Capital Gains Tax Rates Hollow the Economy

Let’s look at tax law. Remember Romney’s tax returns. His average tax was approximately 15%. That’s the rate for capital gains. But for anything else earned above roughly $400,000 the rate is 35%. I’d love to reach that rate, to earn enough to pay 35% on some little fraction of my income. Alas, I don’t.

Sources of American Strength

Let’s talk about some basics – the sources of American economic power.

• We were always an immigrant society, peopled with those who had the drive and courage to leave where they were, cross the ocean and begin again with nothing.
• Initially we were agricultural. One innovation was small, “republican,” landownership by independent farmers. Their efficiency made everything else possible.
• We were among the leaders in the banking revolution which simplified and facilitated commerce.
• The transportation revolution began in England but it had an enormous impact on the American economy because of the sheer size of the country.
• Our system of democratic schooling  – education for all, rich and poor, boys and girls, immigrants and natives – was revolutionary and made us an international leader.
• England pioneered the scientific revolution. But America took advantage of the land grant colleges, and with the appreciation for learning that came with both the Christian and Jewish communities that relocated here, America became a major source of invention.
• Americans led the revolution in manufacturing – inventing and perfecting the assembly line.

Now what? Everything we achieved is out there.

Break for WAMC fundraising

I expect to be back on February 14 – seg

Well they needed a second Tuesday. Back later today, 2/21/12.

The Cost of Non-Regulation

The debate over pipelines in New York, and from Canada through the midwest, has been cast as the value of the natural gas versus the value of the environment, particularly water supplies. We can have one or the other. But not both. Either the environment or the gas.

Persian Culture and Iranian Behavior

We had dinner the other night with a friend who had lived in the same city in Iran where I had. We missed each other there by a few months. We were talking about the tense situation in the Persian Gulf and what they might do.

Race & Economic Justice, for Martin Luther King

Yesterday was Martin Luther King day. That actually led me to think some more about the Occupy Movement and their slogan, the 99%.

Movements for economic justice have repeatedly had their backs broken over the race issue. In the 19th century, the surging Populist Movement tried to ignore race and bring poor whites and blacks together. But it was destroyed in the South over race. We limped into the 20th century without major reforms although the Progressive Movement that brought Woodrow Wilson to the White House enacted pieces of the Populist creed and the Roosevelt Administration enacted more.

But the Roosevelt Administration also steered clear of race in ways that would have an enormous impact on America.

Steve Gottlieb will be back on January 13

Taxes and the Price of Success

With a deal in process about state taxes amid shouts about which state’s taxes are highest, let me point out some basic facts. New York is expensive. My employers had to pay me well when I worked in New York City so that I could afford to live and work there. Same when I worked in Boston. Why? Taxes? Actually that’s not the big issue which is real estate.

Our Stake in Europe

Do we have a stake in what is happening in Europe? Some countries, particularly in southern Europe are having trouble paying their debts in a recession. It shouldn’t be a surprise – taxes shrink in a recession. Of course in some places it is pathological – Greeks refuse to pay the taxes they owe in such large numbers that they are bankrupting their country. But the problem is wider, with deep roots in the recession.

As a result other countries have been reconsidering their participation in the Euro and even in the European Union itself. Should we care?

The Economy has hit a Republican Wall

Did you hear Republican Senator Pat Toomey’s recent weekly Republican radio address. He announced that “the economy has hit a wall.” Exactly. It hit a Republican wall. Everything our government has done to bring us out of recession for the last eighty years he and his fellow Republicans have said “no” to.