tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15405788.post3600888072400416235..comments2024-01-04T07:33:10.137-05:00Comments on Seldom Wrong, Never in Doubt: Ignorant Politics of Envy, Still MoreJon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNIDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04595651777890086293noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15405788.post-68308889433618494052010-07-21T17:59:19.160-04:002010-07-21T17:59:19.160-04:00Right! It's for the children.
Anon, where res...Right! It's for the children.<br /><br />Anon, where reside the angels to whom you exclusively expose your offspring? On their adulthood, whither do you expect them to retreat to escape the greed for which their sheltered upbringing has not prepared them to cope?<br /><br />And are you prepared for your offspring to be consigned to penury to eradicate the rewarding of greed, leaving them in a world where all are poor, and greed, ever rampant, is channeled not into providing useful things for others to buy but into gaining advantage over others by means of fraud and intimidation?Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNIDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04595651777890086293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15405788.post-72565172581763728422010-07-20T12:04:38.986-04:002010-07-20T12:04:38.986-04:00SWNID: "What real harm does another's wea...SWNID: "What real harm does another's wealth do to me? If I don't like what he does with it, I can ignore him."<br /><br />Maybe I can ignore him, but my kids can’t. And when my kids are harmed, I am harmed. <br /><br />When my kids were young, I wouldn’t let them watch a certain TV show. I wanted them to ignore it. But they came home from school using the language and the fighting techniques of that very show. The influence of the media found its way to my kids, even without them watching the show. <br /><br />Yes, the kids outgrew it, they didn’t hurt anyone with their roundabout kicks, and they didn’t become gangsters. The point of the illustration is that big businesses, who work together as much as compete against each other, wield a lot of power on our society, and we can’t go about our lives as if they don’t. We can’t ignore them. And we are kidding ourselves when we assume that businesses’ efforts to make more money (which is the point, right?) hasn’t harmed our children, which harms us personally, and it harms the future of our country.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15405788.post-59940155549028793722010-07-20T11:15:16.425-04:002010-07-20T11:15:16.425-04:00Then you complain about something for which you ha...Then you complain about something for which you have no solution, which we gladly acknowledge as a corrective to our previous rants but confess puzzles us. If the point is simply that wealth can amplify the evils of people who are wealthy, then we hold these truths to be self-evident but entirely irrelevant to the present economic and fiscal--hence, political--debate.<br /><br />We'd argue further that in an imaginary world in which wealth was distributed equally, other inequalities--intelligence, physical strength--would also amplify the evils of some. Again, the issue is inherent and intractable at its core. We recall our reading from Hugo a couple of nights ago, who explicitly writes that the French ideal of "Equalite" is of rights and opportunities, not outcomes where "blades of grass stand as tall as trees."<br /><br />On the marketing thing, all you say is true, but it's irrelevant to our point, which is that no one's independent will is bypassed by marketing. Our point about competition canceling any one marketing message that the public disfavors depends on the obvious point that marketing belongs to the larger matter of commerce in which clever people devise products to compete and address unaddressed needs and desires. To take your example, if someone markets skanky clothes to pre-teens, it hardly takes massive R&D for someone else to market modest clothes as an alternative. It does take demand from the public for such a venture to succeed, however, and powerful demand to overcome the other venture. Marketing doesn't exist independently of product development, so the point is reinforced, no evacuated.Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNIDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04595651777890086293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15405788.post-5580332821806064622010-07-20T07:27:56.716-04:002010-07-20T07:27:56.716-04:00I'm not quite sure how to reply to the first p...I'm not quite sure how to reply to the first paragraph of your response. You seem to be assuming that markets for specific products are already there to be exploited by the Madison Avenue advertising agencies. That strikes me as a very old-fashioned view of how marketing works, one that hasn't been around at least since Reagan introduced us supply-side economics. <br /><br />Marketing agencies don't hire armies of psychologists and spend billions of dollars to convince people to buy products that they already want. They're out there trying to entice us against our better judgment to buy things that we really don't want (or, for that matter, need). They play on our temptations and exploit our weaknesses in order to get us to buy their products. A steady diet of their subtle, powerful, and ubiquitous enticements are likely to wear down even the most resolute dissenter. And when it does, the result is not a self-directed customer but a psychologically manipulated consumer. And that’s not a recipe for self-determination, which is what democracy is supposed to be all about.<br /><br />With respect to the rest of your response, I was careful, in my comments above, not to say anything about raising taxes on the wealthy, because I don’t, as a matter of fact, think we should. (There are, after all, other ways of addressing the problems I mentioned.) In particular, I was careful not to suggest that we raise their taxes as a way to ameliorate what I take to be the unhealthy influence of extreme wealth on democracy. I think that doing so would create more problems than it would solve. (Other approaches, I believe, would work better.) Nor did I advocate a tax hike on the wealthy in my earlier post. There, I simply questioned whether the tax rates had already been lowered to the point of marginal utility. Nowhere in any of my replies did I propose increasing taxes on the wealthy for any reason at all. So I can't figure out why you think I am presenting an “undue-influence argument for confiscatory taxation.” <br /><br />Finally, my claim that extreme wealth distorts democracy seems to me to be independent of your claim that it's good for capitalism. The first claim (mine) is political; the second (yours) is economic. I can accept everything you say about the positive effects of extreme wealth on the economy, without agreeing that it has correspondingly positive effects on democracy. That’s not to deny any connection between the two. It’s simply to deny that the former is a sufficient condition of the latter.JB in CAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15405788.post-27346419848944255262010-07-20T01:18:35.464-04:002010-07-20T01:18:35.464-04:00We respectfully are having a highly difficult time...We respectfully are having a highly difficult time blaming mass marketing of nastiness on the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few individuals. Commercial markets are competitive, the aim of business is to make money, and if there were a market for modesty, someone would exploit it. We doubt very much that marketing drives demand in exactly the nefarious way you seem to allege.<br /><br />But what level of taxation would be necessary to make such influences substantially less powerful, if they do exist? And what's to keep the wealthy from simply redirecting their wealth into "tax shelters," a phrase common in American English until the Reagan administration, from which platform they launch their nefarious influences all over again?<br /><br />Further, if tax rates are aimed at cutting the rich down to size, what's to keep the less rich from banding together to do the same nefariousness? That, of course, is the corporation, and our discussion seems to have moved from taxing wealthy individuals to restraining the socially unhealthy actions of corporations. Those may be two plays in the populist playbook, but they aren't the same and deserve separate discussion.<br /><br />In any case, we think the undue-influence argument for confiscatory taxation simply ignores the demand side for the influences you allege, not to mention the competition of voices that we discussed above. Your argument hinges on a more or less monolithic set of interests and point of view of the rich, and ironically enough many of the richest (Soros and such) seem to be the advocates of the your anti-rich position.<br /><br />To tax cuts again, and briefly. Castigating the patriotism and moral fiber of CEOs is but the latest way of beating up business for responding to the uncertainty created by the present government's aggressive legislative agenda and out-of-control spending, presaging historically unprecedented levels of taxation. It's not just the Bush cuts, which are relatively small potatoes, but the prospect of VAT, still higher corporate rates, higher capital gains and dividend rates and various windfall taxes on special kinds of profits. When proposals for such are routinely leaked from the halls of power to the press, businesses rightly wonder what legislated expenses in addition to ObamaCare and the financial regulatory bill will be added to their costs.<br /><br />That uncertainty breeds fears of further economic sluggishness or a second recession, absolutely yes. But the question is then what can be done in fiscal policy to restore confidence. And there's no better answer than a cut in the cost of doing business, specifically in taxes. We note for the eleventy-fourth time: our Republic taxes corporate profits at a higher rate than any country save Japan. Germany, France, the UK, China, Russia, Brazil, even Venezuela have lower corporate rates.<br /><br />In sum, the present government is doing about what FDR's did, which prolonged the uncertainty of the Depression until Roosevelt needed to mobilize and had to make nice with business. When Obama is daily issuing new recipes for eating the rich, the investment climate will remain chilly.<br /><br />Finally, why, we ask in all sincerity, do we think we are all being violated when a corporation makes a lot of money? What good does it do us if they don't make money? What good does it do us if Uncle Sugar taxes it away? What real harm does another's wealth do to me? If I don't like what he does with it, I can ignore him. This is precisely what we mean by the politics of envy. If Goldman Sachs makes a legal profit, bully for them. Instead of taxing them, let's all buy their stock.Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNIDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04595651777890086293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15405788.post-27932777492135385832010-07-18T22:11:43.313-04:002010-07-18T22:11:43.313-04:00The debate over why the top 500 largest non-financ...The debate over why the top 500 largest non-financial corporations are sitting on 1.7 trillion dollars in cash reserves when so many qualified people could use a job is a case in point. (Actually, I heard it was 1.8 trillion, but why bicker over a measly 100 million?) The attempt on the part of the owners and executives of those companies to reframe that debate as a debate over whether the government needs to extend the Bush-era tax breaks is a ruse. If 3.4 to 3.6 billion dollars in liquid assets per company isn’t enough to motivate the top 500 largest non-financial corporations in the country to invest in the very country that has made their success possible, another hundred million or so in tax breaks isn’t going to help. What they’re trying to do is milk us for all they can. They’ve detected a certain weakness on our part, and now they’re holding out for even more. It reminds me of all those poor, destitute sports-franchise owners who just can’t afford to stay in city X (Cincinnati, Seattle, Miami, whatever), unless the public foots the bill for a brand new stadium, because the one they have is already 20 years old. <br /><br />Isn’t this exactly the sort of thing that the largest investment banks have already gotten away with? Take Goldman Sachs (please). First, they needed the government to deregulate, because all those regulations were just costing too much money. Next, they needed a government bailout, because the lack of proper government oversight pushed them to the brink of a financial meltdown. Then, they needed no-interest loans from the government, because they could no longer afford to loan money to others. And finally, rather than loaning that money to others, they took the bulk of it and bought up treasury bonds so they could milk even more money out of the government—free of charge—at around 3% interest, without contributing anything of value to the economy. In the meantime, they continued to downsize their workforce, while handing out billions of dollars in bonuses to their top executives. And, oh yes, now they too need the government to extend the Bush-era tax breaks, or else they won’t be able to rebuild their workforce beyond the 600 or so employees they’ve just hired overseas.<br /><br />So, yes, I agree that the largest corporations are not holding back on hiring for fear of a double-dip recession. They’re holding back on hiring because they stand to gain by putting pressure on Congress to extend the Bush-era tax breaks. But I still think that small- to medium-size businesses are holding back—at least in part—precisely because of that fear. I’ve heard a number of their owners/CEOs say so on the news. To them, laying off employees is not a happy experience, and they’ve had to do too much of it already. So before they run out and hire new workers, they want to make sure that they won’t have to turn around and lay them off anytime soon. And before they can be sure of that, they have to be sure that the economy is stable. The prospect of a tax cut sending the country even further into debt is not the kind of thing that boosts one’s confidence on that front.JB in CAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15405788.post-1149401514426182392010-07-18T21:21:56.261-04:002010-07-18T21:21:56.261-04:00Well, first off, I didn't mean to leave the im...Well, first off, I didn't mean to leave the impression "that voters are so stupid that they can be utterly manipulated all the time." Nor would I accept—with apologies to Lincoln—that the wealthy can "utterly manipulate" all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. I do think, however, that their ability to manipulate and, thus, distort our social institutions is strong and persistent—and the greater the wealth, the stronger and more persistent the distortion. <br /><br />To my mind, it's not simply the manipulation of voters that distorts democracy. Most of the manipulation, I suspect, is directed toward members of the population at large in their various roles as citizens, politicians, employees, parents, volunteers, etc., rather than as members of the electorate (i.e., those whose votes might be swayed), although I admit there’s a lot of that going on, too. Large sums of money allow those who control it to put pressure on people to act in ways that they would otherwise resist, for fear of losing their jobs, having their reputations tarnished, not fitting in with the crowd, etc. <br /><br />One example: age-compression marketing to prepubescent girls. Had it not been for the wealthy patrons behind those marketing campaigns, the chances that so many young girls would strive to look like Paris Hilton would be close to nil. The major reason that society as a whole, in spite of it moral reservations, allows pre-teens to look and act that way, is that those in control of the media are able to make it look like everyone else approves of such things, and anyone who doesn’t is prudish. The result is that people start thinking that everyone else can’t be wrong, while they alone are right, and to resist such "lifestyle" decisions would be oppressive. No votes are cast in such circumstances, but the majority is clearly not ruling—not ruling as it would, that is, had it not been manipulated by the kind of marketing that only the wealthy have access to. <br /><br />True, the wealthy often cancel each other out on certain issues, but I think you’re overlooking the fact that because of their vast wealth, they are the ones who get to frame the discussion of those issues and, by so doing, recast that discussion in a way that protects their own interests, rather than the interests of the public at large. Even when a grass-roots movement manages to introduce an issue into the public square, the debates surrounding that issue are invariably hijacked by those with the means (and motives) to do so and skewed in such a way as to misdirect the public away from its real concerns. <br /><br />Some examples: the debate over the skyrocketing costs of health care is redefined as a debate over universal coverage; the debate over the ineffectiveness of our current immigration policy is redefined as a debate over the economic value of illegal immigrants; the debate over how best to reduce toxins in the environment is redefined as a debate over global warming; the debate over embryonic stem-cell research is redefined as a debate over stem-cell research in general; the debate over easy access to pornography is redefined as a debate over the responsibility of parents to monitor what their children see; the debate over whether the pharmaceutical lobby is too powerful is redefined as a debate over the integrity of science. And on and on and on. <br /><br />Such maneuvering on the part of those who have the financial means to do so has the effect of distorting any real discussion of the issues that the general public is interested in. In essence, those who can afford it become the gatekeepers—not the “gatekeepers who decide who does and doesn't get to spend money on political speech or who decide how little money people get to keep to curtail their power” but the gatekeepers of what we as a people get to talk about for the purpose of self-determination. And that is bad for democracy.JB in CAnoreply@blogger.com