Someone asked me a question this morning in the locker room of the YMCA. As I was responding, someone else chimed in that the cause of all of our economic problems was that FDR had abandoned the gold standard.
I tried to come up with as humorous a retort as I could that early. It seemed that it would be an in-kind response. Whoops. He was serious. Facts and logic had no effect.
Television commentators, politicians, Joes of various occupations, denizens of the locker room, kindergarten undergraduates. We are unbelievably fortunate to have so many experts on economics at this time of crisis.
We are fortunate that expertise in that subject doesn’t require years of study, double-digit I.Q.s, dictionary definitions and all that other unimportant folderal. I wish I had known. I could have saved myself all of that time, effort and money.
I do wonder, however, if it has been that easy, why all of these people waited until the economy tanked before showcasing their mastery of the subject? If increasing the marginal tax rate on the top 5% from 35 to 39 point something will have such disastrous results, why do we have fewer wealthy people and wealthy people with less wealth now, after Bush reduced those taxes?
Under Clinton, with that higher tax rate, the economy grew and we had a record surplus. With the lower rate the surplus became a record deficit.
Under Clinton, the poor and middle class made moderate gains. Since the tax cut for the wealthy, the poor are getting poorer and the size of the middle class has shrunk.
This morning I saw that champion of the poor, Tina Brown, wring her hands about how returning the tax rate to what is was when the economy was relatively healthy would mean difficult times for all of those charitable parties she spends her time attending. She feared that fewer could afford to pay $5,000 per table. I find it ironic that the dresses around these $5,000 tables cost far more than the the tables.
My crazy take on this is that charities are actually being hurt more by the effect the economy is having on the poor. Those classified as poor actually give a higher percentage of their income for charity than do the wealthy. The economy, since the tax cuts enjoyed by the wealthy, has also increased the number of people requiring charity.
If memory serves, the last tax cut amounted to $1.69 trillion. I thought that was a lot of money. It was apparently not enough. Economists have been unable to find any blips in the economy attributable to that cut. Perhaps they should look overseas. Many suspect that a large part of it ended up in foreign accounts. I guess those jobs shipped overseas could use the company, so to speak.
When money is stolen, our expectation is that someone should go to jail. When lives are ruined, we want someone to pay the price. This meltdown has caused incalculable loss and misery. Many of those wannabe experts are among the culpable. Yet, no one is headed to court, to prison. We might as well be giving out medals for greed. Should we be surprised if people lose trust in our system, in our leaders?
Do we listen to someone who has stolen from us, when they say that the ensuing problems will all be solved if we permit them to steal even more from us? Rarely. Do we listen when someone whose policies have devastated the world’s economy with greed, tax cuts for the miscreants, reliance on the mythical invisible hand and deregulation say that all of the problems will be corrected by more of the same? Sadly, too many do.
{ 2 comments }
You kind of rambled a little in this one and lost me some where in that rambling. If your point was that increasing the marginal tax rate on the top 5% from 35 to 39 point something will not have disastrous results and may actually be a good move, then I agree with you.
You probably identified the most salient point. I started, however, on a micro rant about all of the putative expertise that we are drowning in from commentators and politicians.
I become nauseous listening to all of the stupid comments by people who still don’t appreciate what caused our situation. The kicker is that they are recommending more of the same, as though that will solve those problems.
The rambling appears to be developing into a permanent state for me. Age?
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