I agree our corporate tax rates are too high but Google “top 10 personal income tax rates” and you will not find the US on there. The rich are, of course, free to move to any country they wish as long as that country will accept them but where exactly are they going to go? Japan, Canada, and especially Europe have more regulation and higher taxes than the US, Russia and China have repressive governments that require bribes to get anything done and deny basic rights like freedom of speech we Americans are used to, and, while many developing countries would be happy to accept affluent American immigrants, they are developing countries for a reason: repressive and/or unstable governments, anti-American sentiment, and a lower standard of living are common in third world countries. In short, the US is the worst country in the world to be rich...except for all the others.
The executive class isn’t the only one that produces. Isn’t the worker whose labor actually produces the widget also a productive member of society? Management plays an important role in the economy, to be sure, but to believe the rich are the only productive members of society, as you seem to, ignores the contribution of the working class (emphasis on “working”, I’m not talking about welfare queens here, just the working poor).
What “frequent disruptive strikes”? I haven’t heard about any strikes in the last few years. Of course that could just be the MSM covering things up as usual. But I will say that compared to some countries I have been to (e.g. Italy and Argentina) the US unions are downright amateurs when it comes to strikes, particularly the private sector. The Italian workers, in spite of their high wages and generous benefits, go on 1-day strikes for the sheer heck of it and the student occupation of University of Buenos Aires in 2010 lasted months. We haven’t seen that kind of radicalism in the US since the 1960s, and for that I am very thankful.
I agree that the deficit is a huge problem that should not be ignored by liberal politicians. but I fail to see how more tax cuts for the rich is going to help the deficit or indeed do anything except create more jobs in currency-manipulating China.
I never said it was Bush’s fault because 1) Congress and the Federal Reserve have more power over our economy than any president. It was Congress that passed fiscally unsustainable budgets (when they could pass a budget at all) and the Federal Reserve who enabled the housing bubble with its unrealistically low interest rates. 2) This crisis has been decades in the making. What we have now is the end result of decades of political mismanagement by Democrats and Republicans alike, each obsessively rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. So I don’t believe it’s all Bush’s fault (as the liberals would have us believe) or even all 0bama’s fault (as some conservatives believe).
Please sit down and have a twinkie or a Ho Ho, you have some catching up to do. Where to begin...how about on the West coast. How much did that west coast dock strike cost before it ended? Did you enjoy the shows in Michigan or Wisconsin?
Unions inject a third party and an increased level of hostility between various groups that they then negotiate. Today they are needed only in extreme situations, in my opinion, and cost more than any good they do. Looks like extortion most of the time, in my opinion.
It works for them, though, and they have great political power and usually get favorable treatment from the legal system as long as they don't go too far.
If I were wanting to start a company, I'd do all I could to avoid dealing with them.
And I'd have to lawyer up, not just to deal with the alphabet agencies' regulations, especially just finding a place to build, but also for handling the various law suits. Ask Toyota about that.
And, thanks to obamacare, everything just got much more expensive, so I'd be very reluctant to hire anyone or grow very much.
In fact, thanks to that ever growing debt and GovCo.'s unwillingness to stop spending, I am worried that I will regret hiring anyone new. If I ran a business the way they are running GovCo, I'd be out of business. I am worried about how this is going to catch up to us.
And here we are, the eye of the storm and the back wall is coming. The second term should be a hoot. Like the wabbit said, "Well, batten them down again! We'll teach those hatches!"
People usually act in their own best interests, usually to gain pleasure and avoid pain. It rarely gets more complicated than that. If things are as bad as you say they are elsewhere as compared to here, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. But either way, why do we want to make things so hard and so expensive?
He said he was going to nationalize healthcare, education and energy. Look out below....here we come....