The bailout and the wealthy
Like John McCain, I’m proud to say that I don’t know much about economics. Didn’t study it in school, because it involved numbers.
I do know this much, though: it looks like “Trickle Down” has had its day. The Reagan-era concept that if you let the rich get as rich as they possibly can, they’ll share their largess with the hoi polloi--floating all boats--has been discredited.
They got richer all right, but the rest of us didn’t. In fact, those at the lowest end of the spectrum are doing even worse than before. Other trickle-ees like me at the middle-level feel like the fire hydrant outside the Westminster Kennel Club. They need us, but they don't want us inside.
I read somewhere that the Swedes have a tax system that we rugged individualists in America would abhor. Rather than allow the huge disparity in incomes that we have here, Sweden taxes its wealthiest citizens as much as one-hundred-and-ten percent of their income to keep everybody more or less in line. This is why the filmmaker Ingmar Bergman moved here (I get the feeling I wouldn’t have understood his movies even if they weren’t in Swedish, but that’s another story).
Punitive? Maybe. Stifles the capitalistic impulse? No doubt. But the last survey I could find of the U.N. Human Development Index showed Sweden as No. 2 in world standard of living, with the United States stumbling in at No.8.
But then, those Swedes have all those un-American things like cradle-to-grave health care, child support, decent retirement benefits…I could go on.
But I won’t, because that’s socialism…and as we all know, socialism sucks.
CHAN LOWE has been the Sun Sentinel’s first and only editorial cartoonist for the past twenty-six years. Before that, he worked as cartoonist and writer for the Oklahoma City Times and the Shawnee (OK) News-Star.
Comments
This is great. You definitely keep me coming back for more.
Posted by: Giselle | March 2, 2009 5:41 PM
Trickle up poverty isn't so great either! Since you state you don't know much about economics let me give you a brief synopsis. Capitalism is characterized by high growth and low unemployment. Socialism is characterized by low growth and high unemployment. We can see how decades of socialism works in high unemployment, low growth countries in Europe. Paycheck or welfare/unemployment check. The time is now for us to choose.
Posted by: Carolyn | March 3, 2009 7:26 AM
Carolyn,
With all due respect, something tells me that Mr. Lowe has a far better understanding of economics than someone who feels that the last
8 years of capitalism could be
"characterized by high growth and
low unemployment."
Posted by: johnctryon | March 3, 2009 10:06 AM
Economics in 2 words: money moving. It's not socialism vs. capitalism, just motion. Give money to the poor, it moves, because it's tied to survival. The rich gather more than they move by definition. Yes the rich should pay - the money has to come from where it is. Is this so hard to understand? Mr. Lowe, I think you know more than you take credit for.
Posted by: concierge | March 3, 2009 11:42 AM
I’m proud to say that I don’t know much about economics.
Yes Mr. Lowe, you do not know much about economics. Don't feel bad though; you apparently do know as much as every President and cabinet member since the Hoover administration.
However, ignorance is no excuse for stupidity. And, advocating socialism is stupidity. Socialism is a corrupt political system which always results in poverty and war. It doesn't matter whether it is the national socialism of Hitler, the communist socialism of Stalin, the new deal socialism of FDR, the corrupt "capitalist" socialism of Bush, or the 'new" new deal socialism of Obama. The end result is always misery, poverty and death for millions of people.
Sweden is a small wealthy country comprised if exceptionally peaceful people. Don't get too excited because they haven't destroyed themselves yet.
Mr. Lowe, I suggest you read Meltdown : A Free-Market Look at why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and the Government Bailout will Make Things Worse. The book is in the Broward County Library system. Put it on hold. Read it. I promise; there's no math, just history and logic.
Posted by: Lowell | March 3, 2009 4:37 PM