by Tina Grazier
In times like these it’s hard to imagine that things will ever get better.
So many of our fellow citizens have lost jobs, homes, businesses, 401K’s, and in some cases, even their lives or their marriages. We have all seen the many foreclosure signs and empty storefronts in our neighborhoods and we listen patiently as desperate neighbors, friends, and family members tell of the dire circumstances in their lives. We find ourselves worrying and stressing too much…and we pray…in the hope that someone, anyone, will step forward to lead us out of this tragedy that surely must be a dream. Yes we wait. We wait and watch as desperate souls around us turn to crime while the hopeless and depressed turn to suicide, alcohol and drugs. We wait as others, who have always counted on themselves for survival, are forced to move back in with their parents or to ask for charity. Food stamps and unemployment can never fill the gap or offer hope. Nothing beats a good paying job. We wait, wondering what it will take to turn our country around.
In times like these there is little reason for anyone to consider the plight of the more fortunate amongst us.
After all, the super rich will always be with us and those with comfortable means certainly aren’t all experiencing anything quite as horrible as a man who’s lost his job, his home, his health insurance, his meager savings and his family. Yet, in terms of our nation’s plight, in terms of how we will all survive and do better, the stories of those who have lost a small fortune are just as relevant and just as significant as those with less that are suffering. The well off are most often the ones who produce and create jobs. The rich, the motivated, the inventive, the self-starting leaders of industry, when allowed to do what they desire and do best, will make a big difference in how we as a nation crawl out of this dark place. We Americans find ourselves swirling around in a common boat in this bad economy. None will seek or find help from the beggar, the unemployed, or the hopeless but we surely will find a job with a struggling private sector set loose to grow and thrive. Our government knows this. Just this week came another call from misguided politicians to tax the rich. Is this an act of desperation? The truth is government depends greatly on the middle and upper classes for revenue…and current government policy is killing this class. Would it be wise to strangle it further?
In times like these there are those who need numbers and statistics to prove what they already can see before their eyes.
These show me types should know that 2009 IRS figures indicate a significant drop in the numbers of wealthy Americans who file returns. Consider:
Those making over one million dollars dropped by 39% from 2007 to 2009.
Those who make ten million dollars or more fell by 55% over the same period.
In 2007 tax filers reporting between two hundred thousand and one million dollars paid six-hundred ten billion dollars ($610 Billion) in taxes to the government. In 2009 that revenue figure had shrunk to four hundred thirty-four billion ($434 Billion).
Tax revenues from millionaires fell from four hundred twenty billion ($420 Billion) to two hundred thirty-two billion ($232 Billion).
Our once vibrant country will not survive if this trend continues. Our children and grandchildren will not have a shot at the same American dream their parents enjoyed. Our schools will not be able to deliver the promise of a better tomorrow through knowledge and learning. Our seniors, rather than enjoying their golden years, will find they have no recourse but to depend entirely on their children. Yet our leaders continue to do the same unworkable things over and over again. They position and scrap for political power while the country goes to ruin areound them. They make bargains behind closed doors to create legacy for themselves without regard to the damage they inflict. While businesses are torn asunder and unemployment lines grow to burgeoning crowds they take vacations, they play golf, and they talk and talk and talk…nothin but trash.
Any fool knows the answer to our woes is not more and higher taxes on the incredibly shrinking upper classes.
We won’t climb out of this mess by enacting stringent, costly regulations that will make little difference to the stated purpose but will strangle industry and business. The answer does not lie in a fat and growing tax needy government. The answer to our problems lies in encouraging the upper and middle classes create, work and produce. The answer lies in letting the moneyed class make more money!
We must do everything we can to unleash the creative entrepreneurial spirit of America!
We must simplify regulations and bring corporate taxes in line with the rates of our international competition. We must repeal the healthcare law and begin again by enacting reforms that push healthcare and insurance costs down. We must create a positive and supportive atmosphere for the private sector. The better the private sector works, the more money that can be made, spent, saved, and invested. And the better the private sector works the more opportunity there will be for everyone…even for our incompetent, bloated, self-serving government.
There are two things government must do at this time. It must get out of the way and shrink itself!
We must do these things you said, that much is obvious, but in order to do them we would have to remove a lot of roadblocks in the form of a few million hardcore leftists hiding behind the name of democrat.
Our civility and peaceful nature has kept these socialist slackers safe for now, but as the economy gets worse I dunno… People are losing their patience.
You need to check out this month’s Atlantic. Some economist claims that 60% of this nation’s disposable wealth is held by 1% of the population (how’s that for shrunken?) … and that consequently it don’t matter whether us peasants head out to the WalMart or not … so let’s all not.
Libby: “Some economist claims that 60% of this nation’s disposable wealth is held by 1% of the population (how’s that for shrunken?)”
First of all I wasn’t talking about the 1% that will always be very wealthy. Once you become a billionaire it’s hard to fall from that class.
But the words “held by”….hmmmmmmmm…now what could that mean?
Does it mean they have it stuffed in jars under the bed?
Is it tightly packed into their sofa cushions?
Have they used it to wallpaper the mansion in Beverly Hills or Blackhawk?
No my dear. They do not hord this money. They put it into investments. Well…they do unless the market and economy are shakey…then they “hold” it in cash! Gold! Oil! Foreign currencies! Land! Stuff that does little to create jobs and business opportunity.
One of the stark realities of life is that some folk have more than others whether it be talent, desire, ambition, assertiveness or even money! Another stark reality is that you can’t get a loan or a job from the poor. You can get those from the rich or upper classes. You can from some in the middle class too IF you don’t strangle the goolden goose!
See sweetie, when the less fortunate and leftist middle and upper classes let go of their envious, covetous, punishing, controling ways that money is invested in business and instruments that act as fuel for the economy, business expansion and JOBS. Even a lower class guy has the opportunity to save and invest in something that gives him the opportunity to move up into the middle class. GET A CLUE!
“it don’t matter whether us peasants head out to the WalMart or not … so let’s all not.”
Good idea! Go ahead and stay home, Libby. We are all staying home more and we will until this insane administration and its job killing, inflation causing polices are routed out!
Tina
The upper classes are the only classes that are expanding their wealth.
The ONLY segemnt of society to realize any gains in the last thirty years have been the upper classes. For the rest of us, incomes have risen about 1%
WTF are you talking about???????
One of the stark realities of life is that people are paid to post crap they don’t believe in.
How pathetic!
Real conservatism might have a chance if you didn’t keep saying stupid stuff all the GD time!
“First of all I wasn’t talking about the 1% that will always be very wealthy.”
And you are, as usual, missing the point. Your upper middle play monies have spirited up … not down.
Q: “For the rest of us, incomes have risen about 1%
WTF are you talking about???????”
Ya got me…I din’t say that.
“One of the stark realities of life is that people are paid to post crap they don’t believe in.”
A window into the rumpled aging mind of our friend Q?
“Real conservatism might have a chance if you didn’t keep saying stupid stuff all the GD time!”
Oh my…the power you confer to lil ol moi!
Libby: “And you are, as usual, missing the point. Your upper middle play monies have spirited up … not down.”
Your middle play monies?
Where did you get this squishy idea?
Have you been paying any attention at all to the plight of medium to small sized business in America? How about the hit that everyone’s 401K has taken? The number of unemployed…you think they are all lower class people?
This was from 2009things havent improved.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2278
This is about 401K losses
http://www.401kplanning.org/401k-and-retirement/
http://news.yahoo.com/u-businesses-harmed-more-others-great-recession-233641848.html
You need to quit talking out of your hat! And you need to give up bad mouthing profit unless and until you are willing to work for free.
“Oh my…the power you confer to lil ol moi!”
and yet, for SOME reason you keep posting.
Oh, yeah.
“One of the stark realities of life is that people are paid to post crap they don’t believe in.”
nuff said
Q: “‘One of the stark realities of life is that people are paid to post crap they don’t believe in.’ nuff said”
Gee Q if its that easy you should have the worl completely transformed by noon today…I can’t wait!
Note to our readers…this is a hobby…none of us at Post Scrips are paid.
Tina, maybe we’re missing out on something? Maybe we should be getting paid to post our opinions! lol It’s a compliment to think we’re so influential we could get paid for this – we must be doing something right!
“Where did you get this squishy idea?”
From the reported fact that 60% of disposable income in this nation is held by 1% of the population. Did you read the thing? Read the thing.
There is also this precious bit about TMZ. I know you’d like it. The Atlantic Monthly, at your news stands now.
Libby if you have a point to make you’re going to have to make it. I can’t crawl into your brain to fill in the gaps and I certainly don’t have an interest in running around to purchase The Atlantic just so I can understand whatever it is you are attempting to say.
I’ll try again. This post is not about the 1% of super extremely wealthy. Those people will always be that wealthy, or close to it…billion here, billion there…ho hum. They have that money and so what! They can’t hord it. It has to be invested or saved…put in play in the market. It doesn’t hurt others it helps them!!!!
This post is about the decline in the middle to upper classes. People who actually run businesses on main street…in airport industrial complexes and in neighborhood real estate, doctor and dental offices.
This economy isn’t hurting the super rich.
It is hurting the people that create most of the jobs and opportunity for lower middle and lower classes. So? (As you would ask) This is apparently not a big deal to you…it would be…
You simply will not consider it. The proposition put forth in an article you will not read … that your upper middle wealth has been siphoned up … not down.
Sucker.
Please! Knock it off with the tone, Libs. It isn’t that I “will not read” the Atlantic article…it’s that I have a life! Running around and seeking out articles you insist I read isn’t all that high on my priority list…I’m sure you’re shocked!
You have obviously read the article and if you can’t quote a paragraph or two, or at least make the salient points…then why bring it up…twice!
Here’s my best response (without information) to your contention: “your upper middle wealth has been siphoned up … not down.”
A. I never claimed that wealth has been siphoned…not up…and not down!
B. Just because a few fat cats got fatter (made more bucks…it isn’t a zero sum game) doesn’t mean that others…39% and 55%…suddenly are not making the big bucks anymore…the result is a lot less revenue to the government and fewer jobs, just in case you hadn’t noticed.
You really need to wrap your skull around the fact that wealth can be created. It isn’t that there is a single pie containing only so many cherries that get divided up…we have the capacity to make a lot of pies…all kinds of pies.
Arghhhhhhhh!