Jul 18, 20121:20 pm EDT@Stevedebi
His or her record is – in my opinion- in this case …..the record of the opposition.
Would the GOP have accepted the presidents plans about infra structure and green energy as he laid them out at the start of his term, a lot of Americans would actually have benefitted by the money printed by the Fed., there would have been more jobs.
That would have been far better then as basically happened now, beafing up the trade deficit in the favor of others and so looking after the profits of the 1 percent (and a lower cost price of luxury goods,..if that is an advantage,.. one might doubt that) in stead of creating jobs.
Then, he (like the current UK government always blaims the labor predecessors for which is mainly a flaw in the capitalist system…recreated by the extreme liberties regiven to the banking sector by Reagan and Thatcher..) cannot be blaimed for these systemic failures, nor can any current politician, the main reason is within the current primitive system, greed.
He cannot help that, by means of subprime mortgages and their derivatives, the casino capitalist system has made all democracies pay for their (the 1 percent) errors. Add to this the foul play of banks which becomes more and more apparent and it is very clear for me which side I should definitely not vote for.
The total cost of Iraq and Afghanistan were until recently about 2000 billion dollars, still quite a bit of money if you put that against the money that the president was going to spend on infra structure and a fairer health system.
Redistributing wealth is probably the right word, if you give society back what GWB took out of it by handing out large tax deductions to the super rich, whom do not seem to have spent there money here……and which Romney even seems to want to increase…..
Posted by Checksbalances2 | Report as abusive
Jul 18, 20125:57 pm EDTNO-BAMA!
Posted by Ray07 | Report as abusive
Jul 19, 20127:39 am EDTWell, my husband and I own a “small” business. We employ 15 people on a full-time basis and we’re in our early 50′s. I guess we fall into the super-rich category because we end up with taxable income around $300k. Between the self-employment taxes and federal taxes, we pay about 45% of income in taxes not counting flow-through sales taxes or personal property taxes.
Not going to say which candidate is right or wrong, but we’re sitting on 2 business plans for 2013 right now; one has 2 new positions to generate additional sales and provide support for new accounts; the other plan drops our 5 least profitable accounts so that we can reduce headcount by two positions to bring that taxable income under $250k. The positions impacted either way have salaries between $30k – $40k. Depending on how the tax ball bounces, we’ll implement plan a or b.
At the end of the day, we’ll personally be in about the same position but we will either employ 2 more people or 2 less people.
Would be interesting to know how many other small businesses are doing the same math.
Posted by TheWiseOne | Report as abusive
Jul 19, 201210:27 am EDTNever underestimate human emotions – no one likes to be demonized, be called evil, unpatriotic , have their successful efforts denigrated – it is a completely normal reaction. Having said that, it remains unexplained how the act of raising taxes will “improve” the economy – a demagogic policy based on envy and jealousy does not seem very uplifting. Moreover, it is very curious why progressives see enormous problems with the “rich’, like Romney, who made his money by working – the progressives seem to prefer having it handed to you – inherited like JFK or FDR – or better yet, marring it, like Kerry (all of whom far richer than Romney).
Posted by SayHey | Report as abusive
Jul 19, 20121:03 pm EDTMost important….jobs should be created not shipped away,(see the Obama plan), and, of course, cancel out the benefits given by Bush to the higher incomes, that resolved nothing.
It is unimaginable that a millionare pays a smaller part of his income to taxes than Joe the plumber.
Romney made his money by working? …or did he do that by exporting jobs..and so, like too many companies now, act unpatriotic.
You cannot compete with incomes of a tenth of the going rate here at our cost level.
The only alternative, ….devalue the dollar by 50%? But then, outsourcing would be less profitable, would the import lobby allow that?
Posted by Checksbalances2 | Report as abusive
Jul 19, 20121:46 pm EDT@TheWiseOne
Good to hear that you may be able to employ more people, as far as I know that means, that that would mean a positive track in the Obama plan…after all you will be employing people in the US….If these jobs would be outsourced that would of course be a different picture.
Posted by Checksbalances2 | Report as abusive
Jul 19, 20124:06 pm EDTHaving lived many years in a “classless society” i.e. a communist country, I cannot believe our country is being pushed by an ideology on that path. That system was a failure that kept millions of people working hard without ever benefiting from their labor. The seeds of class warfare have been intentionally planted and they will bear fruit if this shameless rhetoric continues. What happened in the communist countries 50 years ago was the result of a national policy of intimidation and fear. What is happening today is the result of an elitist, power hungry president who wants to keep those who elected him dependent on his hand-me-downs. The percentage of people on welfare went up not only because of the terrible state of the economy but also because to have your basic needs fulfilled by the government requires little or no effort. Is this what we are aspiring to?
Getting rich 101: somebody had to have started somewhere, whether it was your great-grandfather or you, and future generations not only in your family, will benefit. I have attained the American dream through hard work and I know many of the “1%” have done it the same way. Since when are we begrudging another fellow American his success?
It’s been said that Americans are gullible. If the 2012 elections will not change anything we deserve that label and moreover deserve our fate.Posted by LianaB | Report as abusive
Jul 19, 20125:27 pm EDTIt’s interesting, Chrystia, how most of the comments/responses above (54 as I write) come from readers who seem to miss the main points you make in this well-argued essay. You write of the how and why the 1% have “turned against President Barack Obama.” Most of the hostility toward the White House comes not from “laid-off workers or beleaguered homeowners,” you suggest, but from bankers who “got the biggest government bailout of all,” even though “the president resisted calls from the left to nationalize the banks . . . as did the British.” Why would this “bailed out group” be so hostile to the chief executive of the govt. that bailed them out? Part of the answer is, you note, “simply self-interest.” “He wants to raise their taxes significantly. . . . On Monday, Obama reiterated his support for letting the Bush-era tax cuts for household incomes of more than $250,000 expire, while keeping the lower rates in place for everyone else.”
That’s pretty straightforward. The “Masters of the Universe” of Tom Wolfe’s seminal 1987 novel BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES — the mostly white affluent males banksters who have employed such “elaborate tax avoidance strategies” to evade paying their fair share of the tax burden over the past 30 years — would prefer that President Obama continue to let them get the tax breaks to which they have become accustomed. What’s mysterious about that?
Well, you suggest, it goes beyond just putting an end to the tax breaks that have fattened their (offshore) bank accounts. They are angry because President Obama has the temerity to challenge their (master) narrative. As “job-creators” — “the Republican term of art” used to describe “those who make more than $250,000 a year” — “the president’s proposal to raise taxes at the top wasn’t bad just for the rich, it would hurt the whole country.”
In other words, “if you take them at their word,” it’s the president’s attitude “toward them, toward their wealth and toward capitalism itself” that is actually creating the animosity.
Yes, as bizarre as it seems to many of us, the “NO-BAMA” people continue to use the same old supply-side, trickle-down master narrative to defend themselves and the tax favoritism they received under previous administrations. If the president refuses to supplicate himself before the “business strategies that have enriched the elite [and] hollowed out the middle [class],” he is “either a socialist or a communist.” If I were a Martian — or an unemployed dittohead sitting at home cleaning my assault rifle while listening to Rush hold forth on race, class, economic theory, etc. — “the animosity of America’s 1 percent toward the president might be rather mysterious,” but it isn’t perplexing to me. It’s pretty obvious. It’s pretty straightforward. Thanks Chrystia.
Posted by rhknott | Report as abusive
Jul 20, 20122:38 am EDTIt’s interesting, Chrystia, how most of the comments/responses above (58 as I write) come from readers who seem to miss the main points you make in this well-argued essay. You write of how and why the 1% have “turned against President Barack Obama.” Most of the hostility toward the White House comes not from “laid-off workers or beleaguered homeowners,” you suggest, but from bankers who “got the biggest government bailout of all,” even though “the president resisted calls from the left to nationalize the banks . . . as did the British.” Why would this “bailed out group” be so hostile to the chief executive of the govt. that bailed them out? Part of the answer is, you note, “simply self-interest.” “He wants to raise their taxes significantly. . . . On Monday, Obama reiterated his support for letting the Bush-era tax cuts for household incomes of more than $250,000 expire, while keeping the lower rates in place for everyone else.”
That’s pretty straightforward. The “Masters of the Universe” of Tom Wolfe’s seminal 1987 novel Bonfire of the Vanities — the mostly white affluent male banksters who have employed such “elaborate tax avoidance strategies” to evade paying their fair share of the tax burden over the past 30 years — would prefer that President Obama continue to let them get[enjoy] the tax breaks to which they have become accustomed. What’s mysterious about that?
Well, you suggest, it goes beyond just putting an end to the tax breaks that have fattened their (offshore) bank accounts. They are angry because President Obama has the temerity to challenge their (master) narrative. As “job-creators” — “the Republican term of art” used to describe “those who make more than $250,000 a year” — “the president’s proposal to raise taxes at the top wasn’t bad just for the rich, it would hurt the whole country.”
In other words, “if you take them at their word,” it’s the president’s attitude “toward them, toward their wealth and toward capitalism itself” that is actually creating the animosity.
Yes, as bizarre as it seems to many of us, the “NO-BAMA” people continue to use the same old supply-side, trickle-down master narrative to defend themselves and the tax favoritism they received under previous administrations. If the president refuses to supplicate himself before the “business strategies that have enriched the elite [and] hollowed out the middle [class],” he is “either a socialist or a communist.” If I were a Martian — or a unemployed dittohead sitting at home cleaning my assault rifle while listening to Rush hold forth on race, class, economic theory, etc. — “the animosity of America’s 1 percent toward the president might be rather mysterious,” but it isn’t perplexing to me. It’s pretty obvious. It’s pretty straightforward. Thanks Chrystia.
Posted by rhknott | Report as abusive
Jul 21, 20126:46 am EDT@rhknott
” the same old supply-side, trickle-down master narrative to defend themselves and the tax favoritism they received under previous administrations”Nobody seems to realize that this system cannot work in a supply side, financial and commercially fully laissez faire (of the “old” capitalist countries’) globalized economy.
After all there is more return on investment in emergeing markets, the result of investing there or here should be more in balance with the cost of living there or here, otherwise the influence of the inbalance is too great on our changes (jobs) here and, not to forget, their changes over there to really leave poverty behind.
There incomes should be raised considerably, so that they can also afford the things they produce, giving us a break to restart some of the industries that were moved or have never been (from) here.
(see the IT production industry (Foxcom/….)
Posted by Checksbalances2 | Report as abusive
Jul 21, 201211:05 pm EDTThe 1% only care about money and their lives.
Posted by Parachute | Report as abusive
Jul 22, 201210:07 am EDTThe logic used by TheWiseOne is severely flawed. One alternative supposedly being considered will “bring that taxable income under $250k” (from $300k). Why would you deliberately want to throw away your after tax income? Under Obama’s proposal you would be taxed at the current, historically low rates on the first $250k either way. If you made $300k (or more), taxes would be raised (but to rates still very low by historical standards) only on the portion over $250k – you would still get a significant amount of after tax income. In fact, your income on the amount over $250k would not be subject to the social security portion of the self employment tax, yielding a marginal tax rate at $300k potentially lower than the marginal tax rate at $250k!!
I think it is most unfortunate that some small business owners are so busy with the considerable day to day effort of running a business that they are unable to take the time to see through the flawed logic being propagated by the right wing about tax rates and small business employment.
Posted by QuietThinker | Report as abusive
Jul 23, 20122:55 pm EDT@LianaB: Tax rates on the rich in the US were much higher during the 20th century, the middle class was much stronger, and we outlasted communism. Interestingly enough, about the same time communism fell, the US began deregulating as we embraced trickle-down economics. And we are obviously worse off for doing it. So, your argument that returning (emphasis on returning) to higher tax rates for the rich is a step towards communism doesn’t pass muster. History proves that.
Posted by dasein | Report as abusive
Jul 25, 20129:00 am EDT@quietthinker – every time you add staff, you create more risk for your company, which is basically creating personal risk. If we choose to not grow and reduce income to keep us below the threshold, we may have less net income, but overall avoid potential other costs and risks. All I’m saying is that at this point in life, if there is no perceived reward for doing taking this on, his, why even bother?
Posted by TheWiseOne | Report as abusive
Jul 25, 20121:15 pm EDTVery well written.
It will be sad if the American people fall, again, for the false promise of Reaganomics. But, don’t be surprised….
Posted by JoeOvercoat | Report as abusive
Jul 25, 20121:19 pm EDTHola TheWiseOne – for what it is worth, your case would have more appeal to many of us if one of your plans called for hiring more people to actually create something to sell, as opposed to hiring two sales reps (if I understood your post correctly).
Posted by JoeOvercoat | Report as abusive
Jul 25, 20124:38 pm EDTObama and the rest of the hypocritical 1%’s on the left supported the foul-mouthed and bigoted OWS protesters, and Obama still has plenty of rich leftists supporting his socialist cause.
Oh sure, Obama laughs at and denies the “socialist” label and pretends he respects the great wealth which capitalism and only free-market capitalism has brought to modern society, but his true colors shine through every time he opens his mouth without his teleprompter.
Posted by Parker1227 | Report as abusive
Jul 26, 20121:17 am EDTWhat O has never explained is the rationale for his proposed tax increases. The sum total of the argument is that it’s “fair”. What will his government do with said funds? Well, spend them of course! On what? You won’t know until they’re doing it. But I assure you it won’t be on deficit reduction.
Posted by BigBlueFan | Report as abusive
7/30/2012
Chrystia Freeland | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters.com
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