The US, UN & Iraq III

(big sigh)...So, did you get me to say what you wanted to hear? Happy now? I was trying to be open & honest. Too bad. I hoped we could be friends.

Joe -- I feel sure they will spin it that way. IF (and this is a big IF) it happens. I'm not so sure it will. BTW, American Airlines has announced it is going to have a big layoff here before the end of the year. It will hurt. We're still feeling the effects of the Williams Co./Enron fiasco. Tulsa came out in one national survey last week as having the highest unemployment rate for a city its size in the country. Things are not looking good here.

Joe, This tax cut 'WILL NOT' create new jobs. It's more apt to increase job loss, because the piddly amount that the poor and middle class will get in the form of tax reduction is too minescule to the total Gross National Product of the US. Looked at another way, look at a small country with 100,000 population that produces $20,000,000 in GNP. Say that the inflation rate for this country is about 3 percent. Now, let's say that the government feels generous, and cuts their tax by 2 percent, but 1.5 percent goes to the wealthiest citizens that represents 5 percent of the population. Here's the math: 3 percent inflation times $20 million equals $600,000. In other words, it costs $600,000 more to purchase the same level and goods and services for the year. 1.5 percent of the tax breaks goes to the top five percent; 1.5% X $20 million equals $300,000. The wealthiest who receive that $300,000 will not spend it, because they already have enough to buy whatever they please. That money only increases the balance in their bank account. The remaining .5 percent or $100,000 goes to the poor and middle class. But what has happened is that the cost of goods and services increased by $600,000, but their tax refunds only amounted to 16.6 percent of what it now costs to live at the same standard of living. Where's the problem? It will create deflation and more job loss, because less people will be able to buy what they were able to purchase in the previous year. c.i.

Now I may be wrong,but it seems to me that a tax cut for everyone that pays taxes will by 4th grade math benefit the rich more.
It seems logical that if you pay more taxes,you save more with a tax cut.
Lets make it simple,if everyone gets a 10% tax cut,wouldnt the guy making $1,000,000 a year get a bigger break then the guy making $100,000 a year.It seems pretty simple to me.

Au said..." Unlike the first round of Bush tax cuts, this one "front-loads" reductions in income-tax rates, rather than having them kick in gradually"
So,if the first round of tax cuts were "back loaded",and have not entirely gone into effect yet,how are those tax cuts responsible for the problems that we might be having now?

mysteryman, The question isn't whether the guy making $1 million will get a bigger tax break than the guy earning $100 thousand. That's a given. The problem is that the guy earning $50,000 will not create jobs with his tax break, because it's still too small to effect a 10 trillion economy. The guy making $1 million won't spend his tax break; he will most likely put it in the bank or invest it. He can already buy everything he wants, and his spending pattern will not change. The poor and middle class will spend their tax cut, but it may also pay off some debt. The net spending will be very small. c.i.

Even if you are correct about the guy making a million,what business is it of yours what he chooses to do with his money?
If he chooses to hide it in his mattress,thats his business,not yours.
Why do you think you can tell anyone how to spend their own money?
And lets not forget,it is NOT the governments money,it belongs to the person that earned it.

MM: When the government cuts taxes, then they increase the deficit (any surplus Bush started with is long gone) which entails our dear Uncle Sam pushing to the head of the credit capital line. Small and medium businesses, which do the best job of creating new jobs because they usually lack the outrageous corporate management pay, benefits and perks costs of the large corporations, are going to be unable to create employment, for however much they may wish to do so, because the borrowing capital is going to get snapped up long before their spot in the line reaches the loan officer's desk.

Another sure-fire way to increase employment significantly is to significantly increase consumption of durable goods. This is where the theory that rich guys pay more (which is predicated upon an assumption that such a guy would not want to pay a tax account $1500 to $2000 each year, or even more, if it meant writing off income worth thousands in taxes) and so should get a tax break conmensurate with their tax bill becomes a bit facile. Someone making a mil per annum still pays $1.55 at the pump if that's what the rest of us are paying, so a tiny fraction of his income is necessary to obtain fuel. This is what is known as "regressive taxation," because the guy makin' $30,000 a year is paying just as much for the gasoline, but it represents a much greater proportion of his cash flow. When it come to a washer/dryer, the rich guy just buys one as he needs it, as long as he isn't habitually profligate, the necessary cash will be to hand. But the $30,000 a year guy thinks long and hard about that one. If he's getting less than a hundred a month out of the tax cut, down the road, how likely is it that he's gonna be down at Crazy Charlies lookin' at Maytags? And consider another angle. How many guys in this country makin' $1,000,000 a year? So how many washer/dryer sets is that if, say, 10% of 'em go out any buy that? Now, how many guys out there makin' $30,000 per year? And if they felt they could afford washer/dryer sets, and 10% of them go out to buy the Maytags, do some fourth grade math and tell me which scenario is likely to create a lot a jobs in durable goods manufacture--rich guy gets a lot of money, or workin' stiff finally gets a break from the Republicans (Hah!)? (Which is a crucial indicator because durable goods are the height of value added in manufacturing, and create all sorts of jobs to support their operation.)

Setanta,
I am not enough of an economist to argue your point,so I will concede it,but,I still want to know what right do you or I or CI or anyone else to decide how someone else spends their own money.
That is what it always seems like the anti-tax cut people are doing...It always sems to come back to "the rich dont need it,they have enough already.The working people need it.

I object to that whole line of thought because it seems to say that the rich dont work.
Yes,a Dr can make lots of money,but the market has decided that.A dr has years of specialized training and education,and it seems reasonable to me to let them earn what the market will bear.After all,you wouldnt go to a plumber if you needed surgery,would you?
How about the guy that owns a factory making widgets? He put up his own money to start the company,took all the risks,worked his butt off to get the business off the ground,and has gotten succesful.Doesnt he deserve to keep what he has worked for?

So many people talk about the rich like they are somehow different then everyone else,it seems like when you talk about the rich you mean "idle rich".
Now,I dont believe there is such a thing in this country.You cannot become successful unless you work at it.
So,if you are a dr,a plumber,a baseball player,a janitor,or whatever you do,you have to work at it.So,everyone is the "working people",but some are more successful at what they do.
So I repeat,why do you oppose them keeping their own money and doing whatever they choose with it?

It's interesting that you mention a plumber, because good plumbing is far more a crucial factor in improved public health in the last couple of centuries than all the MD's in that time heaped on top of one another. If the people of the United States ever decided, in Congress assembled, that the market bears to much, would you call in socialism and decry the opportunity afforded to medical services corporations (not doctors) to squeeze every penny they can from us? Rich people get rich because the governments, Federal, State and local, maintain the roads (and rich guys send semis flying down the highway to scoop up some more cash [that's a metaphor, Boss, not a literal statement], not the $30,000 a year guy. GOvernments maintain the port facilities, regulate the utilities, set and enforce standards of medical practice, food processing, sanitation and a host of other services, which make it possible for a capitalist society to produce and profit from a consumer market. If rich people pay the most taxes, they shouldn't kick about, they derive the most benefits from the entire public service package which is modern government. Inasmuch as the principle of taxation in our entire history is based upon representation, do you think it just that party operatives . . . excuse me, Congressmen and -women . . . should represent a handful of millionaires, or thousands of blue collar boys and girls. If the people, in Congress assembled, were ever able to manage a tax increase for the wealthiest citizens, because in some fairy tale these wealthy people were unable to buy Congressional loyalty--if the people so represented said, sorry boys and girls, you gotta kick in more, cause you're havin' too much fun, would you consider that an injustice by the majority that a political party is justified in quashing? Who are we to say what that guy can do with his money? Well, if it ever came to that, the answer is we are "We the People . . . " -- but perhaps you don't consider that acceptable in our ostensibly democratic republic.

I don't object to anybody keeping their own money and doing whatever they choose with it. What I object to is my government giving the rich a big handout when they're spending money like there's no tomorrow (wars in Afghanistan & Iraq and rebuilding both, creating new governmental department, etc., etc.) and the economy can't support it. The rich will not buy goods & services with their tax cut, they will invest it. That won't create jobs. But as long as the average American keeps falling for these "chicken-in-every-pot" election campaign schemes, you can bet they'll keep throwing us money. It's just a fancy way of buying votes.

Wish I were as eloquent as Setanta.

That is perhaps the most naive opinion I've come across in a while. For goodness sakes, look at your present President's personal history. This is not a story of merit.

Visitor,you seem to contradict yourself.You said..."The rich will not buy goods & services with their tax cut, they will invest it. That won't create jobs."

On the contrary,it will create jobs.If you invest your money in ABC widget company,that allows the company to expand its operations and hire another worker.It allows the company to modernize its equipment,which creates jobs.
Any time you invest your money,it will help the economy,it can do nothing else.

I know, that's the theory. But companies won't hire more workers. The current philosophy is to increase production while decreasing the number of workers, and to modernize only when the old equipment is nonfunctional. Any extra profits go to the stockholders, the principals and the upper management. Only an increase in demand for products and services prompts hiring these days.

I tend to aree with Mystery Man. My only injecture is that after all the CEO fallouts... if you will... we will see an upswing. The government is on the lookout and as a result the consumer/potential job applicant is better protected... and as a result of the government/awareness/participation, the workplace will benefit considably. That is of course, if they can get their focus off of wars with countries where Osama Bin Loser is not! That dude needs finding and so far we are so striking out! He was not and is not in Iraq and from what we have seen/heard... no ties to Iraq. And the WMA? hmmm

Let me understand this ..... I own ABC widgets and I have widgets coming out the wazoo because people tend not to buy widgets with unemployment checks. Now I get a tax cut from an administration that says 'don't worry, be happy', all I have to do is buy more equipment, hire more employees make more widgets for more money to make enough to pay for the new equipment and pay the health insurance for the new employees (an expense that makes widgit ownership not affordable for the people that make them) then I can use the profits (if any) to pay my increased state taxes that were raised to pay for the federal tax cuts.

Does anyone else feel like a wrung out sponge?

a
Don't Mess With Texas
Daniel Patrick Welch


Teach them a lesson they'll never forget. So goes the thinking in Texas-on-the-Potomac. And what a lesson it has been! They'll never mess with us again, nosirree Bob! As this childish thinking worms its way around the neocon braintrust, now giddy with "success" of their own definition (like toppling the Taliban?), it is instructive what lessons might be drawn by more rational--albeit scared to death--observers around the world.

These are some of the conclusions I've drawn, doing my humble little part to follow Bush's sage advice. First, if you don't already have nukes, you'd better get some--and that right soon. Uncle Sam don't play. While you're in the catalog, get a whole bunch of night goggles, and tons more air support. Spend more on the military, and less on feeding, housing and educating your people, if you care about your own sovereignty.

The picture of the American GI lounging in Hussein's chair, plastered on front pages everywhere, sent the disturbing signal: it's ours....it's ALL ours. I can't imagine that image spun quite the way it was intended around the globe--or maybe that's just the point: we're comin' to getcha! And another thing--don't bother trying to meet the Americans head on. Lesson number two is that, in asymmetrical warfare, guerrilla campaign is the only way to go--do anything, and I mean anything (see Lesson #1: Get Nukes) to keep the mighty invading army at bay.

Lessons 3 through umpteen were learned before the war started, actually: international law doesn't apply to the U.S., The UN, EU, as well as various global aid organizations, conventions, and agreements are quaint relics of a bygone era. Oh, right--there is a caveat here: we can bring them back to life on call when it suits our purpose and we want to complain about other people's behavior.

Although it may seem incongruous, I'll allow myself a Seinfeld moment here. What the hell, Americans watch 25 hours of TV a day anyway. I couldn't help thinking of the time Kramer was boasting about his karate prowess until he was forced to reveal that he was just beating up children. In an ominous twist, the kids ganged up and waited for him in the alley, where they beat the crap out of him.

And what is all this focus on civilian dead? I mean it's horrific, of course--it's the whole ball of wax, really. But soldiers aren't people? When the tables are turned, the U.S. screams bloody murder if one of our boys is killed, TV up close and personals, etc. Enemy soldiers don't have mothers? They can be blithely incinerated from 40,000 feet by fuel-air bombs and other weapons more horrific than anything currently banned--international law, thankfully for the Americans, hasn't had time to catch up to the technology. I guess that undermining, bribing, and threatening pays off. Bush and Rumsfeld (dubbed Chemical Donald by a British columnist) even insist that we have the right to use nuclear weapons, or other gases only allowed for domestic crowd control.

Only the Americans have the sovereign right, drunk with power and arrogance, to threaten to try the invaded in US courts for "war crimes." Bush and his corporate cronies are so busy trying to teach the world a lesson that they forgot the lessons they should have learned from history. For all the distorted comparisons to Hitler, they seem to have missed this gem from the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal: "War is essentially an evil thing... To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

There are other lessons, both foreign and domestic. Before the war came the bugging of UN personnel, some in their own houses. A sort of Watergate gone global--get the message yet? For icing, Americans exploited the fog of war to shoot up convoys of diplomats with whom they just happened to have beef, and killed a few journalists who gave them bad press--one of them on air! Now THAT sends a message! Coupled with the unabashed prostitution of embedded (or "in-bed-with") journalism, and we have a pretty good idea of which way we are supposed to go.

But let's not forget the domestic lessons. The Bush Cartel is an equal opportunity terrorist. Cops in Oakland opened fire on protesters with "non-lethal" weapons (kind of like pushing someone gently down the stairs) in an incident oddly reminiscent of the San Francisco 1934 general strike--which also started on the docks. Radio hosts encourage violence against protesters, and some have obliged, plowing into one demonstration in a truck, calling in bomb or sniper threats. A high school principal pulled the plug on movies like "Bowling for Columbine" by that dangerous radical, Michael Moore.

John Kerry was attacked for speaking out against Bush. One GOP hatchet man went so far as to suggest that Kerry had no right to call for "regime change" during wartime. Hmmmm..in civics class I was led to believe we had (technically) regime change every four years. And the Democrats, for crying out loud, who have enough trouble defining the word "opposition!" Forget Syria and Iran: if the milquetoast Kerry, who voted for the war, is fair game, who's next?

But I suppose ol' George and his puppet masters might be touchy on the subject. Imagine if people learned the wrong lessons, and enforced regime change the way they do--or even ascended to power the way Bush did? Yikes! Iraqis, of course, don't speak out because they are afraid of the regime, and our freedom, by contrast, is the reason we should all just shut up (or else). Beam me up, Scottie! The whole project has the air of what Robert Parry has called Bush's Alderan, recalling the Star Wars plot line where a small rebel planet destroyed by the infamous Death Star to keep everyone else in line.

Don't worry, we are told--it will all come into focus soon. Yeah, we know. But no matter how many staged footage of toppling statues, Iraqis are a proud people. And a gun-toting one. When the US military tries to disarm Iraqi civilians, we'll see...
What is also waiting to come out is that this episode of Gilligan's Travels to Liliput hasn't been quite the romp we've been told, even in the last week. Then again, it is a fiction to think that the access will be freer under the watchful eye of the US military occupation. Government minders are no match for tanks shelling your hotel.

And as far as lies go, you ain't seen nothin yet. Suicide bombers--the term itself a manipulative attempt at a subtle link with the events of Sept. 11--will be branded terrorists (or, even more incomprehensibly, 'cowards') by an occupation force and a press corps which refuses to admit it is there illegally. What a world turned on its head: how could there possibly be any illegitimate American targets where there is an occupying army? But of course, the invaded squirming under the tread of an Abrams tank don't have the right to resist. Further resistance will be dismissed as "getting in the way of rebuilding Iraq." They will not be heroic defenders of their country, but always foreign fighters, just as they were "outside agitators" according to COINTELPRO, and "agents provocateurs" at the Haymarket. Of course. In what conceivable universe could people actually want to repel foreign invaders?

We will be treated to many more planted stories of 'potential' WMD's, the horrors of Saddam's regime, the noble cause of "Freeing" Iraq. And the horrific cost of this war and the sanctions which preceded it will be laid at Iraq's own door--with a docile press corps, the victor writes the history.

This all relies, by the way, on keeping the American bubble inflated. The Stupidity Factor doesn't appear to be evaporating any time soon. Many Americans are perfectly happy to have a "president" who is no smarter than they are--it's not threatening unless you get on his bad side. Kind of like the old drunk on the corner stool in the bar. He tells some good jokes, but watch out when he's in a mood. Remember that egghead Carter? Yuck. I used to think that the monopoly corporations who funded Bush's rise to power had picked wrong--and it may still be shown that they overplayed their hand. But my cynicism and despair have deepened in the past few months. What a coup (pun intended) to have picked a true idiot, a mean, drunken frat boy who does what he's told and then some, sticking to it like a rabid pit bull.

I can't help thinking that Randy Newman had the dark side of the American character pegged, and I keep running this old lyric through my head:
Americans dream of Gypsies I have found/and Gypsy knives and Gypsy thighs that pound and pound and pound and pound/And African appendages that almost reach the ground/And little boys playing baseball in the rain/America, America, may God shed his grace on thee/You have whipped the Filipino, now you rule the Western Sea/America, America, step out into the light/You are the best dream that man has ever dreamed/and may all your Christmases be white.

So, many of the people will eat it up. But the economy is in deep trouble and getting worse--the "what now" burp is already hitting the markets. And using the Conquering Hero spike to float their crazy economic agenda just won't work like they want it to. Even Democrats will put up some kind of a fight.

Don't forget the Afghan "model," where Special Forces casualties are said to be "staggering." Sorry for all the quotes and parentheses, but the bogus language of this war makes it almost impossible to talk without footnotes. Let's not kid ourselves, no matter how many times we watch the bogus, staged, rehashed footage of statues toppling: this "war" (slaughter) isn't "over" (left the front page) any more than its Afghan counterpart, where 11 civilians were recently killed by "mistake" (murder-from-above by an arrogant superpower that would rather kill and ask questions later, earning it the enmity of all and the certain retaliation by virtually anybody).

And I was only kidding before when I mentioned John Kerry. Of course we can't forget Syria and Iran, now in the sights of the voracious Democracy Installing Cabal (you do the letters). And then there's Colombia, Venezuela, Philippines, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Montezuma, the Shores of Tripoli.... But let's not forget the biggest lesson, looming in the shadows: the Kramer lesson (apologies to Michael Richards). The kids are waiting in the alley, George. They are learning different lessons from this war--and their numbers are growing.

© 2003 Daniel Patrick Welch. Reprint permission granted.

Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, with his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they run The Greenhouse School. His columns have also been aired on radio. Others interested in airing the audio version (electronic recording available) please contact the author. Welch speaks several languages and is available for recordings in French, German, Russian and Spanish pending a reliable translation, or, alternatively, telephone interviews in the target language. Other articles, stickers for upcoming protests and other 'stuff' can be found at fringefolk.com/RFVD.ht

That's a pretty dramatic piece, Gelisgesti. I'd complain more about its colorfulness and rant if there wasn't so much truth in it.


Mysteryman said:



I agree with mysteryman here. He was not talking about inherited wealth. He was talking about wealthy people who worked very hard for years to become well off. And in spite of paying accountants to help them find tax breaks, they pay enormous amounts of tax.

The question we are faced with is not taxation fairness. What I mean is the chestnut about those who pay the most taxes are entitled to get the most back. The problem is how to prop and fix an ailing economy. This as we all know is a consumer driven economy. With that in mind whose hands should the money [tax cuts] be put into? The obvious answer is those who will spend it. That is not the wealthy, since they can already buy whatever they wish.

Gelisgesti,

There is a fine poem written by Edwin Arlington Robinson that, I believe, describes Mr. Welch well. It is "Miniver Cheevy". I recommend it to you as well.

Quick math lesson for the impaired:

2% of $50,000 = $1,000
1% of $500,000 = $5,000

Quick English lesson for the impaired:
"Rich" is a synonym for "wealthy". Income taxes do not tax wealth, they tax income, earned by wage earners.

=================
Prior to this tax cut, the highest wage earners were allowed to keep the smallest percentage of the money they earned. After these cuts, the same people are still taxed at a higher rate--allowed to keep less of the money they earn--than anyone else in our society.

Some here want you to think that this is the government doing these wage earners a favor. I'd point out the flaws in their arguments, but they really haven't made any. They seem content merely to complain that the tax code is being made slightly less punitive for the highest wage earners, seemingly out of the belief that certain citizens of the US deserve to be punished by the tax code.

rant
Kara, you are right but I woke up in a rant mood....
Guess I took the lazy way to express it.....

It just seems as if Bush hijacked the country and is looking for a place to run it into.