My Brand of Socialism

[Michaelangelica]

What you call "excess" income is essential to any working economy: You're either going to have to let people keep and spend it, or you're going to have to let the government do the investing (which as I said, has an even more embarrassing lack of data showing this as a successful policy).

Australia has had government run banks,rail, telecommunications, insurance, health insurance, power utilities. All very successful businesses.

 

Over the past few decades the economic bean-counters have said it is not fashionable for governments to control these sorts of businesses. So they have been sold off netting the various state and federal Governments countless billions in revenue. For them it has been a great windfall; selling back to the citizenry assets they already own. However it is a one-off profit and in the long run they give up billions in future profits.

Many people feel, and can demonstrate, that we are now getting a lower standard of service in all these areas. Especially in remote rural areas were corporations say it is not profitable to provide services.

There is an argument on in NSW at the moment about selling state Run power plants.

Recently another about water-where the public really objected and drew a line in the sand.

 

"User pays" is the mantra of the moment so free museums are no more. I find this especially objectionable as the museums have been built by my forefathers. Now their great grandchildren have to pay to see them.

This excludes poor kids from the experience.

[Buffy]

Of course, "successful" is in the eye of the beholder!

 

Being a flaming liberal, I actually do support strong government regulation, especially for "essential services": its definitely true that private companies will "not see the ROI" of certain such services and decide its "not worth it" to provide them without government regulation requiring them to do so.

 

Government actually running businesses incurs a huge overhead though, because as your post says, everyone thinks that they or their forefathers paid for it so they should have a say in every decision. This results in horridly lethargic response to problems, with no pressure provided by the economy because its all government-subsidized.

 

This works *best* either in "natural monopolies" (e.g. Public Transit) or in industries where there is little or no innovation (e.g. Utilities, Banks).

 

In the case of the latter however, you will occasionally end up with upheavals in the foundational technology or demand that will befuddle a stodgy government bureaucracy, when a more nimble private firm might do better.

 

There are endless reasons why specific examples of these things don't work in specific cases, and I actually agree with Mike C that the problems he describes are bad. The thing to remember is that all of these dividing lines between what should be done by government and what should be done by private businesses (who should not be allowed to become monopolies or act explicitly to the detriment of the country via regulation) is a very gray one, in which the best thing is quite frankly to change the rules when it makes sense to do so.

 

Arguing however that all private industry is evil and should be banned--which is basically what Mike C is arguing for here even if its not explicit--has much to disqualify it.

 

I do agree that income disparity is one of the biggest problems we have now, being caused by a total lack of proper government intervention in the economy, but throwing out all vestiges of capitalism isn't the way to fix it.

 

A person who can acquire no property, can have no other interest but to eat as much, and to labour as little as possible. Whatever work he does beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own, :hihi:

Buffy

[jackson33]

You mean like buying up the competition and expanding outside the US?

 

I was speaking from memory and I know I am right. The Almanac has no history of this, so I would have to check out the internet.

 

Mike C[/quote

 

You are correct...

 

US Tax Income Tax Rates, for a married couple filing jointly and in the highest brackets...According to Truth and Politics; In part..

 

1950 to 1963 on 400K taxable income 91%

1971 to 1980 on 200k to later 215,400 income 70%

 

Reagan dropped to 50% in 1982, then 38% in 1987...

Bush One, dropped to 28% Clinton Raised to 39.6 and Bush II dropped back to 35%, which expires in 2010. Unless made emanate or extended would go back to 39.6....

 

But;

Keep in mind taxable income (legal deductions) has change a great deal over these years and what is now taxable, in many cases this final figure is twice to three times those during higher rates, today...

[Michaelangelica]

Thinking up a "new improved" economic system is straining this old bear's brain power.

 

The Australian owned assets sold were valued by the stock exchange. Certainly the stock-market boffins made a fortune on most floats. Is that "successful"?

 

Rail and transport is probably the least well run government enterprise.

 

Since the Government got out of insurance there have been a number of spectacular failures (FAI) where many lost their life savings due to directors incompetence and maleficence.

Similarly too in telecommunications (One Tel)

 

One of the most creative,government enterprise the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission), is wonderful and the only reason you would bother owning a radio or a TVin this country. The news gathering service is great and independent. Politicians from all sides hate it (a good sign) and it operates on smaller and smaller budgets and no advertising revenue.

 

I have worked a lot in government departments and have seen a lot of waste. I have also seen a lot of efficiency and dedication.

For example a radio show I used to do for a commercial station was run by two people, a similar show at the ABC employed 5 people.

The ABC is so wonderful I'm happy to cut it some slack when it comes to 'efficiency'.

 

Like 'success" efficiency is also in the eye of the beholder. The current script for a CEO is to take over a business/corporation cut the staff by 50% make a huge profit, the shares go up in price he cashes in his 50mil in share options and moves on within three years with his 20mil a year salary + golden handshake. leaving someone else to clean up the mess when the inevitable crash happens. "Blind Freddy" could do this; you don't need to be a Harvard Business Graduate

Personally I would prefer to see a few redundant stuff running around an ABC radio studio than an extra million in some CEO's pocket..

[CraigD]

The top billionaire incomes come to about $500,000,000 annually.

Now if you taxed this at a rate of 95%, there would still be a surpluis of 25 million as 'pocket' money.

The Brits tried this for awhile: so many folks--including lots of rock stars--emigrated to the US that it was referred to as "the second British Invasion"...

While I’m no student of the migratory patterns or wealthy Brits, I’ve never heard the phrase used this way, nor can I recall hearing of wealthy Brits – rock stars or otherwise - emigrating to the US to escape high taxes. Buffy, can you point us to some references to this migration, and examples of such migrants? :)

 

As I’ve heard the phrase used, the “British invasions” were the result of British musicians touring and publishing in the US in order to exploit our large markets. The first was in the 1960s, the most famous band being the Beatles, the second in the 1980s, with no clear standout among groups like Duran Duran, Wham, and even a few I actually liked, like Tears for Fears.

 

I’ve often heard the claim made that Denmark has a top tax rate of 95%+ offered as proof of the viability of extremely progressive taxes, but suspect this is a myth. Accoding to this paper, though Denmark has one of the highest average tax rates, 39% in 2002, the top (or “marginal”) rate was 73.2% in 1986, declining to 56.3% in 2002. According to the wikipedia article “Taxation in the United States”, on the other hand, the marginal rate in the US was increased to 63% in 1932, then gradually to 94% in 1945. If was dropped from near 90% to 70% in 1964, 50% and 1982, and famously to 28% in 1988.

 

I think there’s considerable exaggeration on both the “fiscal right” (those in favor of less progressive, or even regressive, taxes) and the “fiscal left” (those, like MikeC, who favor more progressive taxes, with a very high marginal rate). On the right, predictions of economic catastrophe from a high marginal rate is belied by the lack such a catastrophe from 1932 to 1964. On the left, the continued increase in wealth of the wealthiest Americans in that same period belies the idea that “excess wealth” can be reduced simply by changing income tax rates.

[Michaelangelica]

Interesting radio programme

A Prinston Professor of Economics

We're a vastly richer, more productive society than we were in the early '70s, and yet we're not sure, it's within the realm of argument, whether the typical family has gained anything. How is that possible?

The answer of course is that there were huge, huge gains at the top of the income distribution. A few people got much, much richer, and that took all, or almost all of the gains. We talk about a second gilded age, referring back to the era of the robber barons, and that is not a metaphor, it's not hyperbole, it's not exaggeration.

By the numbers, the distribution of income in the United States in 2005 almost exactly matched what it was in the 1920s.

So maybe not quite the age of J.P. Morgan, but certainly The Great Gatsby; we're certainly fully back to the levels of inequality that have not been seen since the 1920s. It's an extraordinary thing.

 

So the first question is, how did that happen? How was it possible for inequality to grow that much? And the second question is why hasn't the political system had a backlash against that? If you had told somebody, just in the abstract, 'Look, we're going to see a tremendous concentration of income at the top of the spectrum, stagnation of wages for most workers over a period of several decades'.

Obvious explosion of great wealth. You might have expected, in fact standard political theories would lead you to think that there would be a pressure to raise taxes on the rich and provide a stronger social safety net that you might even have expected to see Hughie Long make a second coming, you know, soak the rich.

But at least you would have expected some kind of political backlash against that in the opposite direction. But the Republican party has become increasingly a party of lower tax rates on people with high income, deregulation, privatisation of parts of the social insurance system, and has by and large won more elections than it has lost.

So the political trend has actually been to the right, when you might have thought that growing inequality would push to the left. So, how did that happen?

 

What I argue is first of all that a lot of the increased in inequality is in fact political at its root, that politics drives economics

Background Briefing - 17 February 2008 - Where is the Middle Class?

[Buffy]

Buffy, can you point us to some references to this migration, and examples of such migrants?

Does the name John Lennon ring a bell? :rolleyes:

 

Actually, a lot of them moved back after Maggie Thatcher lowered the tax rates in the early 80s.

I think there’s considerable exaggeration on both the “fiscal right” (those in favor of less progressive, or even regressive, taxes) and the “fiscal left” (those, like MikeC, who favor more progressive taxes, with a very high marginal rate).

I agree with this, and your assertion that the predicted effects are highly overstated in reality is, I believe, painfully obvious from the facts.

 

The reason for this is that there are always countervailing effects, that make the causes and effects quite unclear. As tax rates go up, there are often changes in income recognition, development of shelters, etc. etc. An open government is a good guarantee that things never get too out of whack.

 

On the other hand, extreme solutions will indeed have extreme effects, as experiments like the Soviet Union and Maoist China show. I've gotten the impression that the only thing different in the solutions proposed for dealing with the filthy rich previously in this thread was the lack of the use of the word "Kulak"...

 

You tell me it's the institution, well, you know, you better free you mind instead, :phones:

Buffy

[Kriminal99]

Socialism is not in any way defined by Communism.

 

Communism is an misinterpreted Frankenstein version of Socialism.

 

It is taking what the perfect society would eventually be, and trying to force it using means that don't work.

 

Real socialism is about improving a natural market (ie capitalism) to remove sources of market failure so that it gets closer and closer to the point where people make the same amount of money.

 

A capitalist market automatically becomes socialist when all market failure is removed. But this goal is not being approached right now either because people don't understand how to approach it or because it doesn't benefit the people in power.

 

Thus the only legitimate and meaningful "Socialist" is an evolutionary socialist that pushes for reform to eliminate market failure in a capitalist market. It is just a way to distinguish yourself from the next idiot yelling "Freedom!" that doesn't understand the first thing about economics.

 

 

Some examples:

 

Privatizing Secondary education - eliminates biased curriculum, causes market driven innovation to increase learning process and target learning towards effectiveness etc.

 

Increasing access to information so people are aware of less immediate and obvious consequences of their actions.

 

Some examples of communism or self styled "revolutionary socialists":

 

Making Secondary education free - Trying to force the ideal end result from the evolutionary approach. Doomed to failure as lack of market driven innovation means it will cost more to try it. Our standard of living will suffer to compensate for any ineptness in how the school system is run.

[Mike C]

You might wish to study some accounting. When corporations buy others, it in essence costs nothing: they are merely converting a short-term asset (cash) into a long term one, often having no effect on owner's equity.

 

If you're trying to claim that this is the only or even the predominant use of short-term assets though, you'll have an extremely hard time finding data to support it. Microsoft may be "spending" $44 billion to try to buy Yahoo--again not a "real" accounting expense, but its also spending $10 billion or so (a direct charge to income: cash out the door) every year on research. Wal-mart builds obnoxiously large stores that employ hundreds both before and after construction.

 

What you call "excess" income is essential to any working economy: You're either going to have to let people keep and spend it, or you're going to have to let the government do the investing (which as I said, has an even more embarrassing lack of data showing this as a successful policy).

 

So, which is going to be the source of investment in Your Brand of Socialism?

 

An investment in knowledge still yields the best returns, :rolleyes:

Buffy

 

In answer to your last question:

Like I said, there would be some allowance of free enterprise.

Even with government help financially.

I mean like 'inventors' that would have ideas that benefit the country.

Copyrights could be included that educate the citizens in any way.

 

Their would be no government control except to limit the amount of enrichment. In other words, no runaway capitalism.

 

I have ideas for two good inventions but do not pursue this because I am retired and not concerned about getting rich or beng a chauvinist driving around a $100,000 car or living in a million dollar mansion.

 

Government run enterprise3s would be much cheaer because you would not have $100,000,000+ CEO's or billion dollar profits since government is

supposed to be a non profit organization.

 

Mike C

 

.

[Mike C]

While I’m no student of the migratory patterns or wealthy Brits, I’ve never heard the phrase used this way, nor can I recall hearing of wealthy Brits – rock stars or otherwise - emigrating to the US to escape high taxes. Buffy, can you point us to some references to this migration, and examples of such migrants? :QuestionM

 

As I’ve heard the phrase used, the “British invasions” were the result of British musicians touring and publishing in the US in order to exploit our large markets. The first was in the 1960s, the most famous band being the Beatles, the second in the 1980s, with no clear standout among groups like Duran Duran, Wham, and even a few I actually liked, like Tears for Fears.

 

I’ve often heard the claim made that Denmark has a top tax rate of 95%+ offered as proof of the viability of extremely progressive taxes, but suspect this is a myth. Accoding to this paper, though Denmark has one of the highest average tax rates, 39% in 2002, the top (or “marginal”) rate was 73.2% in 1986, declining to 56.3% in 2002. According to the wikipedia article “Taxation in the United States”, on the other hand, the marginal rate in the US was increased to 63% in 1932, then gradually to 94% in 1945. If was dropped from near 90% to 70% in 1964, 50% and 1982, and famously to 28% in 1988.

 

I think there’s considerable exaggeration on both the “fiscal right” (those in favor of less progressive, or even regressive, taxes) and the “fiscal left” (those, like MikeC, who favor more progressive taxes, with a very high marginal rate). On the right, predictions of economic catastrophe from a high marginal rate is belied by the lack such a catastrophe from 1932 to 1964. On the left, the continued increase in wealth of the wealthiest Americans in that same period belies the idea that “excess wealth” can be reduced simply by changing income tax rates.

 

Thanks for the info Craig.

 

What I am proposing in these high tax rates for MBoS is to have capital to provide all people to have jobs. Like I said , there would be no unemployment for anyone that wants work.

Jobs are easy to find . It is the dollars that are needed to provide them.

 

And another thing, only the surplus unneeded stagnant incommes would be taxed.

All living expenses would be deducted, so the ultra rich can still live their luxurious lifestyles. So there would be no hardahips or deprevitations to speak of.

 

So patriotic Americans would not really be deprived of anything except the creation of monopolies that eliminate competition.

After all, their original ideas as their sources of wealth should not allow them to expand into buying up newspapers or other medias that are used for censorships and other such means th at they start restricting freedoms for others.

 

Mike C

[Mike C]

Thanks also to Angelica and Jackson for their info.

 

Mike C

[Buffy]

Like I said, there would be some allowance of free enterprise. Even with government help financially.

Some? How much?

 

If an idea costs $10M to develop into a business, and people are limited to earning $100,000 and have a total of $10,000 to invest across say 10 investments, any one inventor is going to have to get 10,000 investors.

 

How practical is that?

 

If people are taxed at 90% for anything above $100,000, those at that level would have little incentive to invest it rather than simply consume it: would you rather be able to go out to dinner 10 more times per year or get $10 for giving it up indefinitely (anyone at the top of your society earns a 1% return on your investments: 10% nominal return on an investment taxed at 90% is roughly a 1% return).

 

If alternatively, the government is somehow going to be the sole source of venture capital, how does the government decide? What kinds of mechanisms will be put into place to ensure that this does not become a game of politics and favoritism?

 

I know that you're sincere in describing a society that would be fairer, more egalitarian, and ensure that no one goes without, and I do indeed share those goals.

 

The problem is that your solution is quite radical, and has so few of the "devilish details" worked out, that from a practical stand point its quite unworkable, let alone trying to actually *convince* people to go along with it.

 

Its really easy to describe the attributes of Nirvana: its quite a bit more difficult to describe how we get there.

 

Honestly, "solutions" that begin with the phrase "Its easy, you just..." are the kind of things that radicals--on both the right and the left, as Craig points out--say, but what they describe is usually never as "easy" once you get into the details.

 

Anyone who uses the phrase 'easy as taking candy from a baby' has never tried taking candy from a baby, :QuestionM

Buffy

[CraigD]

Government run enterprise3s would be much cheaer because you would not have $100,000,000+ CEO's or billion dollar profits since government is

supposed to be a non profit organization.

While I agree in principle that government-run enterprises are cheaper than privately run ones, for many reasons, including excessive executive compensation, The US government, as defined by our Constitution, public laws, and traditions, doesn’t appear to me to meet any of the usual criteria required of a nonprofit organization.

 

Though there are many legal and technical definition of a nonprofit organization, many of them complicated, counterintuitive, and contradictory, the essential characteristic is, in my having-worked-for-NPOs-for-most-of-my-life-occasionally-in-roles-requiring-an-understanding-of-the-distinction opinion, their defining characteristic is that they don’t generate income for their owners or investors. Because Congress is empowered to “borrow money on the credit of the United States” (Art 1 Sect 8), and does, hugely, the US government is a potent source of income for many investors. If your retirement income comes in part from a private, professionally managed, pension, you are likely one of them.

 

Many people have concluded that this fundamental, structural, characteristic of the US government (and many others) is a very bad thing, as, viewed in a very simple, high-level fashion, it allows the government to taking money from people who pay taxes, but do not extend credit to the government (through the purchase of bonds, etc.) – typically the poor through lower-middle class – and giving it to those who do – typically the wealthy. I was impressed by the case presented for this conclusion in journalists Donald Bartlett and James Stelle’s 1992 book, “America: What Went Wrong?” (TOC through first chapter available at America: What Went Wrong?)

 

Arguments like these, though often well-written and compelling, are at best attempts to simplify the very complicated system that is the world’s economy. I’m personally daunted by the challenge of technically understanding the impact of tax and credit policy, falling back instead on an anecdote my mom made several years ago on the occasion of visiting a wealthy friend in southern Florida.

 

Coming and going from her friend’s mansion - there was really, she recounted, no other appropriate word for a 10+ bedroom house surrounded by acres of manicured lawn - she notices makeshift tent encampments of people who worked at such jobs as maintaining these lawns. Disturbed, she asked her friend if she didn’t feel a sense of wrongness at this, and was shocked at her friend’s apparently angry denial of having any such feeling. Her friend was a retired public health professor, who had worked on state programs to provide free health care to poor people living in rural Virginia and West Virginia. A few years into affluent retirement, however, and she appeared to believe herself entitled to an extravagantly luxurious life, and the poor people living near her not entitled to a dwelling with solid walls, electricity, and running water. My mom was appalled, yet unable to bring herself to argue against her friend’s passionately intense mindset.

 

I don’t think taxing the very rich until they’re no longer so rich, and using the money to provide for the poor, or prohibiting the incomes that make such wealth possible, will work. The problem is not, I think, one of economic or government policy, but one of basic moral empathy. The US tax policies of the past quarter century, and the corporate board decisions granting executives 9-digit annual compensations, are due to the mindsets of the people making them, mindsets that don’t allow them to sense anything wrong in the scene my mom experienced in her Florida visit.

 

The essence of the problem, I think, is the human tendency to see people who live differently than us as less human than ourselves. The solution, which, I regret to conclude, will likely take at least a human generation to implement, is for people, especially those likely to wealthy, to resist this tendency. Practically, this can be accomplished by such things as increasing personal contact between people of very different economic classes from an early age.

 

Inequity can’t exist if socially powerful people refuse to allow it.

[Mike C]

Some? How much?

 

We coluld allow ‘free enterprise’ to enrich itself by about $10,000,000(?) I put a question mark there because we would allow a citizens committee to set this value.

The above is only my opinion.

 

If an idea costs $10M to develop into a business, and people are limited to earning $100,000 and have a total of $10,000 to invest across say 10 investments, any one inventor is going to have to get 10,000 investors.

How practical is that?

 

Who said anything about being limited to earning $100,000? I only proposed that we tax ‘surplus, unneeded, stagnant income that is left over the living costs of the individual family. These living costs would be deductible plus say an added 10% to satisfy their buying of non essential goods.

 

What we are discussing here is just details that would be resolved by citizen committees.

 

The major reason for MBoS is to guaratee the citizens security that is the most important to their living needs.

These details you bring up are not mine to make.

 

If people are taxed at 90% for anything above $100,000, those at that level would have little incentive to invest it rather than simply consume it: would you rather be able to go out to dinner 10 more times per year or get $10 for giving it up indefinitely

 

Are you reading my posts?

You are presuming your own limitations on what I write.

I said the top rate for taxing unneeded income would be for the ‘top’ earners in the billion dollar bracket that have incomes of around one half billion a year.

Taxing this at 95% would still leave them 25 million as ‘pocket’ money. Isn’t that enough?

 

(anyone at the top of your society earns a 1% return on your investments: 10% nominal return on an investment taxed at 90% is roughly a 1% return).

 

Who said anything about taxing investment capital?

 

If alternatively, the government is somehow going to be the sole source of venture capital, how does the government decide? What kinds of mechanisms will be put into place to ensure that this does not become a game of politics and favoritism?

 

I know that you're sincere in describing a society that would be fairer, more egalitarian, and ensure that no one goes without, and I do indeed share those goals.

 

The problem is that your solution is quite radical, and has so few of the "devilish details" worked out, that from a practical stand point its quite unworkable, let alone trying to actually *convince* people to go along with it.

 

Its really easy to describe the attributes of Nirvana: its quite a bit more difficult to describe how we get there.

 

Honestly, "solutions" that begin with the phrase "Its easy, you just..." are the kind of things that radicals--on both the right and the left, as Craig points out--say, but what they describe is usually never as "easy" once you get into the details.

 

Anyone who uses the phrase 'easy as taking candy from a baby' has never tried taking candy from a baby,

Buffy

 

Your reducing the capitalists to babies? Ha ha.

Well, yes, they are a bunch of crybabies when it comes to taxes.

 

Are you aware of the current budget imbalance?

You did not answer a question I asked on another post?

Do you believe in a balanced budget?

 

Mike C

[Buffy]

We coluld allow ‘free enterprise’ to enrich itself by about $10,000,000(?)

How would you ever get there if you're taxing people at 95% for all income over their living expenses? If you're going to create a "second citizen class" of people who don't have to pay taxes because they are "free enterprise" why wouldn't *everyone* declare themselves an entrepreneur?

 

Or do you have to be able to afford the lawyers necessary to create a corporation so that you can be a "free enterprise."

 

Who said anything about being limited to earning $100,000? I only proposed that we tax ‘surplus, unneeded, stagnant income that is left over the living costs of the individual family.

These two are for the purposes of discussion the same thing: You're going to tax people at an exhorbitant rate above "living expenses", which for all intents means that there is a maximum income. While you contradict yourself later and say this is only for "billionares" this quote here makes it clear that you only consider living expenses to be "needed" and justifiable.

 

Who said anything about taxing investment capital?

What I was describing was taxing the income on the invested capital. Or are you willing in your plan to allow the current rich to be able to pay "normal" tax rates on the investment income as opposed to their labor income (of course the rich don't work at the same rate as the poor...)

 

I put a question mark there because we would allow a citizens committee to set this value.

 

What we are discussing here is just details that would be resolved by citizen committees.

 

These details you bring up are not mine to make.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again:

 

Any theory that does not deal with details is worthless.

 

The fact that you're brushing aside these major issues as details, indicates that you really don't want to invest in this any more than to "visualize" a perfect world. Details are for the little people, so to speak. You're a man of big ideas, and those who try to make it complicated are just unable to see your brilliance.

 

If you want to know why you're getting so much flak for your theory, it really is just this point. Considering details to be unimportant indicates a lack of understand of how difficult it is to implement any reasonably complex plan.

Are you aware of the current budget imbalance?

Yes! Can you explain why this is relevant to your theory?

You did not answer a question I asked on another post? Do you believe in a balanced budget?

Yes! That's why I voted for Bill! He balanced the budget while upholding liberal values! So do you want to explain why this is relevant to your theory?

 

And, were there sense in his idolatry, my substance should be statue in thy stead, :)

Buffy

[Michaelangelica]

For Mike

p145 "Dude,Where's My Country" Michael Moore

 

." . .You are not going to give up your dream of having your slice of the pie. In fact, some of you believe that the whole pie might be yours.

I have some news for you: You are not even going to get to lick the plate. The system is rigged in favour of the few, and your name is not among them, not now and not ever. It's rigged so well that it dupes many otherwise decent,sensible,hard-working people into believing that it works for them too. It holds the carrot so close to their face they can smell it. And by promising that one day they will be able to eat the carrot, the system drafts an army of consumers and taxpayers who gladly, passionately, fight for the rights of the rich, whether it means giving them billions in tax breaks while they send their own children into dilapidated schools, or whether it means sending those children off to die in wars to protect the rich man's oil Yes, that's right: The workers/consumers will even sacrifice the lives of their own flesh and blood if it means keeping the rich fat and happy because the rich have promised them that some day they can join them at the table!

[Buffy]

For Mike

p145 "Dude,Where's My Country" Michael Moore

 

." . ....It's rigged so well that it dupes many otherwise decent,sensible,hard-working people into believing that it works for them too. It holds the carrot so close to their face they can smell it. And by promising that one day they will be able to eat the carrot, the system drafts an army of consumers and taxpayers who gladly, passionately, fight for the rights of the rich....

Most certainly! Here's another case in point:

I once heard a caller on Rush say he only made $30,000 a year, but he was glad to see his wealthy boss get a big tax cut because it meant the company might do better and then he might get a raise. The 250 million dollar man told him he was brilliant for understanding how the economy is supposed to work. That's some brainwashing.

Convincing these people is just an unimportant detail that the citizen's committees will work out though, I'm sure.

 

For when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will, :hihi:

Buffy