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Show me a statistical study that shows you're right and I'll study some more. Otherwise, admit supply-side economics is a theory and not fact.
Looks like Obama doesn't need the Clintons to win. haha
Show me a statistical study that shows you're right and I'll study some more. Otherwise, admit supply-side economics is a theory and not fact.
The only taxes that aren't passed on to consumers are individual income taxes. Raising them anywhere costs me money that I won't then have to spend elsewhere. Sorry, your proposition is weak.
You won't get much of an argument from me on the evils of Republican spending or the rank partisanship that's taken over in Washington. But, I think much of the blame can be laid at the feet of Democrats who -- by and large -- only reach across the aisle when they want to set a Republican up to look like a fool.
That the Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush tax cuts all resulted in increased federal tax revenues is a fact.
let me simplify this for you. Lets say we by product A for $5 that includes a $1 federal tax. Then product B comes along and replaces product A at $3 that includes a $1.25 federal tax. The producer of product A will lose, but the new producer on the block product B will gain market share.
It's how capitalism works.
stop playing politics.You won't get much of an argument from me on the evils of Republican spending or the rank partisanship that's taken over in Washington. But, I think much of the blame can be laid at the feet of Democrats who -- by and large -- only reach across the aisle when they want to set a Republican up to look like a fool.
I think that is a straw man. Not a very realistic one at that.
If you have one product replacing another at a 40% reduced price, there are other factors involved...such as where it is produced and if there are other benefits (or consequences) to the economy through the reduced price...(employment, tariffs, etc...). Added on taxes have little to do with consumer markets at that point.
If, on the other hand, you have a product worth $5 with a 20% tax and a product worth $3 with a 42% tax, there is a large likelihood that more of product A will sell than product B.
If, as your hypothesis infers, taxes are inflated on a product simply because it can be sold cheapr than another, again, I believe sales will drop.
Sorry, but it's a large reason we're in the mess we're in.stop playing politics.
This mess we are in is as bi-partisan as it gets.
This mess goes way beyond Republicans and Democrats.
[QUDo you have any proof of this? A company could eat another penny on the dollar rather than tack in it on the final price? Especially if your compe or across the street doesn't pass along that penny either. You talk about straw men..the majority of your arguments involve a straw family.OTE=Yonivore;2790013]The only taxes that aren't passed on to consumers are individual income taxes. Raising them anywhere costs me money that I won't then have to spend elsewhere. Sorry, your proposition is weak.
Yoni's theories are fact ! Anyone else's theories are just an opinions.
Democrats only say that when they're -deep in it.
Well, no. And the price war-type scenario you provide is a another dynamic that applies to few enterprises beyond gas stations and other commercial enterprises that can be found in close proximity to one another. And, there, the motive is not to save the customer money but to attract the business in the hopes that they will sell enough, at the lower price, to offset the cut.
Private companies are in the business of making a profit for the owners and/or stockholders. I believe they decide, at an owner/board level, what a proper return on their investment should be. If a tax hike eats into that profit, they pass it on.
You're correct, in that, they could opt to eat a tax increase by accepting a reduced profit margin but, rarely do. I don't know of an instance when a products price has been lowered because the tax rate was increased. Prices have always gone up, as far as I know.
Geeezus why doesn't Clinton just come out and say he is voting for McCain sheeesh!!
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...a-great-man-2/
Bill Cinton can't just wash his hands of the current financial situation, so maybe him not being fully behind Obama is not such a bad thing....
How Much Change Does Robert Rubin Believe In?
Tuesday 05 August 2008
by: Steve Weissman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
--------"Foreclosure Phil" Gramm and nice guy Robert Rubin put two different faces on the power players who move so easily between Wall Street and Washington.
The personification of old-fashioned, dog-eat-dog capitalism, Gramm appears to find moral virtue in the survival of the fittest and policy guidance in Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake." In his long tenure as the Senate's top Republican on economic policy, he led the fight to roll back state and federal regulation of the economy,
encouraging both the Enron scandal and the sub-prime lending frenzy. Gramm then left the Senate to find his reward as vice chairman of the Swiss-based UBS Investment Bank, for whom he continued to lobby Congress on housing and mortgage legislation. He also joined John McCain's presidential campaign as co-chair and senior economic adviser, until he was forced to resign last month for dismissing the chaos he did so much to create as merely "a mental recession" and the victims he left behind as "whiners."
Robert Rubin would never talk like that. The very model of a modern corporate liberal, he moved with ease from the top of Goldman Sachs to become President Bill Clinton's chief economic adviser and then secretary of the Treasury. Clinton had run as a populist on an economic platform created principally by Robert Reich, who became his labor secretary. But Rubin's Wall Street "realism" quickly trumped Reich's academic populism, and Clinton made the North American Free Trade Agreement his top priority over universal health care. He also eliminated the budget deficit left to him by the first Bush rather than rebuilding the nation's already crumbling infrastructure, and went along with the economic deregulation that Phil Gramm was pushing in the Republican-led Congress.
To Rubin's credit, eliminating the deficit helped fuel the prosperity of the Clinton years. To Rubin's shame, the Clinton free trade agreements provided no safety net for American workers whose jobs went abroad, while the newly unregulated financial markets helped create the speculative crap shoot that led directly to our current economic woes.
Dubbed by Clinton the "greatest secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton," Rubin left the administration and joined Citigroup, the nation's largest financial conglomerate, whose very existence was made legal by the deregulation measures he had convinced Clinton to accept. According to The Wall Street Journal, Citigroup has so far paid Rubin more than $100 million to serve as chairman of its executive committee, and leaves him free to serve as a key economic adviser to Barack Obama. Even more telling, Rubin's protégé, Jason Furman, now heads Obama's paid economic staff and is expected to join Obama in the White House should he win in November.
Would a President Obama follow in Bill Clinton's footsteps, listening more to Rubin & Co. than to Robert Reich, labor union leaders and the growing number of economic populists in Congress? If Obama does lean toward Rubinomics, I do not expect a whole lot of change I can believe in.
Seven and a half years of George W. Bush has left a budget deficit of $482 billion and growing. Obama's talk of "a war we must win" in Afghanistan could prove an enormous financial burden. And, even if Obama raises taxes on those making over $250,000 a year, as he has promised, Team Rubin will have some very persuasive arguments. Does Obama pay off the Bush deficit, as Rubin just promised on CBS's "Face the Nation?" Or does Obama risk spooking Wall Street by investing heavily in universal health care, a renewable energy program, massive job retraining, the rebuilding of bridges and highways, and so much more?
It's a difficult balancing act, and the internal debates will be intense if Obama makes it to the Oval Office. But one much-needed change could prove decisive, and it would not cost much at all. This past March, Obama made a major economic address at New York's Cooper Union, where he urged immediate relief for homeowners hit by the housing crisis and a $30 billion stimulus package to jumpstart the economy. As important, though rarely mentioned since, he also called for a new regulatory framework to prevent future abuses and crises in the financial system.
"Under Republican and Democratic administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices," he said, in an implicit critique of Rubin and the Clintons. "We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both."
Obama made clear that he saw free markets as "the engine of American prosperity." But, he insisted, government also has a role as umpire and as steward. "Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it," he said. "That is why we have put in place rules of the road to make compe ion fair, and open, and honest. We have done this not to stifle - but rather to advance prosperity and liberty."
This was the Obama for whom I voted in the primaries - insightful, incisive and to the point. Both in the campaign and in the White House, I can only hope that Robert Rubin and his friends on Wall Street let Obama be Obama, for their sake as well as for the rest of us.
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France.
Link:Truthout
Obama needs to wash his hands of these greedy Wall Street bas s before they turn a sure thing against him...
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