Posted on 12/13/2008 6:21:25 AM PST by reaganaut1
...
[Larry Summers] is also the centrist who has made it safe for other centrist Democrats to move to the left. Both times Ive interviewed Mr. Obama this year, he has brought up Mr. Summers, unbidden, and pointed out that Summers was now writing a lot more about the plight of the middle class than about budget deficits. [] Obama [has] called him a thought leader.
Below is an issue-by-issue guide to Mr. Summers.
...
INEQUALITY: Mr. Summers has spent much of his career tweaking fellow liberals with arguments he considers unpleasant truths []. But he seems to have decided that conservative orthodoxies have become a vastly bigger threat to good economic policy than liberal ones. His favorite argument today is one that instead drives some conservatives nuts.
It goes like this: To undo the rise in income inequality since the late 70s, every household in the top 1 percent of the distribution, which makes $1.7 million on average, would need to write a check for $800,000. This money could then be pooled and used to send out a $10,000 check to every household in the bottom 80 percent of the distribution, those making less than $120,000. Only then would the country be as economically equal as it was three decades ago.
The lack of middle-class income growth during that span is the defining issue of our time, Mr. Summers has said, in a tacit admission that liberals were ahead of him on this issue. He is likely to be front and center in Mr. Obamas push to reduce taxes on the middle class and create good jobs. Mr. Summers may also push the administration to work with foreign governments to crack down on tax shelters.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Centrist my a**. The NYT is dishonest is only mentioning "crack[ing] down on tax shelters" (always politically popular) as the way of reducing "inequality" to the "right" level. If Summers and Obama wants the top 1% to pay an extra $800K each, they will have to not only let Bush's tax cuts expire but raise marginal tax rates above the levels Clinton imposed. That will lead to MORE tax shelters.
The reporter does not give an exact quote from Summers, but clearly identifies it as Summers' "argument". Someone ought to question Summmers and Obama about this. Or are Republican leaders less articulate than Joe the Plumber? (I'm afraid they are.)
Immigration, legal and illegal, depresses wages. And the global economy has resulted in the export of good paying jobs.
Dear Larry Summers,
In re: your plan for the rich to cough up 800 large to start with.
You go first.
These people are nuts.
Total fuzzy math. That amount collected annually won’t cover the interest on an hour of their spending. It’s the price of having liberals in our education system. They become too stupid to even be good collectivists (communists).
Damn!! We were led to believe Reagan brought down the Soviet Union. The communists and their sympathizers have re-located to the RAT party. This socialist takeover will plant the seeds for a revolution.
Just another friggin Elitist. Summers and Geithner both.
(notice the other attendees)
http://www.stopthenorthamericanunion.com/2008BilderbergAttendees.html
a thought leader.
Good grief.
So, in order to address income inequality, every family with an income of 119,999 gets a check for 10,000 boosting their income to 129,999. But if you make 120,000, you get zip and all those between 110,001, now make more than you? This is fair?
Now we have a “Thought Leader” to go along with our “Light Worker”.
I hope they use their super powers only for good.
In 1975 I earned 2k, for the year. Most of the people in the top 1% in annual income in 1975 are not there today. People move up and down through the income brackets. During the 1990s, I didn't make what I make now, even adjusted for inflation. My experience and capabilities have grown and so has my income. Once I retire, my income will go back down.
Making a status analysis (albeit an incorrect one) on a dynamic system will never produce results that make any sense.
Socialism/fascism/communism, which is the rat party, will also result in poverty for everyone. In terms of material wealth, better to have been in the US middle class during the cold war, than in the top echelons of the Soviet Union. Poverty in the US is more like middle class in most of the world.
Summers, like many other Leftwingtards, has absolutely no concept for what deflation does. He’s still dreaming of tax increases when what’s needed are higher home prices.
I’ll believe it right after Rangle goes to jail.
Until then, bite me, Summers.
You want a civil war? Keep it up.
It takes a bigger brain to know how to make money than it does to simply move other people’s money around. I just wish these “thinkers” were “doers” instead.
The frightening thing is that "thinkers" like Summers will have plenty of power to "do" things to us as they wield power under Obama.
Hold on to you IRA, big drop in stock market MONDAY!!!!!!!!
They flooded the country with 20 plus million dirt poor socialists and they sent almost all of our manufacturing overseas in the name of global trade.
Leaving us with a burger flipping economy. I say all of Washington DC needs to be replaced.
Oh, just assign them titles like "Doctors of Thinkology" and hope they don't do anything.
Bump for later read
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