They try to get the most revenue from Americans who have the least money.
And they continue to take less revenue from Americans who have the most money.
It’s like robbers hitting a soup kitchen instead of a bank, then wondering why their moneybag isn’t full.
“Republicans” are all eedjits.
Mr. Blunt and Cranky
Regular readers know that Mr. Blunt and Cranky has had long careers in business and the arts, and is therefore not at all opposed to making money. Indeed, Adam Smith is frequently cited here: the man was a firm believer in a WELL-REGULATED free market. Because he was smart enough to see the harm that unchecked profits can cause.
Profits are not inherently bad: in the right measure, they can do a lot of good. But anything can be overdone: and the Teapublican “greed is good” mantra is an object lesson. Here, then, are three examples of the horrors that can be wrought by profits:
Number A: America’s profit-centered “health care” system kills lots of people. Including this writer’s only son. Yes, Aetna has death panels: people are denied care based on profit margins. That is why my son was kicked out of the hospital just a few hours after awakening from a coma. PROFITS CAN AND DO KILL. PROFITS KILLED MY KID.
Letter 2: American industry is constantly pushing for less (or no) regulation, in order to increase profit. Thence came disasters such as massive oil spills, poisoned rivers and aquifers, and destructive, deadly industrial accidents. Profits can and do destroy.
Thirdly: American politicos are taking bribes in record quantities to enhance the profitability of private businesses with taxpayer dollars. Yes, they call them “contributions”, but c’mon: these are bribes. Bribes that result in the theft of our hard-earned. Profits can and do corrupt.
Once again, Gentle Reader: your humble correspondent is not, repeat NOT opposed to profits. But not everything has a free-market solution. Some things are better divorced from a financial profit motive. Some things must be non-profit in order to succeed: things like health, education, public safety, and so on.
It’s long past time we put the final nail in the coffin of Reagan/Bush voodoo economics and its resulting death, destruction and corruption.
Reality is calling, America: better pick up the phone while we still can.
Mr. Blunt and Cranky
Falling gas prices have recently created a huge demand-side boost to our economy. Millions and millions of dollars worth of boost: serious money. The increase comes from families having a few hundred extra bucks a year to spend on things other than filling their tanks. That is the free market in action, folks: consumers consuming, and by so doing creating jobs where they spend that additional money.
Classic, common-sense, evidence-based economics. People making additional purchases with the money they are saving because of lower pump prices. Demand-side economic stimulus via the private sector. Somewhere in the Afterlife, Adam Smith is shouting “See? SEE, motherf***ers? Who’s the man? I toldjaso!”
And none, repeat NONE of those falling petrol prices had Thing One to do with tax breaks for millionaires. No, oil prices are falling because of supply and demand. Once again, class, all together: “supply AND demand”. But of course, “republicans” don’t care about anything but the supply side. Because that side has all the friggin’ millionaires and billionaires that can (and do) buy Teapubbie Senators and Congresscritters.
This blog has ofttimes posted about the complete and utter failure of supply-side “economics”, and the laughable Laffer Curve that it is based upon. (Click the links, Gentle Reader, lots of supporting data to be found if you folllow the breadcrumbs.)
Once again, all of the Post-Reaganista bulls*** has been exposed, in all of its fetid, malodorous splendor. The American economy used to grow, before these dark days, because sensible adults recognized that all sides and strata of the economy are interrelated, and that we needed to manage supply and demand, the rich and the poor, and everything in between. But because of the Voodoo Wing of the “Republican” Party (and by that we mean, “the entire f***ing GOP”) focusing ONLY on the supply side, we have naught but deficts, crumbling edifices, and corruption all around us.
The positive economic effects of falling prices for the consumer prove, once again, that the Teapublican party is, as usual, completely full of s***. Almost as full of it as the idiot voters who voted for them, or failed to vote against them. But hey, enjoy the cheap gasoline while it lasts; until the Teapubbies find yet another way to steal those extra dollars away from us, and hand it back to their supply-side patrons.
Mr. Blunt and Cranky
When Forbes, of all magazines, says “Obama kicks Reagan’s ass”, or words to that effect, you know that the Supply-Siders are totally f***ed. And that they suck dead elephant d***s. And are too f***ing stupid to realize how stupid they are.
But Big Business follows data, and data proves that Voodoo Economics is a giant, stinking heap of dinosaur bollocks:
Bob Deitrick: ”President Reagan has long been considered the best modern economic President. So we compared his performance dealing with the oil-induced recession of the 1980s with that of President Obama and his performance during this ‘Great Recession.’
“As this unemployment chart shows, President Obama’s job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan.
“President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his sixth year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did. At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year. So, despite today’s number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration.
Big businesses may not like Obama, but they (unlike brain-dead ideologues like Ted Cruz) can read a balance sheet. They know that good old-fashioned math-based accounting proves that supply-side economics is deader than a doorknob. So too do most normal Americans.
Why, then, does our nation persist in its apparent infatuation with such a bankrupt ideology? Simple: the Teabaggers who are dumb enough to buy the voodoo potion turn out and vote; and the precious few in the business world who are profiting by the Reagan-era policies spend lots of money buying elections for ideologues like Ted F***ing Cruz.
Sad to say, mere facts and common sense matter litlle when politics rears its ugly head. This writer hopes that you, Gentle Reader, will at least consider facts when you express opinions and cast ballots. The same facts that even the Repubs at Forbes are acknowledging.
Mr. Blunt and Cranky
This blog sneers ofttimes at “Republicans” and their stupid-f*** “supply-side” economics. (Here is one example of said mockery.) The gist is: tried and true data-based economic practices are the way to succeed, and Randian, Lafferesque Voodoo economic policies are the way to fail.
In Kansas, one of several states that have decided Ayn Rand was the false Goddess they shall worship, Voodoo economics have had the result most of those in the Reality-Based community have predicted:
In Kansas, the right wing has completely run the show in the state capitol since the 2012 elections, when Sam Brownback (who became governor two years earlier) led a purge of moderate Republicans who were acting as a brake on his agenda in the state Senate. Kansas is now a laboratory for what would happen if conservative Republicans gained full control of government. Empowered state Republicans slashed taxes for the rich, arguing that an economic boom would follow. It didn’t, as job growth in Kansas has underperformed the national average (as has Scott Walker’s Wisconsin, another state that moved hard right around the same time). But what did follow was a huge hole in the state’s budget (while liberal-dominated California is running a surplus and paying down debt).. (Emphasis via Cranky)
In state after state, the predicted results have occurred: Voodoo economics have created a sort of Zombie economy. What might seem just a mildly amusing turn of phrase is in fact a devastating blow to those of us not in the 1% (said 1% motherf***ers not being in the least incommoded by the Undead Economy). The economy is limping along, barely alive as far as most of us can tell, and that is not a sustainable path.
In Kansas, Wisconsin, Ohio, and indeed across the nation, we see the results of “Republican” policies: and rotten results they have proven to be. Using millions of people to test their voodoo theories was unethical at the outset, and has since sucked most of the life our of our economy.
Unlike the zombies one sees in movies, our Repub-afflicted economy can be healed and brought back to life. All that is needed is to lay off the voodoo, apply some healthy policies, and the rotting ambulatory corpse of our nation will be restored to health.
And the first step of that cure? Get out and vote. Vote against each and every “Republican” in every race, in every location. Banish the witch doctors and bring back the trained, educated professionals that had served us so well for centuries. Ditch the dream of Supply-Side, and awaken to reality.
That ‘dream’ turned out to be a nightmare the likes of which even Romero could never have envisioned, anyway.
Mr. Blunt and Crankly
If someone were to tell you that they heard something once someplace, and scribbled a curved line on a napkin, would you risk your family’s safety and security on that quick little offhand doodle? Of course not. But that is exactly what the Voodoo Economics politicians have done to our entire nation.
Supply-Side Economic s (the notion that we should shovel extra money to rich folks in order to create prosperity for all) is a purely theoretical notion, and one with no data or historical basis to support it. This specious doctrine has crashed our economy and resulted in an unprecedented looting of wealth from the American majority: the biggest Reverse-Robin Hood scam ever perpetrated. Somewhere in Hades, the Sheriff of Nottingham is cringing with envy.
The Beltway Banditos have taken this unproven notion and, over the past three decades, behaved as if it were a proven fact. It is not a fact, and never was. It was nothing more than a scribble on a mouth wipe, based upon a few cherry-picked quotes from historical Middle Eastern and European scholars. It had never been tried in isolation and had no long-term track record of success (such success as was attributed in the past has been questioned, to put it mildly). Now that is has been attempted, the idea that cutting taxes for rich folk will lead to overall economic gains has been proven NOT to work.
On a purely personal level, Mr. Blunt and Cranky loves tax cuts. But he is fully aware that from the 40’s through the early 70’s, our nation’s economic and tax policies fueled its most productive expansion ever, in terms of infrastructure, personal liberty, and overall economic and social prosperity. Said expansion started to wane as the supply-siders took over, slowed further, and is deader than a doorknob at present. Hell, we are sliding backwards, watching the achievements of the last century crumble around our ears.
This writer heard Mr. Laffer on the news this morning: in response to criticism, he stated that economists who disagreed with him “spent too much time looking at data”. He also said that data was good, but you had to “interpret” it. Put another way, the fool lives in a dream world, an ivory tower, a think tank; somewhere NOT connected with reality. If the data says your idea is not working, then anyone who has spent any time on Planet Reality will reexamine their idea. But not Mr. Laffer and his mindless Supply-Side Lemming Brigade.
If anybody could provide a real-world example in which this laughable notion had actually worked, maybe we could give it more time. But no one has provided such an example, because Supply Side has never worked for more than a few years. Not once. Not ever. Not in recorded history. It is a pipe dream that has become dogma, and hard though it may be, it is time to stop huffing on the Laffer pipe, expel the Laffing Gas, and return to the common-sense economic policies that have been proven to work throughout history.
Mr. B & C
bluntandcranky 