The war is going too well

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Darkwolf wrote:

"any honest economist". Honest ?. So you aware of the fact, that your statement is highly controversial. And has in the end nothing to do with "scientific honesty". Because calling the whole bunch of economics, who would disagree with you "dishonest" isn't the sound basis of scientific discussion, is it ?

George Bush the elder was between Regean and Clintion, right? Why didn't Bush enjoy the fruits ?

[ April 13, 2003, 14:58: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

Generally spoken, you are right. But if you follow that line, it is important who you cut the taxes for. Unfortunatly, I am not familiar with th taxcut-program of the Bush-administration. Could you post some details, please?

 

Why didn't Bush 41 get the benefit of this?

Lets see:

Dow Jones Ind Avg closed on Jan 20th 1988 (should be the or around the day Bush 41 took office) @ 1897.14. On Jan 19th 1992, it was @ 3797.59, an increase of 100% in four years.

Unemployement was stable during most of his tenure with a 1.2% increase in his final year in office. There are lot of factors that can be debated here, but that breaks down into an even bigger morass so take as many potshots at that as you would like.

Gross Domestic Product (in 1996 dollars) increased by $2.3 trillion. Not outstanding but not bad.

Overall, a satisfactory, if not exemplary performance.

Fabius:

In his final year in office Reagan dropped the top tax bracked from %50 to 38.5%.

During Bush 41's administration the top tax bracked was dropped from 38.5% to 33%, and that was only on the $42k earned after a persons' first $30k of earnings, the rest (amounts below $30k and above $72k) was taxable at 28%.

It is only important that you cut taxes for those who pay them. You can't cut taxes on the bottom 50% of wager earners in this nation as they don't pay any federal income tax. That would not be a tax cut, it would be a subsidy, no matter what the Democrats would have you believe.

I love hearing Dems call for tax cuts for the poor, it is another example of lying liberals pulling on heartstrings to buy votes for elections instead of doing what is best for everyone.

 

Darkwolf -- I guess that it would not include Hallibuton, since they got I $885 million refund after Cheney became CEO (see my link in the topic: the business of war. The rich find ways to get out of paying their fair share of taxes everyday, and you know it. And don't tell me they don't because my ex-wife helped with the tax shelters for Eugene Dupont. I never saw a greater den of thievery than tax accounts "helping out the rich." I thought that you would be opposed to welfare? Or is it only above a cetain income bracket that welfare should be given out?

By the way, a lot of new technology did not come from fat corporations, as anyone in the computer industry can tell you. In fact, Hayes invented the dial-up modem in his kitchen as an example of "garage technology" that became a large part of the economic boom of the 90s. Conservatives have been doing the lying for so long that most of them believe their own lies by now -- but at the expense of the poor and middle class.

 

Sorry not that familiar with Hayes, so I will take your word for his story. That said, given a chance, the Libs would have taxed Hayes severely as soon as he was moderately successful. We would all still be paying $200 for a 300 Baud modem, because nobody would have wanted to invest the money to continue to develop such a risky technology if they were only going to get to keep 20 cents of each dollar of profit that they might or might not make. I also doubt, given the cost of the materials at the time, Hayes could have been living on welfare when he developed his modem. I would be willing to bet that he was college educated and in the top 50% of wage earners at the time (I am assuming that he was American since you use him as an example.

I know that Republicans lie, and don't give a rip about the little people (a group of which I belong to). The difference between us is that I know that the Democrats lie just a much. I look at the results of actions. The fact is that the Republicans are more interested in growing the economy (rich people make more money in a good economy) and the Democrats are more interested in taking that money away from the rich and giving it to the poor with no expectations any economic benefit except for themselves, they are counting on another vote in the next election that will keep them in office. That tells me where my vote is generally going to fall.

COME ON LIBERTARIANS! I am getting tired of waiting for you to become a major player in the political world.

Sorry, but the Reps are the lesser of the two evils IMO.

[ April 14, 2003, 05:38: Message edited by: Darkwolf ]

 

You just reminded me of something. There was a book I read a while ago, and there was a passage in there that I still remember. I went and looked it up again just to make sure I got it right.

"Take the real-world example of two kids who graduate from college with honors. One is an admirable idealist. The other is on the make. The idealist joins the Friend of the eath and chains himself to a sequoia. The sharpie goes to work for an investment bank selling derivatives and makes $500,000 a year.. Even assuming that the selfish young banker cheets on his taxes-and he will-he'll end up paying $100,000 a year in taxes: income, property, sales, ect.

While the admirable idealist has saved a tree(assuming the logging company doesn't have bolt cutters) the pirate in the necktie has contributed to society $100,000 worth of schools, roads, and US marines, not to mention Interior Department funding sufficient to save any number of trees and the young idealists chained thereto.

And if the souless yuppie cheats the IRS so well that he ends up keeping the cool 1/2 million? That cash isn't going to sit in his cuff link box. Whether spent or saved, the money winds up invested some where. Those investments create their own welth of jobs."

I paraphrased that a little.

I love rich people. I love fat corporations. Mainly because they provide jobs.

 

It is the market place that creates jobs not corporations. In fact, most of the guys who run fat corporations spend their time trying to eliminate jobs. It's called down-sizing, and perhaps you have heard of it.

I guess then that drug dealing and bank robbery is OK, as long as the money gained is invested, and used to build new roads. I'm not quite sure I follow your logic that anyone cheating or breaking the law is not a criminal because he wears a shirt and tie instead of a ski mask.

 

you also sought of forgot to mention, that with all this spending, inflation will rise quite dramatically. With such a major boom, will come a major slump. Hence, it is logical for the government to only want a steadily growing economy seeing smaller booms and hence smaller slumps.

Just thought i'd bring that out ... business A level mind at work here Also, to tie in with your second point, when inflation rises, the value of the dollar will fall. Hence, America would have to pour out even more notes to maintain the vlaue of what they are giving out. To give out more money, would also mean to print more notes (possibly) and that will, also decrease the value of the US$ ...

Just trying to look at as many possible views that i can think of on a business level.

 

Please present empirical evidence that increased spending by the private sector increases inflation. Increased government spending, if it is being done by printing money is a sure fire way to see inflation, but in the private sector, I have never seen a study or a read anything from a reputable economist on that phenomena.

I agree however that slow steady growth, just barely outpacing the increase of population, is ideal, but I don't think that you will find many people who think of those as the "good times" in history. Everyone likes a big booming economy, it is human nature.

 

@ Darkwolf:

I don't know much about the US tax system, but I thought it is important that you cut taxes for the society group which spends the most money as a whole, and not for a wealthy minority. I guess someon paying top taxes is qualified for the membership in this minority.

But I could have misunderstood you.

@ Sniper: I have not heard about that phenomenon either.