Robber Barony Is Back

http://topincomes.g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/#Graphic:
select:
United States
1917-2009
Average Incomes
bottom 90% average income - including capital gains

Shows the submerged 90% of us earn the same (per family) in real terms as we did in the late 1960s. Yet the typical family now has more wage earners, working more hours.

Same site, select
Top Income Shares
top .01% - including capital gains

Shows the hunting animals eating the entire carcass except during 1942-1981, when we had effective antitrust law, labor law, and progressive taxation.

In only these forty years was the average family income of the top .01% "only" 165 times the average family income.  Before 1942 and after 1981, the rich took a much larger share.  In 2010 it was 462 times the average and increasing.  (If only the top .01% earned anything, their share would be 10,000 times the average.   That the one family in 10,000 now takes nearly 5% of all the income, is appalling.)

The rich get their income not for what they do, but for what they own.  They claim to be "job creators."  In truth, the only job creator is a customer, who buys something.  We have to get money back in the hands of those who spend it--the nonrich.  When the only people with money to spend have all the stuff they can use, the economy collapses.  These booms and busts happened regularly up through the Great Depression.  It was political action that transformed the working class into the middle class, avoiding the booms and busts.  Deregulation, detaxing the rich, eroding worker rights, free trade, since 1981 are bringing back the bad old days of many serfs, one lord.  Only political action can reverse the trend.  We have to restore antitrust laws, restore workers' rights, establish fair trade not free trade, tax the rich.

Norway has a much fairer balance of power between employees and employers, partly due to nationwide collective bargaining.  U.S. labor laws have been eroded since they were enacted in 1935, by anti-labor court decisions and anti-labor legislation.  Now, management can ignore labor agreements and labor law without serious consequences.

Norquist Beyond the Thunderdome

Irresistible title on Huffington Post: "Patriotic Millionaires to Grover Norquist: 'Move to Somalia.'"

WASHINGTON — Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, millionaires who want the government to tax them more, met with foremost anti-tax guru Grover Norquist in Washington late Wednesday afternoon.... Patriotic Millionaires ... believe that America has been good to them and that it is their duty to give back. ...

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Norquist felt the group only represented liberal interests. "They were there with a heavy partisan message," Norquist told HuffPost Thursday. "The kinds of arguments I got from these old people weren't interesting when I was 12, the left has not advanced. These guys are Democratic Party hacks. [emphasis added]

Norquist, full-time lobbyist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform, who has never run for office much less been elected, is advocate-in-chief for the extreme right-wing no-taxes-not-ever, drown-government-in-a-bathtub political ideology. According to Norquist, paying taxes is not just a partisan message, but a "heavy partisan message." Since when is taxation a left-wing idea? As Mr. Norquist well knows, some Republicans actually believe in taxation. Norquist's hubris allows him to believe that it's up to him to determine what's left and what's right. No doubt he also believes that government is a left-wing idea. And democracy. You know, radical lefty stuff like that.

Norquist (age 55) calls the members of the Patriotic Millionaires who went to visit him "old people." "Old people"? Who does he think he's talking to? A bunch of never-trust-anyone-over-thirty teenagers? I wasn't able to find out exactly which group members met with Mr. Norquist, or exactly how old they are, but in what I found it didn't appear that any were more than about ten years older than old Norquist, and one or two were younger. Check out this photo of the visiting old-geezer delegation of millionaires. Funny how Norquist seems to fit right in with the old white men at the table, isn't it?

"The kinds of arguments I got from these old people weren't interesting when I was 12." Really? Aside from there being very few 12-year-olds who find the idea of taxation especially riveting, since when is "interesting to a 12-year-old" a criterion for the validity of an idea? Norquist is freely admitting here that what he found uninteresting as a 12-year-old is still uninteresting to him today. And he's complaining that the left hasn't advanced?

Indeed he is. Advanced how? No doubt Norquist wants the left to move on from the tired old ideas of justice, equity, and democracy. Is he suggesting that the left should advance as the right has "advanced"? The most casual observation of the Republican presidential debates is indication enough of how the right has "advanced."

And finally, Mr. Norquist labels the Patriotic Millionaires who met with him as "hacks." Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines "hack" (as Norquist is using the word) as follows: "3 a : one who hires out his professional service : one who forfeits individual freedom of action or initiative or professional integrity in exchange for wages or other assured reward : HIRELING, MERCENARY." Uh yeah. Right. Those damned hireling mercenary millionaires who want people like themselves to pay more taxes. Unconscionable.

Norquist's response to the millionaires was the oh-so-predictable "there's nothing stopping you guys from paying higher taxes; just send a check to the government!" Eric Schoenberg, adjunct associate professor at Columbia Business School, pointedly asked Norquist: "Would you be willing to sign a pledge where you're willing to forgo all the benefits that government provides? Are you willing to sign a pledge that says you don't want the U.S. military to protect you? That you will refuse to contact the police if somebody steals from you? That you will refuse to contact the fire department if your house is on fire? Because that's the equivalent! Why should you get a free ride? Why should you benefit from my willingness to support the government?" Norquist claims that if he didn't have to pay any taxes for it, he would indeed forgo all of those things. Schoenberg responded: "There's an easy way to do that: move to Somalia!" There's an idea. But of course hard-core ideologue Norquist attributes Somalia's problems to "too much government."

Norquist needs to be banished somewhere where not only does he not benefit from any past or present government services, but neither does anyone he might want to do business with. Picture what Norquist's no-taxes/no-government world would look like: Mad Max on steroids. No wonder these guys want everybody to carry a gun. They prefer the rule of the gun to the rule of law. This nightmare scenario would make feudalism look "advanced."

Mr. Norquist, you are the hack. In fact, you are a greedy old hack who hasn't advanced any more than a selfish, immature, immoral 12-year-old. Paying taxes is not a partisan activity, sir. (Ooh, is it possible that I'm channeling Keith Olbermann?) Paying taxes is a matter of patriotism and duty and concern for the well-being of our country, all of our country. Your moral bankruptcy compels you to care only for yourself. Somalia is too good for you. You really deserve to live somewhere where there are no public services and no rule of law. I suggest you go beyond the Thunderdome.