« New Server! | Main | Poor Tax Part II: Health Care »
November 04, 2003
Jobless recovery.
I was watching CNN when I heard a phrase that befuddled me. "While we will have an economic recovery, it may just be a jobless recovery." I'm paraphrasing. What is a jobless recovery? Just after the gentleman stated that, the ticker at the bottom of the screen scrolled some facts by.- "35% of people without health insurance work for large companies."
- "The cost of college has gone up 40% in the last 10 years."
The jobless recovery statement was made after a discussion on the world trend towards fewer manufacturing jobs. It seems as though a jobless recovery means that those that already had will get more while those without, won't. All of this flies in the face of trickle down economics of course. How can the rich make more without dragging up the poor. Quite easily, it seems.
There is an ongoing debate on how much more the rich should be taxed. Reagonomics, aka trickle down economics, says that the more money the rich spends, the better the economy in general. The argument goes that it is the middle class and lower who benefit when the rich spend money. So, by lowering or at least not raising their taxes, they'll have more money to spend, which will just help the poor. I do not think this works, but that is irrelevant because it seems that the poor are taxed more while the rich less and less.
How are the rich taxed less you might ask? Lower or removing taxes on capital gains, and investment dividends affects the rich more than the poor.
Ok, but how are the poor being taxed more? This one is less obvious. In California the cost to renew ones license tripled. Who does this affect more? Everyone pays, but it is a far greater percentage of a poor persons income than a rich persons. I own a 95 Nissan Pathfinder. It used to cost under $100 to register. Now it is $240. That is a lot of money. Gas has become a poor tax as well. It is so absurdly expensive, it affects the poor far more than the rich. You could argue that the govt has little control over how much gas costs, but I beg to differ. Their involvement may be more convoluted, but they are certainly involved. Remember that many of the heads of our current administration come from big oil including our commander and chief.
I am not a conspiracy theorist. Its always more simple than that. People are selfish, they crave money and power. People will generally do what gives them more of those things, even at the expense of others. No conspiracy is needed.
Posted by wonko at November 4, 2003 11:11 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.wayfargone.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/156
Comments
You're right but you've got it all wrong....Trickle Down Economics doesn't work as the name implies....that's just it. Trickle Down Economics reall means, "Trickle Up Economics" because what we do to the poor DOES affect the rich.
Posted by: obigabu at November 10, 2003 05:31 PM
"The jobless recovery statement was made after a discussion on the world trend towards fewer manufacturing jobs."
One has to note that there may in fact be more manufacturing jobs in the world now then before -- just not here. East Asia, Eastern Europe, etc. But not in Flint, MI.
Posted by: david at November 11, 2003 10:53 PM
From what I've heard, manufacturing jobs have been softening worldwide, not just America. I'll have to look for links to back that up though. I think I heard it on the same news prog though.
Posted by: Wonko at November 11, 2003 11:24 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)