Friday, January 31, 2014

Noah Smith — Why does America have potholed roads, low taxes, and high inequality?


"Racial redistribution"and the Southern strategy?

Noahpinion
Why does America have potholed roads, low taxes, and high inequality?
Noah Smith

5 comments:

googleheim said...

Can we have Mike Norman here?

The east coast literally pays for all the welfare in south on federal level if you want to play the tax player on the hook cherade.

Matt Franko said...

Does Smith think that "govt gets the money from the people"...?

Excerpt: "Interestingly, many Republicans also seem to think that government shifts money from whites to Hispanics, when actually the reverse is probably true."

So Smith thinks that "govt shifts money from Hispanics to Whites..." I guess...

Out of paradigm if so...

rsp,

Roger Erickson said...

NeoLib opposition to "redistributing" anything explains their permanent opposition to transferring any useful logic.

paul meli said...

"NeoLib opposition to "redistributing" anything explains their permanent opposition to transferring any useful logic."

Redistribution is the only mechanism to regenerate spending potential, assuming we aren't as a country willing to "print" what is necessary to drive the system.

Although I'm sure some here will disagree with me on this I believe endless "printing" without end leads to other issues which are unhealthy for democracy. Redistribution (coupled with public investment) works, as was proven over the 50 years following the Great Depression.

Read this…

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/david-simon-there-was-class-war-and-poor

Without active redistribution a closed system will move to higher entropy…meaning all funds in existence end up being held by a small group. Consolidation. TINA, that's just the way the extraction of profits leads. Not saying it's a bad thing…it just is.

I don't think there is anything a "free-market" does can overcome this reality other than those with lots of resources giving them away to the poorest among us voluntarily.

Libertarianism to the extreme has removed all social responsibility from the equation it appears to me.

Matt Franko said...

Paul I would point out:

Just for the SP500 firms....

They will "make" 1T this year...

HALF is paid out in dividends...

350b goes to capex...

they "keep" about 150b.... which to me they look at some sort of "hedge against uncertainty..."

So as far as these firms go, it looks like to whom the dividends go is what we should be looking at... as all the other revenues from sales are either saved for a rainy day or reinvested in their own business...

Firms 'redistribute' half of their profits as dividends to share holders... who are these shareholders?

rsp,