Meet the Press 7/24 (debt/journalism side)

As a tie-in with the newspaper/restaurant comparison:

If there is one thing Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares has taught me it's that you should focus on quality in whatever you do. Find new ways to motivate your employees and help them find some passion in their work the way he does with chefs. Learn why your customers have lost faith in you and correct it. Show your customers you really care about what you're selling and will stand by the quality of it the way he teaches misguided owners to do. You'll never see that man go into a failing restaurant and tell them to fire half of the kitchen staff and find cheaper tomatoes.

 

Uhm, that's why I quote tax revenue as it relates to GDP. As I said to you earlier, that's the only stat that matters because it takes into account growth (on contraction) of an economy (economies over a period of time rarely stay flat). And the period quoted was long enough to not only include a brief recession, but also the boom of the real estate bubble run up to 2008.

A progressive would argue that I should not include the boom without including the bust, because they balance out. But I did so to illustrate even taking in the brief meteoric rise in the economy mid/late 2000s and leaving out the bust, tax revenue as a percentage of GDP went down.

Correction on myself: In the previous post, I said historic average was 18.5 percent. I've read that it's actually closer to 18 percent. 18.5 was the percentage during most of the 1990s.

 

you do realize this is a scripted teevee show, no?

 

You're a smart guy, so I know your question is in large part rhetorical.

Even the sane portion of the GOP wouldn't jump on that tremendous (theoretically, for them) 4.1-1 deal because too many of them are scared to death of the repressed, self-loathing Grover . . . the whackjob wing . . . and the possible '12 loss of their nifty sinecures, huge potential pensions and the cushiest of all health care.

It's pathetic . . . truly pathetic.

 

The pizza shop analogy is ridiculous. These are big boy conversations that shouldn't be reduced to some dude with an oven. Libraries are full of books on governing philosophy, and we're talking checkered placemats.

 

You don't agree those are good business principals?

And actually, it's not a scripted show. Ramsey won a libel case against a newspaper that said scenes in that show were scripted.

For reference: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5098094.stm

 

Maybe I haven't been following this debate (debacle) between The President and the Republicans as closely as should but:

Have respected(relatively objective) national and local journalists detailed what the cuts to spending are?

Social Security? Medicare? Defense projects? Army Corps of Engineers? NIH Research?

Is anyone drawing the comparison between direct supports to individuals in the form of cash or equivalent subsidies for food, shelter and medicine and the difference from tax-benefits like oil depletion allowances and crop supports?

Why should unearned income be taxed at a lower percentage than earned income. Why should cops, fireman, sanitation workers, nurses and construction crews have their wages taxed at a greater rate than dividends from stocks bought on an open market.

There should be a distinction between stocks bought at IPOs, where the money goes to the company and stocks bought on an exchange, where the money paid has nothing to do with the company's ability to raise capital.

 

Because they're investing -- and risking -- after tax money.

Why put your money at risk if you bear all the losses, but the Government takes a third of your potential profits?

What investment opportunity could be worth those odds?

Far better to park your money in a safe -- even tax free - investment.

And, that would do wonders for the economy.

 

It's investing if you buy stock directly from the issuing company. They use that money as capital. When you buy stock on the open market from others, it's merely an exchange between individuals with no connection to the company.

 

Abbott, think that through for a minute.

Without an open market to sell shares, there is no start up capital.

 

Yankeefan, you're right that you don't raise prices. But you invest in new pizza flavors or styles, or add other items to your menu to grow your customer base.

 

Obama Pizza, Inc. would follow delivery drivers from other pizza shops around, go up to a house that one of the others recently delivered to, take the pizza away and drive it to the poor part of town where the pizza would be given to someone less fortunate than the person that paid for it.