whatever for their entitlements, you would see a huge reduction in applicants.

AdHominem says

It is funny that they label you, me and others as “conservatives,” “neocons,” and even republicans because while we may believe in fiscal responsibility, I gather that neither of us is happy with George Bush or his administration, the ongoing wars and empire building, government intervention into the private lives of citizens (social issues), bailouts, “free trade,” nor do we support idiots like Sarah Palin, or Rush Limbaugh.
I oppose centralization of power, which is something BOTH political parties support. They have and will continue to support centralization of power as long as Democrats and Republicans remain viable political parties.

I agree. Bush was terrible, especially in his last term. Throughout, he was nothing other than an idiot that was controlled by the globalists & Neocons. IMO, Obama is Bush on steroids ... but with better persona ... although more and more are beginning to see him for what he really is; a puppet being controlled by the big central government, Wall Street, Bankster elitists.

RayAmerica says

Human nature is such that if you simply provide handouts to able bodied people, they will abuse the system. What people like you fail to realize is that there are enormous numbers of people that are lazy and unwilling to do anything other than receive something for nothing. I have personally known people like this. The only people that should receive welfare, etc. are those that are beyond helping themselves. If you made people clean parks, streets, whatever for their entitlements, you would see a huge reduction in applicants.

I'm not quite as cynical as you on the American people. I think, by and large, Americans are some of the best people on Earth. It's unfortunate that you have such a poor opinion of your fellow man--perhaps you should move somewhere else where the people are up to your standards.

But, in any event, I'm all for welfare work programs. You realize that it would cost even more money to create and sustain such programs though, right? I didn't know you were for increasing the size of government....

And again--just for the record--I never mentioned welfare. You are the one obsessed with it. I want a strongly progressive tax structure. It's the only way to sustain a middle class and a vibrant economy

Troy says

~10 years ago things were in balance. What happened???

Good question as it relates to the Bay Area. But many are not trying to ask that question or understand/compare anything in a historical context.

tatupu70 says

5% haves and 95% have nots,

Most of these stats are problematic. That top 5% has a higher concentration of their wealth in the tiniest portion of its most affluent members. When you raise taxes on anyone (or any small company) making more than $200k per year, you are hitting the wrong people. The problem is that the tiniest group of well-connected (perhaps the top .0001%) will find a way to make money off of every wealth-distribution or government regulation bill passed. See Obama's financial reform bill or Obama care for examples.

I recently read that our richest Americn family, the Walton's, own as much wealth as the entire bottom 40% of our country. So, the issue isn't tax rates. Its that these super rich get their claws into the government and slant any legislation in their favor. Every time the US government gains more power, so do these aristocrats.

Aiming our class warfare anger at anyone (or any small business) making over $200k is misdirected legislative attention, IMHO. This is, of course, by design.

Thanks Lowlysmartrenter and CBO for your comments.

One idea that worked in the distant past:

In ancient Israel the Israelites understood that land was a finite resource and how valuable it was to have control over it. So they divided the land roughly equally between all the families. Then they let the free market take over (people were free to buy and sell) but at the end of every so many years they had a Jubillee where all the land had to be returned to the original owner (or his descendants) and all debts were forgiven.

This system would be way more productive than simply having government confiscate wealth. Because as Kevin said in another thread idle or misallocated wealth is the bane of an economy. We need to put wealth to work in order maintain prosperity as a nation. Unfortunately most every allocation of funds by the federal government and intervention in markets is either wasteful, unproductive/detrimental to the economy or both.

And as CBO so rightly points out every time government grows in power and funding so do the aristocrats. (by the way it was these same aristocrats who designed the federal reserve system)

CBOEtrader says

I recently read that our richest Americn family, the Walton’s, own as much wealth as the entire bottom 40% of our country. So, the issue isn’t tax rates. Its that these super rich get their claws into the government and slant any legislation in their favor. Every time the US government gains more power, so do these aristocrats.

Why isn't the issue tax rates? You need to get that money back into circulation.

And while I agree that we need to find ways to keep Big Business and the Aristocracy from running our government, I think we probably differ on the solutions...

tatupu70 says

And while I agree that we need to find ways to keep Big Business and the Aristocracy from running our government, I think we probably differ on the solutions…

Lets not forget the other lobbies who have a social engineering/welfare agenda's wasting our tax payer money.

marcus says

Wrong.
http://www.ehow.com/facts_6896443_replacement-cost-fire-insurance-policy.html

http://www.mass.gov/Eoca/docs/doi/Consumer/homeowners_guide.pdf

See Replacement Cost Coverage (on Dwelling)

Basically it says you can insure you house for a Set cash value, market value or Replacement value of your house. While the replacement value may not equal the full 600k you paid for the house, it should cover what it would cost to replace the house if you had to rebuild it from scratch. I would also like to point out that a Bank will require you to maintain an insurance policy that will cover at least the amount of mortgage note they have on the house. So a 600k house that burns to the ground should have sufficient cash value insurance to at least cover the banks mortgage note. It's the insured contents of the property is where most arsonists will make there profits on.

In some US cities in the 1970s arson swept through neighborhoods with declining real estate values, as desperate speculators turned to arson for profit to wrest some value from their investments.

That would have been NYC back then. But who knows if the mob was involved with that.

CBOEtrader: So, the issue isn’t tax rates. Its that these super rich get their claws into the government and slant any legislation in their favor. Every time the US government gains more power, so do these aristocrats.

I agree that the super rich influence the tax rate and I'd take it further by saying the super rich rig our elections and a plethora of legislation, not just laws related to taxation. I would also stipulate that 'super rich' and 'corporation' are synonymous. So I'd have to disagree with that second sentence. As corporations get more wealthy, the government actually loses power. It no longer operates by and for the people as our founders intended, but becomes co-opted by and for the corporation (and despite the wisdom of our Supreme Court, I adamantly deny that corporations are individuals endowed with the same inalienable rights and access to the democratic system).

LowlySmartRenter says

It no longer operates by and for the people as our founders intended, but becomes co-opted by and for the corporation (and despite the wisdom of our Supreme Court, I adamantly deny that corporations are individuals endowed with the same inalienable rights and access to the democratic system).

I completely agree. As the government grows in power, it no longer operates by and for the people. I do believe that the founding fathers witnessed a version of this phenomenon in europe, which is exactly why the constitution's main objective was to limit the size and scope of the federal government.

But yet, you disagree with...
CBOEtrader says

Every time the US government gains more power, so do these aristocrats.

...?

I don't see the difference in what you are saying compared to what I am saying.

The only way I can tell to take power away from these aristocrats is to reinstitute constitutional limits on government--starting with income taxes.

I thought this site and book documents pretty well why things are the way they are:

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/

Basically, the very rich hire lobbyists and marketers, and fund "research" to show why they should not be taxed.

Ultimately it's all about control over labor. That's the key point I got out of the book.

"Taxing the rich isn't about ...stealing wealth from people who earned it..." Sure it is, what double talk - government speak - euphemistic term would you call it ? Social engineering?

Why don't you come out of the closet and admit that you are a socialist? Or would you prefer "creeping progressive", or liberal democrat ? It doesn't matter, they're all the same.

I would add that doing something about the graft, fraud, and waste we have in government would be a good idea. You can't just blame the rich, you can't just blame the government either. The poor are also at fault for pipe dreams, thinking one day they too can be rich.

Raising the standard of living for 90% of the population makes a lot of sense to me. The usual arguments of cutting spending and lowering taxes just doesn't hold water, neither does raising taxes and spending more. We need to be smarter about how we tax, how we spend, and how we deliver services.

Bring on the massive overhaul of government and society, I'm ready!

Somewhat misleading since the 2008 program was by design an advance that would be reversed. The article says 4% or so of claims are screwed up, close enough for gob't work.

I'm hoping my experience living in Japan 1992-2000 is indeed the correct intellectual and emotional grounding for the situation we (the middle class) are in now -- just a continuous beatdown that will go on and on, worse and worse.

If it weren't for OUR stupid bubble the Japanese wouldn't even had had their mini-recovery 2003-2007.

wait wait wait .... who figured out how much is enough? Why that amount? Who picked that guy? How much is rich? Why? How much more should rich people pay? why?

I'm pretty much just ribbing you .. but, my questions do point out some of the troubles with liberal based social engineering.

I have pondered this and came up with some basic stuff. In each area of our land it costs $X(A) to live as a middle class citizen. $X is an unknown amount and (A) is the multiplier tied to a particular area. If a study can find what amount is the middle amunt needed for a middle class existance in each area ... wait wait wait ,,, we have to draw the dividing lines first to find these areas .... hmmm ... how will we do that? Why that way? See the problem with this stuff man? The tax code could be - ALL yearly income is taxed 10%. All income over 10 times the national average will be taxed 50% for the amount over 10 times national average.

Bap33 says

wait wait wait …. who figured out how much is enough? Why that amount? Who picked that guy? How much is rich? Why?

The line between middle class and upper class is the difference between return to labor (wages) and return to capital (interest and rents).

I agree that this should be a local thing and not a national level of taxation. If I had my way the state/Federal tax levels would be inverted, ~5% paid to the Feds, ~10% paid to the state, and ~25% paid to the county.

Thing is, compared to that everything is so screwed up that nothing is even in the same ballpark as being optimal.

Btw, the disappearance of the upper middle class tax brackets was accomplished by the Reagan reorganization of 1986, in an effort to insulate the wealthiest and most predatory fortunes from populist confiscation, like what existed 1940-1960-ish.

How much more should rich people pay? why?

I disagree with the general conventional wisdom here that is it necessary to load taxation on the upper class to pay for everyone's way (since I believe the tax bill comes out of rents and land values dollar for dollar).

The problem is that since we undertax the middle and lower classes so much it's hard now to adjust taxation into a more flatter tax system. People's budgets (especially their mortgages) have been set to their existing takehome pay.

This is why we liberals don't mind taxing the upper middle class and upper class more . . . Willie Sutton had it right, unfortunately.

In a better system we'd tax more what we want less of (rentierism) and less what we want more of (labor), but getting there from here is not possible, not in my lifetime at least.

Party of No dances to the tune of their masters.

And how exactly are the workers screwed?

AdHominem says

they make up the fastest growing “industry”

Can you support that ? You may think that the stimulus created a lot of federal jobs. It it did saved a lot of state government jobs.

AdHominem says

Housing prices surged, people thought they were getting richer, but in reality their money was just losing value (aka inflation) because the money supply was growing exponentially

Actually general inflation was not close to housing inflation, and those people were in fact getting richer, but only if they sold before the crash.

I tend to agree though that a devaluation is not a good solution. It's a total cop out, and would have a potentially disastrous effect on the credibility of our government, not to mention the long term perception of the dollar and US govt securities.

Until they support cutting the defense budget (all of it, not just the military) by 75 percent, getting rid of medicare, and getting rid of social security, I can't take any small government people seriously.

Of course, only one of those things is actully paid by the wealthy.

I'd say screw everyone and no tax cuts for anyone. A tax cut for a lower class will result in savings that will get them a meal at McDonald's. A tax cut for a rich person will result in savings for a few houses.

nosf41 is right. It's just pre-election political games. Then it's about who can lie in front of everyone better (debate).

nosf41 says

They still have a large majority in Congress

In the House, yes, they can pass anything they want.

The Senate, no. There's a couple of DINOs that have been peeing in the Cheerios this year WRT joining the Republicans in not voting for cloture so bills can move from debate to the final floor vote. This has become a problem thanks to the rather interesting approach of the Republicans to just filibuster everything now.

Right now the Senate only has 59 Democrats or Democratic-leaners, one short of the 60 necessary for cloture. The two Republican princesses from Maine occasionally support bills through the Republican filibuster.

Vain says

’d say screw everyone and no tax cuts for anyone. A tax cut for a lower class will result in savings that will get them a meal at McDonald’s

This is not true. The lower bracket cuts amount to ~$200B/yr, or around $2000 per household averaged out.

AdHominem says

but in reality their money was just losing value (aka inflation) because the money supply was growing exponentially

If the amount of goods being chased increases, increasing money supply is neither here nor there.

And you may have noticed that China has been pumping out a great amount of goods for a while.

Additionally, if the increased money supply is just collecting in strong hands (or gathering dust in banks), monetary velocity has decreased and the effective money supply is much less than the gross number.

AdHominem says

*as an aside I would love to see how much actual money/savings went to purchases of real estate from 1997-2007 vs. how much of those purchases were financed.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/HMLBSHNO

All this financing WAS devaluation.

This financing also spurred a 22% rise in real GDP, 1999-2007:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDPCA

44% in nominal terms:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDP

You can’t cure devaluation with the hair of the dog that bit ya!!!!!!!!!

You are failing to understand the full ramifications of the deflationary collapse our national economy is still teetering towards.

While I am not confident that the Krugman policy approach is sufficient, I was surprised to see him say this in his recent column:

"Republican obstruction means that the best we can hope for in the near future are palliative measures — modest additional spending like the infrastructure program President Obama proposed this week, aid to state and local governments to help them avoid severe further cutbacks, aid to the unemployed to reduce hardship and maintain spending power.

"Even with such measures, we'll be lucky to do as well as Japan did at limiting the human and economic cost of the economy's financial woes. But it's by no means certain that we'll do even that much. If the Republicans go beyond obstruction to actually setting policy — which they might if they win big in November — we'll be on our way to economic performance that makes Japan look like the promised land."

I've been saying the same thing, that gummint "Keynesian" spending at best is only going to be palliative and not curative.

There is no cure for this economy's problems short of liquidating a lot of idle wealth that is gumming up everything via rentierism.

So neither side backs down and the tax rates revert to pre-Bush levels...personally I don't think that's such a terrible thing.

Dems most likely to blink first? or Dems make last stand before House turns over?

It was a loan in 2008, a credit in 2009... this year they outta give us a house just because we live & breathe.

The story said that they're collecting against the estates of dead people. If the estate proceeds have already been distributed, how do ya do that?

Awww, no one would play with me! wahhhhh!

PFM - Pure fucking magic. It's how things work.

The Dems have the media not holding them to task on anything. No questions about how to pay for Obamacare. No questions about unemployment. No questions about the treatment of Arizona voters. So, as this next act is played out in a effort to save a few seats the media will help Barry as much as it can. And I agree, Reps are 99% made of the same slimey shit the Dems are ... just a different pile, but still stinks.

The lack of an honest unbiased media keeping the lights on the roaches is not a good thing. Libs hate Fox news, but Fox is the best non-biased source there is. Period. (that oughta get things rolling lol)

When I read AF posts, it has crossed my mind that perhaps he is just mocking this forum. It is, after all, a crash blog. The crash of housing and the general state of the economy are the headlines. A lot of gloom and doom is discussed in a more civilized dialogue. His "plant potatoes" / end of the world dialogue I take as a joke.

Either that or he is a total lunatic who has read The Road one too many times.

CBOEtrader: I don't think the power lies with the government, but with corporations. Fat cats in Washington aren't getting rich off our income taxes, they were already well monied before they infiltrated the government, and many of our so-called representatives are bought and paid for the day they arrive on the hill. We can't siphon off power by reducing taxes alone. Smaller government may seem like a panacea but even if you can fit the government on the head of a pin, what good is it if it's still operates by and for corporate America and not the U.S. citizen? That's the distinction I was trying to make anyway. Perhaps we're in agreement.

Bap33 says

The Dems have the media not holding them to task on anything. No questions about how to pay for Obamacare. No questions about unemployment. No questions about the treatment of Arizona voters. So, as this next act is played out in a effort to save a few seats the media will help Barry as much as it can. And I agree, Reps are 99% made of the same slimey shit the Dems are … just a different pile, but still stinks.
The lack of an honest unbiased media keeping the lights on the roaches is not a good thing. Libs hate Fox news, but Fox is the best non-biased source there is. Period. (that oughta get things rolling lol)

If there's one thing almost everyone agree on--it's that the media is out to get them... I find it amusing that liberals think there is a vast right wing media conspiracy while conservatives think there is a vast left wing media conspiracy. It must be a psychological thing...