04.19.12
More Rich Man’s Burden — proof from boffins
From the New York Times today:
[Mr. Emmanuel Saez], a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has won the John Bates Clark Medal, an economic laurel considered second only to the Nobel, as well as a MacArthur Fellowship grant. [Mr. Thomas Piketty], 40, of the Paris School of Economics, has won Le Monde’s prize for best young economist, among other awards …
“The United States is getting accustomed to a completely crazy level of inequality,??? Mr. Piketty said, with a degree of wonder. “People say that reducing inequality is radical. I think that tolerating the level of inequality the United States tolerates is radical.???
Data that the two economists released in March showed that the top 1 percent of earners got nearly every dollar of the income gains eked out in the first full year of the recovery. In 2010, the top 10 percent of earners took about half of overall income.
Consequently, they argue for a much higher level of absolute taxation on the wealthy — 45 to 70 percent.
“Conservatives respond that high tax rates would stifle economic growth, at a minimum, and cause some businesses and high-income workers to flee to other countries,” it sez at another point.
Yes, of course. By all means go to Leichtenstein, Macau, Cayman, the wart on the tip of Malaya aka Singapore, or some small/US toady dictatorship on the southern side of the Persian Gulf.
Or China. Oh, wait …
From reader MD, a link to an AOL news report on just how big the Keynsian job program that’s the Department of Defense is:
It’s the U.S. Department of Defense.
With a total of 3.2 million staff members, the DOD tops the list of the world’s largest employers in a list put together by the BBC and compiled from global company and government information.
As the BBC points out, the information used to make the largest-employer list was far from standard, based on statistics provided by each entity. And in the case of the U.S. Department of Defense, the total number of employees includes civilian workers, as well as those in uniform.
All defense sector employment is protected labor, unlike its non-military domestic counterpart. Which can all go to China, or Bangalore, or wherever in Indonesia or Vietnam is the pseudo-slave labor hot spot currently.
Naturally, the soldiers employed by the Department of Defense don’t get paid nearly much as the private sector logistical and staffing labor furnished by various wings of the big arms manufacturers.
Now that’s truly protected labor — sacrosanct from any cutting. Food stamps, any social welfare programs, all the rest — all part of the rich man’s burden, the handouts that allegedly discourage and deter the blessed job creators.
“And DOD is also primed for some cuts,” continues the AOL bit. “With the goal of reducing America’s defense budget by $487 billion over 10 years …”
That’s about 49 billion a year, an almost trivial number, all things considered, probably one that won’t even move DoD back to pre-9/11 Bush war boom levels of spending achieved during the last decade.
You want entrenched immorality and root causes of national fail. It’s all wrapped up in this.
Here’s a question for readers. Do any think the US military structure is providing any significant material benefit at all — outside of the employment numbers, the salaries and wages they represent when filtered out locally — after more than ten years of war on terror and national decline?
I’m interested in sincere answers.
Is the 99 percent served by an alleged preservation of freedom, impossible to measure in dollar values because it’s an intangible, through the continued bombing of people in desperate places globally and the infrastructure required to make it happen everyday?
Hot off the desks of the Dept. of You Can’t Make It Up, from ThinkProgress:
The GOP has repeatedly made the claim that the poorest Americans need more “skin in the game.??? Today, response to a question by ABC’s Jon Karl, Eric Cantor made it clear that Republicans are interested in raising taxes on the poor while lowering tax rates for everyone else as part of any comprehensive tax reform plan:
CANTOR: We also know that over 45 percent of the people in this country don’t pay income taxes at all, and we have to question whether that’s fair.
Recommended by OccupyMusicians: “I am so into the satire of Dick Destiny. Absurd times call for absurd tactics.”
Mark Smollin said,
April 19, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Good article