Sorry, but it's time to raise taxes on $250k and up. It shouldn't only be the middle class and poor who get tax increases!

Obama is calling for the extension of the Bush Tax Cut, but only for those with incomes below $250,000 and of course the Republicans are saying that the tax cuts should be extended for everyone--including millionaires and billionaires--or no one at all.

This is the typical Republican position and it should be noted that they care little about people earning the threshold $250k; their real interest is in protecting the super wealthy. They made this clear a million times and I don't think anyone but the timid Democrats in the Senate really believe them when they try to pull this bullshit "all-inclusive" stance. It's all about protecting the rich and that's it.

As an MMT adherent I am fully aware that taxes don't fund spending and that they only serve to regulate demand yada, yada, yada, and I am also aware that with a large output gap, raising taxes on anyone just works to sustain that output gap so long as that "revenue" is not recycled back as government spending in some form.

However, as a matter of equality and PRINCIPAL I think it's about time somebody other than the poor and middle class see their taxes go up. That's right, I said the poor and middle class have had their taxes increased--BIG TIME!

It's time we all begin to learn a fundamental lesson, that spending cuts are the fiscal equivalent of tax increases and the bulk of the spending cuts (tax increases) over the past several years have been targeted at the middle class and poor.

Whether you are talking about cuts in education, Medicare and Medicaid, food and nutrition, Veterans benefits, social programs, public safety (fire, police), you name it...there has been an unrelenting and rising stream of tax increases aimed at middle and lower income people. All the while, the rich have been getting tax break after tax break along with a larger share of national income and wealth. Like Warren Buffet said, it's outright class warfare and it's HIS class that is winning.

Nor should you buy the bogus argument that the rich are the "job creators" or "wealth creators." That's just a completely hollow and ridiculous claim and one that we've debunked here numerous times (here, here, here). The fact is, a vast portion of the income of the wealthy comes from extracting wealth from assets...assets that they did not create. Gordon Gekko said it right, when he said "I create nothing. I own." And he said that 25 years ago!

The rich don't educate our kids, keep our streets safe, protect property from fire and damage, fix roads and bridges, heal or care for the sick and infirm, stock store shelves or perform any of the other myriad types of work that essential in a modern, smooth-functioning society.

And while $250k may not be a lot to some people, those who do earn at that level or above are also not performing the tasks I mentioned above. Moreover, many of them are politically favorable to the "pro-spending-cut" menatality, which as I said is the same thing as calling for a tax, except it's not a tax on them, but on poor people.

Well, it's time for these folks to get fiscally "educated" or feel some pain, too! Obama should stick to his guns this time. He should stand fast on the call for higher taxes on $250k or more. People need to learn a lesson. The stakes are too high. We cannot have a greater and greater percentage of national wealth stripped away from the very people who built it, maintain it, and paid for it. It's outright theft. So be it if the economy crashes (and it won't, expect maybe for high end real estate brokers). Maybe out of the ashes we have a chance to build something better.

Hollande hates the rich and finance. This may just work!

The election of Francois Hollande is making me very optimistic for the first time in a long time. I am getting more bullish on France and for Europe in general. (Maybe even for the U.S. too, but that could be a bit of a stretch.)

The reason I am so optimistic is because Hollande has promised to go after the rich and shrink the financial sector while creating millions of new and very needed civil service jobs. I believe it's a formula that can absolutely work.

The 57-year-old Socialist has openly admitted that he "does not like the rich" and declared that "my real enemy is the world of finance". This means taxing the wealthy by up to 75 per cent, curtailing the activities of Paris as a centre for financial dealing, and ploughing millions into creating more civil service jobs.

I am fully aware that all you hear is exactly the opposite. Ever since Hollande shot to the top of the polls we've been warned about the dangers of taxing the rich. We've been told that we need the rich because without them we wouldn't have the most productive members of society. Innovation would be stifled and job creation would plummet. A new Dark Ages would result because--let's face it--all the rest of us owe the very air we breathe to the benevolence that trickles down from the wealthy few.

Let me tell you something...don't pay any attention to that crap. It's all just a bunch of propaganda being orchastrated by the rich themselves, who fear losing the cushy public welfare support they've had for the past 30 years.

The fact is, we don't need the rich at all, nor do we need a big financial sector. Tell me, what "wealth" do the rich create? The modern day rich are mostly involved in stock, commodity and real estate speculation and other forms of gambling and rent seeking. The rich are mostly idle, whereas the real wealth is created by workers toiling in factories, on consturction sites, in laboratories and schools and in so many other areas of our economy and society that never get any attention.

A society run by a small group of billionaires who get to play in their own personal "casino economy" while everyone else struggles to get by is a shitty society. Hollande gets it. The people of France get it. Let's hope that real change is on the way in France, not like the "real change" we saw here.

Bottom line is, I am rooting like hell for Hollande to succeed because maybe, just maybe, it will break the back of this brutal, selfish and destructive Reagan/Thatcher/Friedman neoliberal free-market bullshit dogma that has enslaved us for the past 30 years.