After his first press conference the above slogan is what I see in our future and the future of most of those in the middle-class. Because I have yet to hear where most of the middle class benefits. If you're in the upper 5%, you're screwed. But you knew that. And your lawyers and accountants and lobbyists will prevent too much damage regardless of the rhetoric.
Those in the lower 10-20% of income earners, you'll get some free cheese. If you're in the middle, you better be in a union shop or a government worker for your boat to be lifted too much.
IT'S CALLED PAYBACK AND EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT PAYBACK IS.
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FROM RASMUSSEN REPORTS:
The Senate is scheduled to vote today on an $838-billion economic stimulus plan, but 58% of U.S. voters say most members of Congress will not understand what is in the plan before they vote on it.The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 24% believe most of Congress will understand the contents of the 700-page-plus plan before they vote. Nineteen percent (19%) are not sure. Two-thirds of the nation's voters (69%) lack confidence that Congress knows what it is doing when it comes to addressing the country's current economic problems. Just 29% are even somewhat confident in the legislators.
Obama has used the term "three legs on a stool" to describe his administrations response to the economic woes, but nothing we've seen so far will address what are the three legs of the stool that need to be addressed: FAITH, TRUST and CONFIDENCE.
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Obama comes out of his first press conference looking and sounding like a petulant child, blaming others for his predicament and threatening to hold his breath if Congress doesn't cave in to his demands. At the same time, he makes the Hank "Chicken Little" Paulson argument that the economic sky is falling.
Little Timmy Geithner comes out and tops that with his first major press conference as Treasury Secretary sounding like a child explaining to his teacher why he hasn't completed his homework assignment on time. Mr. "Talk to the Box" morphs into Secretary "My Dog ate my Homework". At least Paulson had a one page memo for Speaker Pelosi for his initial TARP plan. Geithner sounds like has little more than doodling on a cocktail napkin so far.
This is going to be a great four years. It looks like campaigning and finger pointing is indeed much more difficult than actually governing and making decisions.
This is a widely circulated e-mail making the rounds (author unknown) but it seems like the direction we may be heading given the rhetoric of class warfare and the reward/punishment dynamic that is overtaking DC.
It may seem a little Ayn Randian and it may have some economic or tax inaccuracies at the margin but the reason that some of these e-mails get wide circulation is that there is widespread popular belief in the contents. Sort of like an electronic mail Rasmussen poll.
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> Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill
> for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way
> we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
>
> The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
> The fifth would pay $1.
> The sixth would pay $3.
> The seventh would pay $7.
> The eighth would pay $12.
> The ninth would pay $18.
> The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
>
> So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men
> drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the
> arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
> "Since you are all such good customers," he said,
> "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by
> $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
>
> The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay
> our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would
> still drink for free. But what about the other six men, the
> paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so
> that everyone would get his fair share?
>
> They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if
> they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the
> fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to
> drink his beer.
>
> So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to
> reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and
> he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
>
> And so:
>
> The fifth man, like the first four, now paid
> nothing (100% savings).
> The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
> The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
> The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25%
> savings).
> The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22%
> savings).
> The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16%
> savings).
>
> Each of the six was better off than before. And the
> first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the
> bar, the men began to compare their savings.
>
> "I only got a dollar out of the $20,"
> declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,
> "But he got $10!"
>
> "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth
> man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that
> he got ten times more than I did!"
>
> "That's true!" shouted the seventh man.
> "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The
> wealthy get all the breaks!"
>
> "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in
> unison, "we didn't get anything at all. The system
> exploits the poor!"
>
> The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The
> next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so
> the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it
> came time to pay the bill, they discovered something
> important. They didn't have enough money between all of
> them for even half of the bill!
>
> And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college
> professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay
> the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.
> Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they
> just may not show up any more. In fact, they might start
> drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat
> friendlier.
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