Also, recall the details of the surplus that Clinton left.
The simple facts are these: it was a surplus in the Social Security Trust, not in the general fund. They were kept separate for a reason - the demographic bulge of the baby boomers meant that a temporary surplus had to be built into the system in order to pay for their retirement. It was working precisely as planned.
The Bush tax cuts were argued for on the basis of this surplus, by conflating it with the state of the general fund.
The tax cuts were not to the payroll taxes that had created the system, they were to the income and capital gains of the wealthy.
It was done to starve out the public programs for which the money had been saved as part of the Social Security surplus. It wasnât a secret - it had been trumpeted by the Grover Norquist wing of the GOP for two decades.
All this was only 12 years ago. How is it possible that we have public arguments about the debt ceiling and deficit spending that donât start from these indisputable facts?
This complaint by the wealthy is funny-stupid, given that one way the hyper-rich avoided being strung up by the Bolsheviks one hundred years ago was to divert peopleâs anger away from themselves (the gentile hyper-rich) toward Jews, a community which included more than enough poor people as to make them very vulnerable to literal Kristalnacht as opposed to this put-upon fantasy.
Democratic socialists in Germany, as it happens, were subject to actual death-squad attacks by right-wing nationalists throughout the 20s. Hitler was financially supported by (gentile) industrialists throughout the 20s and 30s. They may have been individually disconcerted by what happened after 1933 but it wasnât until the 40s that they properly filled their silk trousers and quietly decamped to Austria or Switzerland.
I think itâs really this simple: The sleazy bastard who wrote that letter is no different from the preacher who rapes members of his flock and then blames them for jusâ lookinâ so damn sexy.
Itâs the classic dodge of psychopaths everywhere - âI kneel on your spine, forcing your face into the mud - Just LOOK what youâve done to the crease in my trousers !â
His final point, that this mindset is dangerous, is important. Lincoln wasnât coming for the plantersâ slaves. At most, he believed that he could stop slavery from growing and maybe put it on the long, slow road to extinction, with government compensation for the ownersâ looses. But the slave owners unleashed a terrible war anyway. This craziness will very likely get a lot of people killed and cause a great deal of suffering.
Seems like a better comparison would be apartheid South Africa, with 10% locking the other 90% out of the political process entirely.
Granted, a revolution in politics has not translated into economic equality, not by a long shot. But at least that nation has started that conversation in earnest.
Most conversations I hear about unequal wealth sound like a version of âbell the catâ where the mice decide how many of themselves theyâll offer up to the cat so the rest can go free.
I donât think there is much hatred of the rich entrepreneurs who actually are helping build the future (while making money for themselves of course). Elon Musk seems to be a pretty popular guy, criticisms of his more insane ideas like the hyperloop aside. Most of the criticism of the 1%ers seems directed against the more parasitic examples that either merely inherited their money or made it through dubious means in the financial industry.
The pedant in me notes that most Google employees are making less than $188,000/yr, so so arenât technically 1%ers.
More seriously, setting aside (as absurd as that is) the fact of genocide, Nazi allegations of a Jewish conspiracy were false. Plutocrats actually are actively colluding to control the world. Publicly and openly.
A footnote that make Perkins even more foolish/dickish: The context of Danielle Steelâs âoppressionâ is that some people have made fun of the âcomically off-putting hedgeâ around her Nob Hill mansion.
Yes, but you have to deal with disinformation from the radical right and from âmoderatesâ who canât imagine that fascists threaten anyone since fascists never violently attacked them.
Capital gains has nothing to do with the cost of goods.
Itâs the tax on investments.
Executives get stock options that provide way more income than their direct salary.
Before the GW Bush era, when they exercised stock options the gains on the stock sale were taxed as regular income, at up to 39% (now) and that drove the 1% absolutely nutso. By taxing those profits as capital gains, they pay - if they pay - more like 15% tax.
There are other scams like âqualifiedâ stock options. Qualified stock options allow the holder to collect the dividend even though they donât actually own the stock, they only have a right to buy the stock. Yep. They get granted millions of shares in options and collect 4-5% dividends on that stock that they donât own. Again tax break rules are needed lest that income be taxed like the paycheck of mere mortals. Canât have that.
When one is rich enough that one faces no consequences, criticism and social rejection must be inflated to the status of oppression. Otherwise one might have to acknowledge that one is the actual oppressor. I find it odd that these shitbags think that being seen as an oppressor is worse than being a disingenuous sniveler.
I have to wonder why the letter was published unless the WSJ letters editors just wanted to make Perkins look an utter fool.
Some folk will go to great lengths to keep their taxes that low but its really rather silly. Because the amount paid in taxes is pretty much irrelevant if you have good growth. The Bush administration delivered anemic growth for seven years followed by a collapse. Iâll gladly take Clinton era taxes if I can get the Clinton era growth that came with them!
Paul Krugman has a good line on this type of behavior. He keeps pointing out that the ultra-rich donât just want the money, they want to be thanked for taking it. They have to be reminded over and over again how special and important their contribution to society is. Point out that they are really parasites and its another matter entirely.
I find it odd that these shitbags think that being seen as an oppressor is worse than being a disingenuous sniveler.
Perhaps because if one thinks that oneâs high position in society is the result of injustice against others, it creates an enormous personal contradiction, usually resolved by denying the critics, regardless of how obviously true what they are saying is.
Capital gains has everything to do with goods. And a whole lot more.
Capital gains = realized sale price minus purchase price of anything
and should be extended to include
revenue minus expenses, at a corporate level
or income minus expenses, on a personal level
or money taken in minus money going out to pay operating costs, in a general sense, iow all forms of profit.
Plus theyâll not directly hold the stock anymore, but arrange to have a holder hold an offshore holder hold another holder holding yet another holder who holds the stock.
Amen to that. Iâm loving his ridiculous assertion that the Jews of Germany were the 1% of that time and place. What does that even mean? That the Jews were the upper class of Germany? Is he high?
I do think Marshall hits pretty close when he points out that for the past few decades people like Perkins were lauded as âmasters of the universeâ, as heroes of the capitalist age. Now that the system has collapsed and many are suffering, rentiers like Perkins are finally being perceived as what they really are: parasites that amass obscene wealth via advantaged position and fraud. Even pigs like Steve Jobs earned such outrageous profits by colluding with his CEO colleagues to keep the wages of the engineers that build his products artificially low, and by farming out production to Asian slave labor farms. And Jobs actually creates useful products.
But when you look at the way people like Perkins make their money its through placing tolls on the payment and credit systems we all are forced to rely on, by borrowing money from the Fed at near-zero rates and loaning to the wage-slaves and the desperate at anywhere from 15%-400%, and committing massive financial fraud.
And then they whine and claim we are like Hitler invading Poland or Kristallnacht or whatever when we want them to be taxed at the same rates we pay.
The truth is people like Perkins will never understand the reality of how they amass their wealth and how it hurts the rest of us. They have rationalizations at the ready to justify all of their excesses and outright thefts. They will NEVER give up even a penny of their wealth voluntarily. Well, maybe if they can chose the charity and how much and everyone applauds them for their saintly generosity. This is why revolutions happen: because the wealthy never learn enlightened self-interest, and their greed only grows, it never shrinks. Perhaps one day there will be a purge of the rentier class. The will only have themselves to blame. And tell me why the spell-check on this thing thinks rentier isnât a word, and bankster isnât a word. They are both words, just like the 1% (really the .1%) is a real concept.
