Obama: Cut the deficit by taxing the rich

[axt113]

Kasz216 said:

axt113 said:

Kasz216 said:

axt113 said:

Kasz216 said:

Also, taxing the rich more is a BIG risk.

Because well... when times are bad, the amount of money the rich pay in taxes shrink heavily... because the rich are hurt the most by economic crashes.

So, the times when you need money the most... you will have the least amount of money availible... and when you need the least amount of money, you have the most.

Isn't this how we got here?

Actually the rich emerged from this recession in a better position than anyone else

Not according to the statistics. The Gini coefficent grew slower, and in some years dropped.

When the economy was healthy the gini coefficent grew fast.  Espiecally under Clinton and the .com boom.

From wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#US_income_Gini_indices_over_time

• 2000: 46.2
• 2005: 46.9
• 2006: 47.0 (highest index reported)
• 2007: 46.3
• 2008: 46.69
• 2009: 46.8

Income dispartiy may have declined .2 from its peak (a tiny amount) but it didn;t stop the wealthy from getting richer

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/22/us-wealthreport-idUSTRE65L36T20100622

 In North America, the ranks of the rich rose 17 percent and their wealth grew 18 percent to $10.7 trillion.

At the same time the  country is experiencing 8.8% unemployment and the middle class is seeing wages pretty much stagnate

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/index.htm

Basically this decade under tax cuts we saw low economic and job growth and eventually a massive recession, while the rich got richer, and even with a minucule decline from their peak are still doing far better than the middle and lower class right now, and they have also not led to increased revenues for the government.  Seems to be no reason to keep them in place, lets go back tothe Clinton era level, you know the years of peace and prosperity, where the government had a surplus and people were employed.

 

I like how you quoted an article that proved you wrong, on the hopes that I wouldn't click on it.

I also don't understand your issue with the number of millionaires growing.  I mean that's a good thing not a bad one?

If anything, the number of millionaires going down would be a bad sign.

I mean, I'm not sure you quite grasp how the economy works, and I don't mean that in an insulting way, I mean I literally don't think you understand.

The  economy is not a fixed system.  Wealth is created and it is destroyed, so wealth % growth by a single group means nothing.... ESPIECALLY when that group's numbers are growing.

This is exactly why the gini-coeefficent exists... to judge such things.

The number of rich growing and the overall wealth of the rich doesn't prove me wrong, it in fact proves me right and you wrong, as I said the wealthy have come out of the recession even better than before, while the middle and the poor face stagnant wages and high unemployment, so my earlier point that the rich emerged from this recession in a better psotion than anyone is proven correct.  Your argument that the recession hurt them the worst was proven wrong

First off you seem to be thinking I was arguing something completely different, I wasn't arguing income disparity with my comment earlier, I was arguing thast the wealthy came out better than anyone else, which is proven by the fact that their wealth and ranks grew  and that wages and employment were pretty much stagnant for pretty much everyone else.  There is no way you ca get around the fact that th rich emerged fro m the recession in a better position than anyone else. Accusing me of not knowing things, might hold more substance if you actually proved you understood the issue being discussed in the first place.

Your argument was that the rich were hurt worst by the recession, this was proven wrong, as they were not hurt by the recession, they emerged even with more wealth and larger ranks.

The issue of income disparity is a different issue, as it is about the difference in wealth between groups, something which was not part of my original argument, my argument was that the rich emerged in a better position, not that income disparity grew during the recession, in addition I pointed out they are doing far better than the middle and poor classes, which is again true, here the gini coefficient backs up my point, as 46.8 is still an extremely high level of income disparity, indicating that the gulf between the rich and the middle and poor classes is large.

You might want to try and read before jumping to respond in the future