Four of them want Obama. I suspect they don’t understand the implications. I suspect they think it will bring money into their pockets and take it out of the pockets of the rich. Yep, and that’s what they want.
The only problem with that is once you increase taxes on the people who run the companies where do you think they are going to go to recoup that loss?
If you said “they will raise their prices so it will come from us”, go to the head of the class.
Do you really think the “rich” got that way by giving away their money? Do you really think they will just shrug and pay the higher taxes without passing it on? If you do then you are even more naive than I think.
Oh you say, Obama won’t let them increase their prices. Obama will “regulate” the prices they can charge.
There are already a few countries where that happens. Those countries practice Socialism and they are a dying breed. Even Russia isn’t a Socialist country anymore.
If you really think Obama just wants to “spread the wealth around” here’s a little thing for you to listen to.
Yes, I agree with you. This constant portrayal of corporations as evil and greedy concerns me a great deal. Increasing tax burdens on businesses will not only cause us to pay more for their product, but it will also force those companies to make up the difference by hiring less workers, paying the workers they have less money, and ultimately moving their businesses to other countries who are more friendly to them (like Ireland, who has only a 12% tax rate on businesses.)
Growing the economy from the bottom up may sound appealing, but it doesn’t actually work.
Comment by Robin — Monday October 27, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
I guess it would make sense to make it that no one can buy their products then. That’s the best way to grow the company.
Comment by Jocelyn — Monday October 27, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
Yes Joce, that’s what happens. When you raise their taxes they need to recoup the loss. If they can’t sell enough then they have to cut employees. That doesn’t help the economy.
When you say “That’s the best way to grow the company” you do understand that paying more taxes is diametrically opposed to that right? The best way for a company to grow is to keep taxes low so the companies can keep their prices low.
Obama not only wants to raise their taxes but he plans to spend a trillion dollars on making the government bigger. Where do you think he’s going to get that trillion dollars? Once he’s raised taxes on the rich, they either become poor or they move out of the country. The only ones left to raise taxes on then is the not quite as rich. How long before he gets to you.
Here’s the bottom line. If you believe your taxes will go down under Obama you are in Never Never land. He’s got to get that money from somewhere.
Comment by Don — Monday October 27, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
Actually, when corporate taxes increase, the main impact is on the company’s stock price, rather than product price. US companies still have to compete with other companies in this world market, so there isn’t a lot of room to raise prices.
And I think money in my pocket is likely to increase under Obama because the US economy historically does better under Democratic administrations.
And talking about how Obama is going to make us a socialist country ignores the history that taxes have been much more progressive at times in the past. Obama’s tax rate changes won’t “spread the wealth around” as much as the wealth has been spread around in recent history. As I said in another post somewhere, tax progressiveness is a pendulum that is now swinging back to the left but has been much farther left in the past.
Oh, and by the way, the recorded radio inteview above was a typical distortion and removal from context. Listen carefully — Obama never said the Warren court should have broken free from the essential restraints that were put in place by the founding fathers. He just noted that it didn’t. And contary to the text on the screen, he did not say that it was a tragedy that the courts didn’t reinterpret the constitution, but rather that it was a tragedy that the movement became so “court focused”.
It gets tiresome seeing all these manufactured scare tactics put out by a fading campaign.
Comment by Daryl — Monday October 27, 2008 @ 9:55 pm
If the poor are not given a lesser tax brake, they have less money to spend. Which means they have less to buy things from the rich, and the rich get poorer, and the cycle you described happens.
If the poor have more, they spend more, giving more to the rich. Helping our economy grow.
That’s the outcome you chose not to see.
Comment by Jocelyn — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 5:49 am
*lesser income
Comment by Jocelyn — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 5:50 am
The only problem with your theory Joce is that the cost of everything goes up so the poor can’t really “buy more” because it costs more.
Comment by Don — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 6:12 am
Daryl keeps trotting out this “study” that shows how the economy does better under Democrats than under Republicans.
That would be great if it was that simple. Gosh, the President has total control of how the economy does. That makes it a no-brainer to vote for Obama. Or does it? Here’s a couple of links that discuss what I have said each time he drags his study out. There are a lot more factors at work in an economy than what party the President belongs to.
This one suggests a divided government is best.
This one gives a few other things to think about.
To address your point that the main affect of rising costs is stock performance let’s look at something that’s fresh in all our memories. Take a look at the Cost Of Living over the last year. If you noticed the cost of gasoline increased a huge amount. Yes it’s gone back down but you do remember what happened to the cost of food and goods don’t you? They went up. Stock prices have fallen recently, well, plummeted actually but that was the result of other issues. Anyone who’s been paying attention over the last year can see when the cost to produce something goes up for some reason(in that case fuel) the cost of that product will also go up.
Comment by Don — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 6:34 am
In all these remarks, I’ve never heard anyone discuss the fact that the President alone can’t do all these wonderful or terrible things. That’s what we have a Congress for–to keep tabs on him. If we have a Democrat Congress, with a Republican President, it really slows things down. That’s what we have been living with for the past two (or four, I can’t remember)years, and that slows down everything, because they have to have meetings, and so on, and change a word, or just vote it down.
Comment by Mom — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 8:49 am
Sorry, Don, I didn’t read your last comment until after I had entered mine–I just got out of bed. Anyway, it seems sensible to at least mention the power of Congress this last week before Election Day. By the way, I voted by mail so long ago that these commercials and telephone calls are a real nuisance to me.
Comment by Mom — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 8:58 am
Actually Mom, I have mentioned that every time Daryl brings up his study. One of those links I gave above suggests we all do better when there is a conflict between the President’s party and the ruling party in the House and Senate. I have to admit I always feel better when that happens because that means they are going to do less bad stuff to us.
Comment by Don — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 9:01 am
I love the fact that Daryl dismisses McCain by saying he has a “fading campaign”. I think it’s fading so much you don’t even have to vote Daryl. Obama wins hands down so why bother. 😉
Of course the Gallup Daily poll of likely voters doesn’t show the campaign as “fading”. It shows a tight race.
Comment by Don — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 10:00 am
I haven’t responded to your previous objections to the study because I didn’t think your objections addressed the root of the study. The papers you cited here do bring up some interesting counter points to the thesis. They note, “Yes, the data does show that the economy is better under Democrat presidents, but if you pretend this Democratic president was a Republican, or shift the data a year or two, the economy looks better under Republicans.”
Maybe these are valid points, maybe they are not. But if you have to start tweaking the data to this level, it makes it hard to state a strong case either way. It pretty much blows out of the water any contention that the selection of Obama will radically screw up the economy.
And the rising cost theory — oil prices went up all over the world; that’s not a good analogy with tax increases. It wasn’t confined to the US, so everyone in the world had to increase prices. But taxes specific to one country don’t have the same effect. Market forces don’t allow prices to increase too much.
Comment by Daryl — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 10:14 am
I’m trying to figure out what Economics class you went to. The one I attended taught me about profits, prices, and costs. If you want your profits to stay stable and your costs go up then you must raise your prices. I’m at a loss as to why this is so hard for you to understand.
The “root” of the study says that a Democratic President is all you need to have a good economy. The pages I linked to say the exact same things I have said earlier. It’s not simple like you pretend. There are tons of factors.
“It pretty much blows out of the water any contention that the selection of Obama will radically screw up the economy.” You are either missing the simple connection or you’re being stubborn. The first link points out how Kennedy didn’t apply the same tax & spend policies that most Democrats(and especially Obama) use and how Nixon was more like a Democrat in his policies. The fact Obama wants to “spread the wealth around” shows how far he is from a “typical” Republican. I don’t think Bush did a very good job with taxes and I doubt McCain will do much better but both of them are light years ahead of Obama in wealth redistribution.
Comment by Don — Tuesday October 28, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
Don Said: “Of course the Gallup Daily poll of likely voters doesn’t show the campaign as “fading”. It shows a tight race.”
Cool! Sounds like a wager! How do we define “tight”? Within 20 electoral votes? Within 1% of the popular vote?
Choose your definition of “tight”, and if I agree that it’s reasonable, you’re on.
Now for the payout: I suggest the loser has to state in his blog “I was wrong and my brother [Don/Daryl] was right in predicting the election. Perhaps he was also right about how the country will fare under the new president”. Stated with no conditions or excuses.
Are we on?
Comment by Daryl — Wednesday October 29, 2008 @ 11:25 am
I’ve read a lot of your definitions and I don’t much care for them. Your definition of “fair” is robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. Your definition of “unfair” is when the top 10% of the earners pay 70% of the taxes and the bottom 50% pay 2.9% of the taxes. You think the top 10% need to pay more and the bottom 50% need to pay less.
I know your mother didn’t raise you to be that unfair. What happened? 😉
Comment by Don — Wednesday October 29, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
And btw, I’m not stupid enough to think McCain is going to win. I know there is a chance he could win but I don’t expect it. I expect Obama has fooled enough people into believing he’s going to do what you say he’s going to do.
If you recall he also said he would use government matching funds for his campaign. He lied about that one. He also said he would never turn on Rev Wright just before he threw him under the bus. Another lie. He also says Ayers is just a guy from his neighborhood. Yeah, and I’ve got a little land in Florida I would like to sell you.
Comment by Don — Wednesday October 29, 2008 @ 2:04 pm
Our whole economic system is intrinsically unfair. Those who have money can much more easily make more than those who have none. It is extremely hard for a poor person to rise to wealth. It’s not very hard for a rich person to increase their wealth.
If this were the jungle where everyone had the same access to fruit and weapons, then it might be OK to treat everyone the same, and I might be a Libertarian. But in an economic and political system that is designed and operated by the wealthy to favor the wealthy, I think it’s “fair” to even out the playing field a little by taxing the wealthy a little heavier.
The goal is not to bring everyone to the same level. That would be the true definition of Socialism, as defined by Karl Marx, and that removes incentive and reward for success. The goal should be to provide some support to those who are going through hard times, or who have never had the opportunity to stop working long enough to go to college, or for whatever the reason they stay at the back of the treadmill.
The gap between the rich and poor in this country has increased greatly in the recent past. The ultimate result of this kind of trend is Mexico, or India, where there are a few very, very wealthy people at the top, and the vast majority in base poverty. Is that fair? Should they all be taxed at the same rate? Or do the very wealthy Indians hold some responsibility to share some of the wealth they gained off the hard labor of the vast population of poor who have no other recourse but to toil on behalf of the rich, have no escape hatch?
The situation in India differs from the situation here only in degree. The very wealthy are getting wealthier, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is sliding downwards.
Don, you’re fond of noting that the top 10% of the people pay 70% of the tax. Did you know that the top 10% of the people own over 70% of the wealth in the country? The billionaires didn’t work a million times harder than the thousandaires, nor are they a million times smarter. Nor are they a million times more deserving. The system disproportionately helps the wealthy make more wealth. It’s only “fair” that the system compensate a little for that imbalance.
Comment by Daryl — Wednesday October 29, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Once again, it’s not the government’s job to right the wrongs that you perceive. It should not be the government’s job to decide what is “rich” and what is poor. It’s also not the government’s job to take from the rich and give to the poor but yes they have been doing it ever since income tax was invented.
You seem to think that the government should be in the business of giving handouts to everyone you think deserves it.
I’ll challenge you once again to show me in the constitution where it says medical insurance, education, and handouts to the needy is the responsibility of the government.
Your last paragraph really shows how twisted the Socialist view of the world is. For some reason you think people who earn more should for some reason give it to those who earn less. So what if they have %70 of the wealth? They EARNED IT! Just because you think it’s unfair that someone can make a million or even a billion dollars a year that doesn’t give you the right to take it from them and give it to somebody else.
Comment by Don — Thursday October 30, 2008 @ 12:48 pm