U.S. Economic Myths

Taxing corporations drives them, and the associated jobs and profits, offshore. Unions do the same.

Reich is an idiot. He doesn't like to mention the effects that illegal immigration have on US wages.

d government is a necessary requirement for a free market, he did not say i t was sufficient.

nd

ave

That's just more of the "false choices" Reich talks about in the video. Did you read the following post on his blog, The Conundrum of Corporation and Nation? The big multi-nationals are taking the money and running, they're i n no way shape or form American. So the sucker Americans who pay top dollar to maintain the economic environment for these entities are really getting short changed.

I think that 50% is a fair score for the US armed forces. They are very good at doing the classic military things, killing the enemy on the battlefield before they get killed. They aren't very good at navigating tribal politics in crazy foreign lands, but then that's not what they signed up to do.

Cool. Tell us about it.

Excuse me, low life, but from what I gather about your customer base, most of them are working for the government. So just 'zactly what are you saying about redistribution?

John's pretty close on the essentials.

I've been many places where the government took and redistributed people's things, where the people were afraid of their central government. None of them were free, few were prosperous, and none free and prosperous.

The U.S. is now such a nation, that lives in fear of its government.

Anything the government gives one person, it has to take from another by force. Some is essential, but above a low level, the more of that, the worse for all.

At bottom, the central government simply doesn't and can't make better choices than the people who live them.

Cheers, James Arthur

Reich's a dolt. Concentration of capital and risk-taking are essential, yet he'd prevent both via taxation and management. If no one can accumulate enough to start anything, if Obamacare taxes all your savings away, THAT stops ordinary people, chops them off at the knees.

Agreed. He's a shrill know-it-all who's never done anything.

Cheers, James Arthur

Your fixated on the US, Germany and Japan provide outstanding counter-examples of your thesis.

Sure. We need a reasonable legal system, a stable currency and banking system, public infrastructure... which things, in the USA, should cost about 15% of what government now spends, and which should work a lot better than they do.

The "too much" almost has to be invested; what else are rich people going to do with their wealth? Investment, essentially under-consumption to fund future growth, has to come from somewhere, and "somewhere" is neither governmant nor poor people. Take wealth from rich people and give it to poor people, as Reich demands, means they will spend it, and China wins that game.

Tax policy should encourage *productive* investment and job creation, which it currently doesn't do.

Reich is a moron.

That's just more of the far-right false-choices and reductio ad absurdum extremism.

Ooooh yeah, like the Goldman-Sachs executives who've been worked into high level government positions... they definitely "did" the American people but good. Actually, they've been doing people pretty good globally.

Absolutely. Huge corporate taxes, and high overhead costs on labor, drive businesses to friendlier countries. Or, equivalently, destroy US companies and shift our consumption to imports.

We should have zero corporate income tax and a national sales tax. So the Chinese imports get taxed at the same rate as domestic stuff. People who have jobs, and can pay tax when they buy things, are happier than people without jobs, who can't buy things.

My biggest customers build jet engines and semiconductor fab gear and optical stuff. We rarely sell directly to government, and most of the ultimate products that we are in, are commercial. And the military is, as I noted, one of the legitimate functions of government.

What do you do?

Not so much of a moron that he makes sweeping generalizations without any substantiation whatsoever. You'd struggle to get an AA degree in economics from the local community college.

I don't fear government, but I do have to work around a lot of rules and costs that I think are counter-productive.

Reich doesn't seem to understand that government policies, and his theories, are increasing the wealth disparity in the USA. And more of his recipes will make things worse. He is, incidentally, rich.

The clever people in the USA or in Rwanda will find ways to be wealthy, even if surrounded by poverty and misery.

People like Reich always want government to do more, when sometimes the best thing to do is less.

On Thursday, March 12, 2015 at 3:59:11 PM UTC-4, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com w rote:

te:

aid government is a necessary requirement for a free market, he did not say it was sufficient.

and

st

ted

have

re

ple

Reich himself is full of false choices.

and Nation? The big multi-nationals are taking the money and running, they 're in no way shape or form American. So the sucker Americans who pay top d ollar to maintain the economic environment for these entities are really ge tting short changed.

I didn't read his blog. Maybe later. I've listened to him far too much over the years, and have been amazed people don't question his obvious blunders.

That the "sucker Americans" are maintaining some sort of essential environment for the companies is one of his myths. The gov't is a drain and a threat on all but its cronies, not a boon. Companies stay here often despite the federal gov't, not because of it.

Cheers, James Arthur

On the contrary. I lived in Germany.

Cheers, James Arthur

That's just ivory-tower stupid. If you make $20k and Obamacare takes $2k from you and $4k for you from your neighbors, you're far worse off than if you saved the $2k a few years running and tried starting a business, or going to school.

I actually did the latter, and today I wouldn't be allowed because Barack Obama knows better than I do.

That's real-life, not b.s.

Cheers, James Arthur