Visible Saints

Do you ever wonder why it is so difficult to get money from the Super Rich?  Why can General Electric make over 14 Billion Dollars AND be subsidized to the tune of 3 Billion Dollars (tax payer's money) and still pay No Taxes?  The Top Ten Executives of "Freddie Mae" and "Freddie Mac" split a cool 100,000,000
Dollars in salaries and bonuses!  This is not "earned income", it is tax dollars.
   On a local level, in my little town, the top 1% make as much money as the bottom 87 Thousand People!
Most of us can't count that high and couldn't dream of that kind of money.  There has to be a reason that it is difficult to "tax the rich".  They do not pay into Social Security nor Medicare nor support the local transit system.  The average person might be taxes at close to 30% and their money is stuck at a 15% tax bracket.
This might even work if it weren't for the loopholes and obscure deductions we don't even know about.  Enough deductions that many of them pay nothing.
   The "Super Committee" in Congress made up of Republicans and Democrats couldn't agree on a solution to reducing our National Debt.  They didn't do anything so I think they should probably all be fired.  The Republicans are happy to take an axe to the budget and attempt to balance it on the backs of the Middle Class, even thinking to raise the age for Social Security and Medicare to 75! Cuts to the local levels would be massive with no aid to the local police or firefighters.  Libraries, of course would be closed.  This is austerity gone amok, clearly it wouldn't create a single job.  Quite the contrary, with the Republican proposals, hundreds of thousands more would be laid off.
   Democrats might compromise on some of these issues but the "line in the sand" for both parties is the issue of increased revenue.  No one is talking about an equal playing field, nothing that drastic.  The issue is a mere 3% on money after the first million dollars a year!  I would happily pay it.  Heck, I have never seen that kind of money, I would pay 10%!!!  If you win a million dollars on the lottery you pay a lot more!  After taxes that Million becomes $5,00,000 and then if you want cash that is cut in half to $250,000.  Why don't we complain about that?
   I know the answer and will attempt to explain it to you.  The answer lies in our first 100 years of our own History.  We are a country founded by the Puritans and their influence is all around us today.  It is how we got the idea that land can be conquered and resources exploited, used and used up. It is the reason that we attach reverence to wealth.  It is where we get the idea that "blessings from God" can come in the form of material possessions.
   Let me try to explain this a bit more.  Our Puritan Founders and virtually every single person on the street in those days, seriously believed in Predestination over free will.  It is pretty easy to understand the basis of this belief.  If God knows all, the past, present and the future, then He already knows whether you will be going to Heaven or Hell.  He knows this before you are born.  If you believe this, and for a long time in our history most Americans did, then what is the point to anything?  How do you get out of that predicament?
   So, here is the "catch" and the reason that we work so hard.  He Knows!  But we don't!  But we think that there might be an indication?  If some were blessed, some predestined to Heaven, there might be a sign?  Some visible way to determine who might be in His good graces?  Maybe even He would bestow wealth upon them?  "Blessed" we still think of it like that.  "Lucky" now, we are not so religious but we still value wealth and always equate it with success.  It is how we measure things.  Higher up the ladder is closer to God.  This is the single most important reason that nicer houses are always built high up in the hills and Churches have tall steeples.
   Somehow taxing the rich, deep in our subconscious is an affront to the way we think things should be.
It is ingrained.  How quick are we to say "yes sir" and be a bit subservient to the well dressed person in the very nice car?  The guy could be a bank robber for all we know, or steal from the government or one of those people who pay no taxes and our natural predisposition is to say, "yes, Sir" and clear the path for him to step to the front of the line.
   There are books on this idea but now you do not have to read them.  You know.  Think about it.

My "gallery" is coming along.  My shop and garden are HERE

Distribution of Wealth

     is really what government is all about.  The roads that are built, the bridges constructed are all about
economy and delivery of products and services.  Schools and education have replaced apprenticeship programs and are necessary for industry and modern technology.  Our military protects our wealth, our beliefs.  The local police protect our homes.  10,000 years ago, maybe if you wanted something, if you were big enough, you could just take it.  Someone discovered that six little guys had the power of one big guy and governments were formed.  You could no longer take what you wanted, there were laws and rules and regulations to acquisition of property.
    Nothing has ever been equal for everyone all the time.  There have always been poor people and the very rich.  These two extremes to our political system have always been with us and are probably not a bad thing
because they come with benefits.  The "right to be poor" is inextricably tied to the "right to be left alone" and individual rights, even the right to fail. On the other end of this spectrum, the wealthy, is our right to succeed and reap the rewards of working hard.  It offers us a goal and opportunity, something to "work hard for".
   This system of economics, our capitalist system has worked well for most people, most of the time.  It has always been open to improvement and there have been ways to alter it with the times.  For instance, we have abandoned slavery, we developed child labor laws and equal rights between the sexes.  More improvements can be made and we have a political system that slowly and steadily allow for these changes.
    But something has happened.  In the last twenty-five years something has happened that has horribly altered the math to our economic system and it is not working like it used to work.  Very simply put, if you reduced us to a village of only 100 people, it used to be like this:  there would be one person in this village who, for whatever reason just couldn't make it.  This person needed our assistance, maybe help with housing or food or unemployment or medical help. 80 people in this village had jobs and worked hard, paid taxes, bought cars and were at various points along this economic scale and they knew that working hard and carefully spending their money would offer them an even better future. Nine people worked for the government, doing what government people do, working to continue this system. and maybe ten people were "wealthy". Not wealthy beyond our dreams, in fact maybe our dreams could take us there.  We could work harder, save more, spend wisely, do what they did.  This was the "American Dream" and we were the only country in the world where this could really happen.  It still does, we are not entirely broken, but this might be only availabe to one in this village of a hundred.  About the same math as becoming a rock star.
   What it used to be, it seems, is there was a million dollars in this village.  The one poor person received
almost nothing.  The eighty people in the middle earned various proportions of $800,000 divided based on production and working hard, their educational and skill abilities. The people "at the top" split the remaining $200,000 and did whatever they did with it, invested it and loaned it out to create more!
    The math and distribution of money is all different now.  The "one" village poor guy has been joined by 20 others and for whatever reason just can't make it without a lot of help.  In fact, the help has been extended to the next 20 people and we now have in our little village of 100 forty people who are receiving help. Help with food, medicine, houseing, education, utilities, transportation, unemployment or something. There is no longer enough work in our village. What used to be a group of 80 people all working hard to sustain this system has dwindled to 60 and is getting smaller every day.  In 1965 General Motors was America's largest employer with an average wage of $25 per hour. Today it is Walmart with an average wage of just over nine dollars.
   The "top 10%" are still with us and always will be no matter the system.  The difference is now, instead of controlling that $200,000 in our mythical budget of a million, they control $400,000.  There is only the million to be had, you can't really just print more money.  So the very wealthy have acquired this by subtraction. It is all math in the end.  If someone gets more there will be someone who gets less.
    This might all be okay if these were even dreamable numbers, but they aren't.  We are talking riches here beyond our ability to count.  Five Billion Dollar Bonuses!!!! and almost none of it is returned to the village.
It is in off shore bank accounts. It is invested, not in our factories, nothing to support our village. It is out-sourced, sent to another villaged, not even in this country.  While we work hard and pay our 35% in taxes, these multi-billion dollar bonuses are taxed at 15%.  No transportation tax, nothing for our roads or bridges or to help our village in any way.  NO Social Security Tax, Nothing to help or offer assistance to our growing bottom, now 20%.
     The problem with this math, and math it is, is that it is getting worse.  We now have to offer incentives and bribery to keep the money here, to build our village instead of theirs.  Now the bottom is so much bigger and becoming larger every day.  The lowest Forty percent have nothing!!! and the top 10% control over 40% of the wealth.
    No, I am not a communist, I am not even a Socialist.  I live in this village.
This is what I do.

Only So Much Money

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves how the world works. Governments that continue to print money only devalue it. So in a stable government there is only so much money available. If you don't have enough you borrow it. Our National Debt now is pretty big, about $45,000 EACH! The interest on this debt represents $4 of every $10 that the government collects in taxes. ONE of the things that has gone wrong in our economy (there are many) is that money is NOT being circulated. The richest 2% are wealthy beyond most of our abilities to count, controlling almost 50% of the money. This would not be a bad thing if they spent it but one can have only so many yatchs and private aircraft. This "trickle down theory" although maybe not fair has worked to a degree in the past providing jobs to the boatbuilders, their repairmen, the sales people, etc. ALL of these tradesmen down the line paid taxes and in turn bought smaller boats and took their families on vacation, bought Christmas presents, etc. This further provided more work to others. The problem is when one has too much money to spend and they just sit on it, often in banks in the Bahamas, causing it to no longer trickle down!
Henry Ford paid his workers enough so they could afford to buy that which they were making. This system worked well so long as 90% of the money available went to 75% of the people. That hasn't happened for awhile. To get the economy "back on track" you need more than a living wage job; you need a surplus, enough to buy and keep this game moving along.
The "2% that control 50%" need to start spending it before it is taken from them. Revolutions never happen when times are getting better.