My personal gripe is watching the Republicans calling the wealthy job creators, when the reality is that no one, wealthy or not, corporate or individual, does anything remotely related to 'creating jobs' or starting or expanding a business UNLESS people exist who will pay for the goods or services that business will provide. It is not true that if you give money to people they will create jobs. It IS true that if people have money in the middle and lower economic demographic, then and only then will anyone 'create jobs', and those people who DO create a job, build a business, etc. do not do so with money they have in their pockets from not paying taxes. They do so with money from selling shares of stock in their business, or from taking out business loans. Study after economic study has shown that money from lower taxes is NOT reflected in business growth. This is a right wing propaganda myth to con the economic illiterates.
The huge Grand Canyon sized gap that has grown between the wealthiest and the rest of the population has consistently in economic history resulted in economic instability and destruction through boom and bust cycles, as well as greater periods of people acquiring wealth through dishonest manipulations. Anyone looking for examples should review the examples of cheating, swindling and other acts of dishonesty by the wealthy uncovered in the hearings held by Ferdinand Pecora after the gilded age followed by the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent great depression. Those activities resulted in regulation, like Glass Steagall, which worked - but which were systematically repealed in the name of being 'business friendly' and greater profits (mostly for the very rich). While both the Republican and Democratic parties participated in repeal, the push to undo those protections came disproportionately much more from the right than from the left.
The Great Recession beginning in 2007-8 was the result of that return to boom and bust, and facilitating the redistribution of wealth to the to 1-2%. That does not create economic growth; it consistently creates the opposite. But Republicans won't tell you that, not so long as there is short term profit in being the greedy tools of the rich and powerful.
dog gone:
ReplyDeleteThere is one distinct advantage to the Plutokleptocrats being so obvious in their ostentatiously obscene displays of wealth. They will be easier to identify when the guillotines are dusted off.
It is a fact of many centuries of human history that those who abuse the masses long enough wind up in shallow graves. It is a "Rinse'n'Repeat" phenomenon but apparently greed is a stronger instinct than self-preservation for some of us.