To all MNE readers...
I'd like to introduce Kevin B. who will be contibuting here.
This documentary has been around a while so forgive if you have all seen it. It was made by Jamie Johnson, the 27-year-old heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. He is a sensitive young man who is very troubled about inequality and the poverty he sees in the world around him. He is a natural liberal and is very emphatic.
The Left often call for a tax on the rich at 70% plus, and Joseph Stiglitz say's that even more would be better to create a more richer, prosperous society for all, including the rich. Now I have no problem with that as such, but what if people like Jamie Johnson were to get driven back into 'The System' if such a tax was ever imposed.
When his father was a young man he made a documentary about the poverty in Africa, but his family severely reprimanded him and he never did anything like that again and so his documentary became forgotten. He toed the line and now he, too, severely disapproves of Jamie Johnson's documentary. You can see how he had to harden his heart and turn away from the painful feelings inside of himself which Jamie's documentary is now re-opening.
Forgive me as this as this is my first post, and I'm not an expert on MMT, but Randolph Wray say's in his book, The Modern Money Theory Primer, that we don't have to tax the rich excessively to pay for high quality public services. There are lots of very rich people who, like Jamie Johnson, are natural liberals (or moderate conservatives) and we need as many of them on our side as possible, and with MMT, it seems, we can have the society we want without alienating the wealthy.
Jamie Johnson's documentary is a real fly on the wall look at one of America's richest families. It is fantastic and I really liked Jamie Johnson. I bet you will too.
The One Percent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmlX3fLQrEc
This 80-minute documentary focuses on the growing "wealth gap" in America, as seen through the eyes of filmmaker Jamie Johnson, a 27-year-old heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. Johnson, who cut his film teeth at NYU and made the Emmy®-nominated 2003 HBO documentary Born Rich, here sets his sights on exploring the political, moral and emotional rationale that enables a tiny percentage of Americans - the one percent - to control nearly half the wealth of the entire United States. The film Includes interviews with Nicole Buffett, Bill Gates Sr., Adnan Khashoggi, Milton Friedman, Robert Reich, Ralph Nader and other luminaries.
8 comments:
That is because taxing the rich only works if you also increase spending on programs that benefit lower classes. The last tax hike on the rich (and hikes on lower classes like the payroll tax hike) came with spending cuts, and that won't work. Second, it always starts as a tax hike on the 1%, then filters down to the folks that are nowhere near the top 1%. We need to deficit spend (or maybe stop issuing the debt all together for certain things) on programs for the masses, but this is taboo because you know the Fed Gov budget is like a household's.
The job should be to bring the bottom up, not the top down. But many on the Left are far more interested in taking a baseball bat to the rich than solving poverty once and for all.
What we're looking at here is the fourth way, where taxation is seen as a powerful tool and a necessary tool, but one that you prefer not to use if there is a more precise alternative. So euthanise rentiers by simply banning what they are doing, impose competition by funding a state competitor (where necessary). Look to eliminate artificial competition and replace it with a state operation where the goals are co-operation and collaboration.
And most of all quality check the assets at banks. If you reduce what they are lending then there is more space for government spending and possibly even tax cuts.
Neil, unfortunately we have the worst crop of presidential candidates ever. Bernie is probably the best, but even he is stuck on the tax the rich mantra which is not marketable to significant portions of the electorate.
But the top has worked hard to screw the rest out of its deserved share. They should be brought down. They have waaayy too much for any good. They're doing stupid shit now like shooting protected, endangered animals for kicks.
The reason it isn't marketable is the rich point out through PR the 'tax raising' government are for 'you next.'
If taxes have to be raised on the 'rich' cut them for the 'upper middle class.' That's 'divide and rule.'
Yes, I agree, really. I was treading lightly as it was my first post. But I did like Jamie a lot. Now I know this is the place for me.
As I wrote the post I was thinking what happens when people become trillionaires? And apparently there's already one. There comes a point when you have to do something about it. The billionaires already have far too much power.
Banning stuff is even less palatable in general than rising taxes, not sure is a practical alternative in that sense.
In both cases it has to be done through subterfuges, although is probably easier to pull banning activities than taxes (and also easier to control and close loopholes).
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