Wow. You must read Hank Banta's brilliant article debunking so many rich man's talking poins in such short order . . .
Absurdity, if not piggishness, from the super-rich
Hank Banta offers an arithmetic lesson for Edward Conard, the former Bain executive who says the gigantic distortion in income in America is good and proper. Banta also urges the press to note the absurdity of the claim and, for once, use some intelligent judgment in writing instead of sticking to false ideas of 'balance.'
The argument presented by Edward Conrad in his new book "Everything you've been told about the economy is wrong" is that more income inequality is good for America. The rich guy thinks it is great being rich, and it is your fault you are not rich, so work harder and don't ask me for a handout. Mr. Banta says it better than I could and logically eviscerates this insult to our intelligence.
There is a factual defect in this argument. The gigantic distortion of income to the very top is not explained by reward for risk. Rather (as shown by Mishel and Sabadish,) it is a matter of wages going to corporate and financial executives. As a group these are better known for putting others at risk, not themselves. But for the moment set aside this factual issue. Further, set aside whether Mr. Conard’s simplistic economics really applies in this context and simply accept its premises and examine his use of it. When we take his argument on his own terms we find a remarkable inconsistency.
Mr. Conard takes the notion that free markets reward participants in proportion to their contribution and uses it to justify only the massive shift of income to the very rich. He ignores what happens if he applied his economic theory to everyone else in the economy. He simply doesn’t deal with the obvious corollary to his classic economics: If the rich got that way because they deserved it, then the middle class, with its stagnant income and declining share of the economic pie, also got just exactly what they deserved. This corollary is insanely obvious. To deny it is like claiming 2 + 2 = 4 and then denying that 4 - 2 = 2.
In simple terms the logic of Mr. Conard’s economics requires us to conclude that virtually, if not all, of the economic gain of the last several decades is attributable to the heroic efforts of less than 1 percent of the population. And the efforts of the entire middle class – engineers, software designers, computer technicians, physicians, teachers, construction workers, auto workers, etc. – contributed next to nothing. A proposition that most would find patently absurd.
When all of the wage growth goes to the executive class and not the working class as well for 30+ years it creates a "gap", a gross inequality gap that allows one side to have more political influence then the other 99%, thus tilting the playing field even more in the favor of the richer and more powerful. Rich guys like Conrad think that the problem is that rich people don't have enough power in the current system, what they purposefully fail to understand is that their power and extreme wealth comes at the expense of everyone else at this point. Society ceases to be free when money equals speech.
Absurdity, if not piggishness, from the super-rich is a must read. A lot of lie-debunking in a small space. Definitely make sure you read the whole thing. More below the fold.
A country where the wealthiest 400 families have more combined wealth than the bottom 150 million is not a place to glorify "Job Creators". What does it say of a job creator when people who work for him have jobs and yet still can't afford an ever rising cost of living. What does it say of the super rich that our new jobs pay less than the old ones while their corporate profits continue to soar? The super rich are getting richer BECAUSE the poor are getting poorer, that is why wages are stagnant and CEO compensation is through the roof over the last 30 years, yet the super rich people not only want us to fight their wars, cut their taxes and bail them out when they fuck up, but they are sad you don't smile when they expect you to kiss their ass for being so wonderful.
This last bit is excellent. Why do journalists who let this "job creationism" myth persist? Because they haven't been laughed out of the profession yet. Demand is just as important as supply. And what of the politicians, what if they flat out told their audiences that the real reason the economy collapsed is that the working class got lazy and now we have to ramp up the war machine while cutting taxes for the rich again while raising taxes on the poor* (This is actually in both the Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan budget plans)*
It's time to call bullshit on the idea that if only we coddle the super rich some more they will some day "make it rain" and then we can all be dynamic heroic job creators, we can't. We should all be able to work and earn a decent living. We should all be able to fight for better wages and benefits for hard work, and a retirement, you know, the American Dream that Bain Capital & JPMorganChase wants to strip down and sell off in the derivatives markets. At what point do we laugh these no-government let the free market police itself fools who are consistently wrong out of the room?
This is a good issue on which to draw the line. Enough of this myopic even-handedness. The next public figure who incants the they-got-it-because-they deserved-it formula and leaves out its logical implications should be treated as if he had claimed the moon was made of green cheese. And any journalist who repeats it without pointing out its absurd implications should be not only summarily drummed out of the profession but dismissed from the company of rational and responsible adults.
Bold added by the diarist
In the last decade the economic policies pursued in the name of de-regulation, corporate self policing, low taxes and massive warfare spending have reaped us only one disaster after another. Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, the debacle of Iraq, the total mismanagement of Katrina, the collapse of the banking system and the bailouts and subsequent growth of the same Too Big To Fail banks that crashed the economy, the BP disaster in the Gulf where Drill Baby Drill destroyed the gulf fishing industry for the next generation, thanks, one after another I keep seeing instances where we let the corporations have what they want and it blows up in our faces, we keep cutting taxes for the rich and it doesn't EVER trickle down, the corporate profits come back and go up and the wages stay low and our healthcare is unaffordable and our retirements are disappearing and YOU are whining because the taxes on your fucking inheritance is too high?
Absurdity, if not piggishness, from the super-rich is almost putting it too nicely.
Love to all
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