Free Lunch: Preview

I have been reading David Cay Johnston's book Free Lunch and it's a very difficult book to read - every few pages I find myself putting the book down in a rage.

The American economy grew quite slowly from 1980 until 2005, but it did manage to increase the GDP per capita by 68%. Every penny of this increase, and more, went to the top 10% of money earners. The other 90% actually lost ground. Even among the top ten percent, a vastly disproportionate share went to the top 1%, and even more so to the top 0.1%. Almost all the money went to the rich, the very rich, and the super rich.

Why so? Part of the reason is the changed tax structure. Ronald Reagan decreased taxes on the rich and dramatically increased them for the middle class. That theme is not at the core of this book however. The same forces which permitted Reagan to greatly alter the tax structure also led to a number of special privileges which funneled tax dollars into the pockets of the super rich. Modern electoral campaigns are so expensive that it is nearly impossible for candidates to get elected without the support of powerful sugar daddies - rich men, or associations of rich men, who put a lot of money into politics and get their quid pro quo.

One egregious example - the stealthy, thief in-the-night way local, state, and federal government officials conspired to present billionair George Steinbrenner with $600 million dollars woth of subsidy for his new ball park while stealing city parks to build it. How did Steinbrenner manage this? Flattery, bribery with Yankees tickets and other stadium owner indulgences. All this was done quite secretly, and announced as a fait accompli before citizen's protest could be organized. A nice gesture, I think, would have been to open the new stadium by burning Giuliani, Bloomberg, the city council, and other criminal conspirators at the stake.

Did I mention that this stuff really pisses me off? Time to go read about the next outrage.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more