You seem to come back every single day, so I must be doing something right.

I am extremely impressed with your management & growth & branding of Donklephant. It has been interesting and fun to watch over the years. The government could not have done it better.

Allow me to pose an example of one of my problems with government intervention in the market…and please consider carefully: If I were from the Department of Bloggation (US government) and I offered you a $200,000.00 grant for Donklephant, but as a requirement for taking the money you could not post more the 5 negative posts about any signal politician in a year– Would you take the grant money? What if it was $300,000/$500,000/$1 million? What if the government paid you 50,000.00 to install an application on Donklephant, but it caused your readers’ computer to run slower when on the site? Would you take the grant? Certainly, a $50,000.00 to Donklephant will “stimulate” the economy, but it also might turn the website into a boring, malfunctioning peice of crap. I could not blame you for taking the grant money though, you have to do what is in your economic best interest — but I have seen with my own eyes, the distortive economic effect of government intervention lead to huge mal-investments by the public and the market.

Like I’ve said before, I hope it works out and we’re all fat, rich and happy in few years due to Washington’s injection of magic money. I’m just not banking on it.

Yes, let’s talk about Obama supporters.

No serious economist, politician, etc. is suggesting that capitalism needs to go away. Do they argue that deregulatory free market principles have failed us? Yes. Even Greenspan admits that.

Also, nobody is saying that vast government spending in perpetuity is sustainable. Some liberal economists are saying that the stimulus should be bigger, but not that this type of thing should replace supply and demand.

Nor do I see many people claiming definitely that the stimulus will be a success. They’re pointing to historical precedent that this works in short bursts. Also, Obama has talked pretty plainly that they’re going to try some ideas and if they don’t work, they’ll try something else. Again, I challenge you to find me a collection of serious people who are actually claiming what you’re accusing.

To answer your idea…

The Obama administration has put together real job and GDP growth projections and they’ve talked openly and honestly about them. I don’t know what else you’re looking for from a quantitative perspective. Maybe I’m missing something.

Also, I’m not suggesting that the argument is done. Far from it actually. But am I saying we should try something besides tax cuts? Absolutely. Ironically, it’s libertarian folks like you who have said this type of thing has never worked, will eventually end up taking away our freedoms, etc. But yes, I take particular exception to the framing that’s going on right now about “generational theft” and Carbone’s nonsensical thumbs up of the genocide comment. If that brings about sharper elbows than usual, so be it. Vigorous, respectful debate is completely in line with a site that’s much more moderate in it’s tone. How many other sites in the blogosphere can you go to, argue your point and not get kicked out? You seem to come back every single day, so I must be doing something right.

Look, you can try to pull the Gore tactic of declaring the argument “done” all you want, but just because you wish it so doesn’t necessary make it true. Furthermore, do you see the irony of Obama supporters complaining the “right” has already concluding the stimulus package a failure, while at the same time the “left” is claiming the stimulus and tax-hikes definitive will be a success?

I have an idea. You know, really good business form quantitative vision statements (with actual projected numbers) to determine success. So lets do that with the economy (you can pick the numbers) and if its a quantitative, measurable success then I will happily concede and drift happily forever into some state agency cubicle to collect a salary and pension.

You know, Justin, for someone that puts up all this pretense about civility and bipartisanship, ext. — you have pretty sharp elbows when someone hints at challenging your orthodoxy.

From my observations of a lot of Obama supporters — they should probably shy away from accusing others of worshippening false gods and graven images, you know what I mean. That is what they call irony.

As I said, the economic arguments of the right-wing are bankrupt these days. Thanks for proving that by not addressing anything that I had to say and instead trying to push the “messiah” meme.

Agreed….I voted for Reagan twice…and proud of it.

My frustration is the use of labels to negatively categorize an entire group of people, thereby diminishing their points of view, and abdicating the responsibility of the post owner to engage in a thoughtful discussion. I’ve come to appreciate these posts as being, for the most part, well-thought out and intelligent. Name-calling (labels) adds little value.

I chose one candidate over another, as most Americans did, based on a mix of criteria. Some analytical, some emotional, again same as most Americans.

Indeed. Just as most reasonable folks who favor certain policy approaches arrived at such conclusions after lengthy study and a mix of criteria, and by choosing among the available approaches. I’m not sure how widespread the deification of Reagan spreads. I do know that mileage varies, and that folks who count themselves liberal bear deep resentment to the whole thing.

I think he was an important figure and in many respects a good influence on our nation at a momentus time in history, but certainly nothing like a a god. For what it’s worth, my curent expectation is that Obama seems poised to be the democratic Reagan unless our nation collapses. This drives conservatives just as batshit crazy as Reagan did to 80s liberals. Oh well.

But what I think is even more interesting in this thread is the work vs. pay argument. I disagree with Fred that pay has nothing to do with how hard you work. I think the point that is missed is that you are not paid necessarily by how hard you are working now, but how hard you have worked to get were you are. IT professionals, doctors, lawyers, etc. have to go to college, and sometimes way beyond. I have friends who are medical students, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Many of them say that they would have chosen differently if they knew how hard it would be on them and their families, but feel that it is too late to switch now. And anyone who believes most lawyers take 2 hour lunches I don’t think knows any real lawyers. Most lawyers are not even close to rich, but yes, they are better off than a janitor who does not need any formal education to his job. So I believe that it’s true that, in general the harder you work the better off you are financially (now and/or in the future).

But (and this is a big “but”), while this is true in general, it is not always true on an individual level. Certainly there are things beyond our control that also effect our economic condition, the most obvious one being the economic status of your parents, which has a great impact on what kind of education you can get. While the argument is always, “you can make it if you work hard”, the truth is that some people have to work a lot harder than others because of circumstances beyond their control. The free market is a great system, but is based on the simplistic general assumption that your success is based only on factors that you can control. I believe in a mixed system where we have a free market, but try to help level the playing field for people who have obstacles that are not of their own making. This comment is already long enough. I’ve written more here.

I would agree with you except for the following statement from the article: “This means I’ll have to tell some of my clients we can’t help them…”

Turning away clients with money is not a typical tactic to reduce taxable adjusted income. Rather extreme. I agree with previous posts that the client’s comments are more political than financial.

Also, there are many instances where a manufacturer (or service provider) will reduce sale prices to gain more market share, ship more volume and increase overall revenue. It’s done all the time in consumer products. Higher volumes at less profit, but higher revenue. You can look at the client’s case as being similar. She can accept the business with a slightly reduced profit margin but increase her revenue. She chooses not to. By your definition, this standard product pricing method would be labeled volunteering simply because the profit margins have been reduced.

Case in point, I debated with Leslie Carbone on Twitter the other day when she agreed that Obama’s economic policies were “genocide of anyone who creates wealth.” She obviously defended it as an apt metaphor, but I think it demonstrates how bankrupt the rhetoric and logic of the right-wing is these days. A 3% tax increase is not akin to genocide, not even metaphorically. But there you have two conservatives tweeting away and patting each other on the back for making what they think is a good point about a miniscule tax increase.

Meanwhile, they take absolutely no responsibility for how their philosophy stripped away necessary market regulations and thus brought about a reality where banks that could overleverage themselves 30 to 1.

And yet these are the times we’re living in and so a course correction is needed. Because selfishness and greed aren’t the kinds of things you build a lasting prosperity on. Enter Obama, who argues that there can be a balance between capitalism and the public good. I hope he succeeds because we’ll all be better off for it if he does.

Wow.

*sighs*

How the heck do you explain this?!
“We are going to try to figure out how to make our income $249,999.00,”

David G. — Every year, I and millions more like me, try to get our taxable adjusted income as low as we can possibily get it without red-flagging the IRS or doing anything illegal. That is all she is saying and I don’t blame her. Earnings and taxable adjusted income are not the same thing. I have never reduced earnings for tax purposes — although I can perfectly understand someone on the cusp of a higher tax bracket analyzing the economics of only marginally higher earnings. However, I have made capital expenditures and allocations (new computers, deposits in HSA, ect.)that were not necessary so that I could reduce my taxable adjusted income.

This is what people in business do…try to keep as much of their income as possible. Otherwise, it isn’t really called “business”– it is called “volunteering”. I guess you can call that an entitlement mentality — an entitlement to their own money.

The latter, possibly. Which is to say, I do believe that people who are naturally endowed with an IQ of 160 probably on average do do better than people who have an IQ of 100. (And no, I am not laying claim to an IQ of 160).

But work harder? Bullshit. I am an IT professional right now. I work 60 hour weeks, sometimes more. I am paid pretty well, all things considered. But I’ll tell you what, I would rather work 60 hour weeks at IT, as awful and grueling as that sometimes is, than work 40 hour weeks doing janitorial work in a factory, as I did way back when. Even if the pay was identical.

Janitorial work (and that’s just one example) is back-breaking, brain-numbing labor, labor which leaves you no energy left at the end of the day to do anything but have dinner, lie down for a while and watch TV, and then go to sleep. If you don’t get rest breaks and meal breaks and sick leave and so forth (which I didn’t… they were well out of compliance with regs even then) it’s a job which will ultimately destroy you, and then leave you jobless and homeless with no money, no pension, and no options.

Whenever I hear someone talking about how people who work harder make more money, I know that person has never worked any harder than I do right now, and probably not even that.

-fred

“We are going to try to figure out how to make our income $249,999.00,”

It makes absolutely no sense in any other context. The individual is clearly clueless or is being deliberately so to make an inane political point.

Either way, the flat tax is merely another part of the conservative culture war strategy of redistributing wealth from the poor and middle class up to the wealthy.