Let’s all work together…unless you’re a Republican

As you might have noticed things have been a bit difficult economy-wise since we got hit by the Black Plague and people stopped going out and doing things like eating in restaurants, getting haircuts or shopping for stuff they really don’t need.

So to get things going again, Joe Biden has proposed a $2.3 trillion with a “T” infrastructure program to rebuild roads and bridges, get people back to work and pump money into the economy.   

Which reminds me of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, even though I wasn’t there and only read about it.

History detour alert

If you believe History.com the Great Depression was caused by a rapid expansion of wealth between 1920 and 1929 (the Roaring Twenties) and people trying to get even richer by putting money into the stock market, which – despite all the somber ads of wise people guiding financial ships between the rocks of ruin – is a form of legalized gambling.

Can’t help but think if those financial advisers really had things figured out, they wouldn’t need my money, they’d invest their own, become rich and quit having to beg for other people’s savings on TV.

Which as often happens, reminds me of a story and this one is about laser eye surgery when it first became a thing and me asking my best friend who’s a doctor and short-sighted in more ways than one if he would consider it, and him pointing out how many of the doctors recommending laser eye surgery were wearing glasses in the ads.

“You should let me cut on your eye with something Luke Skywalker might use in Star Wars, but you’re out of your cotton-picking mind if you think I’m gonna let someone do it to me.”

(And this is the same doctor friend who told me in March of 2020 that he thought I’d be safe if I flew on an airplane to go to spring training and when I asked him about a trip he was about to take, informed me he was driving because: “I’m not getting on an airplane with a bunch of sick people.” So basically, it was OK for me to risk my life, but he wouldn’t think of it.)

Back to our story, assuming I can remember what it was.

Right, the Roaring Twenties and everybody with two nickels to rub together investing one of them in the stock market and over-inflating the price of stock even though in reality things like the agricultural sector of the economy were struggling and wages were low and people had borrowed more money than they could hope to repay.

That being the case, the people who were actually paying attention and knew what they were doing decided to get out of the stock market which set off a panic and reminds me of something that seems pretty much true: by the time most of us hear a stock tip, it’s too late.

Amateurs who think they’re going to “dabble” in the stock market remind me of people who sit in the stands at a big league baseball game and think they can hit a 98 MPH fastball because they were “pretty good in high school.” Trust me, you weren’t that good.

Dabbling in the stock market is like shooting pool with someone who owns his own cue or wears sunglasses while playing poker. You might be out of your depth.

Anyway…

After the stock market crash, things went to hell in a handbasket while Herbert Hoover kept assuring people everything was going to be OK even after three years of things Generally Sucking (a highly-technical economic term) and millions and millions of people out of work and unable to find jobs.

Hoover’s idea to fix things was to give government loans to banks, which would give loans to businesses, which would hire back all those unemployed workers, which is pretty much the “Trickle Down” theory (give money to the people on the top and it will “trickle down” to the peons) which has a pretty good track record of not working.

More on that before we’re through.

Long story boring and oversimplified because that’s all we have time for, FDR won the presidential election on the unforgettable slogan “Enough of this Shit!” (just threw that in to see if you were still awake) and pumped money back into the economy with work projects that provided employment and put money into the pockets of people at the bottom (the “Trickle Up” theory) and that seemed to be working although there were some road bumps along the way and it took WW2 to get us over the top.

If you’re looking to get people back to work, apparently you can’t do much better than a World War, so I guess that option is always on the table.

Watch your step, Grenada.

Back to today

OK, so that’s Joe Biden’s plan (emulate the New Deal) and the Associated Press reports he plans to pay for it by raising taxes on corporations from 21% to 28%. Which you’d think corporations could afford because up until Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut (which also cost about $2 trillion with a “T’ and Republicans were just fine with that) the corporate tax rate was 35%.

Pertinent-information alert

I once had an argument with a Star Editorial Board colleague because I argued for a flat tax (no loopholes, everybody pays the same percentage and if you’re at the bottom of the pyramid you get government benefits people at the top don’t) and my colleague asked didn’t I want the rich to pay more and I argued they don’t pay more because the people at the top can afford lawyers and accountants to help them avoid paying their share.

For example:

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (yeah, I never heard of them either, but the Washington Post seems to believe ‘em) 55 of the nation’s largest corporations paid no federal income tax on $40 billion in profits last year. In fact, they received $3 billion in federal rebates, so it turns out we’re paying them to make $40 billion.

Since Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, 26 corporations have paid no federal income taxes and they include Nike, FedEx and Dish Network. The 26 corporations have made more than $77 billion in profits since 2018, but since that’s clearly not enough, the government has given them nearly $5 billion in rebates.

According to the story, the companies are using “entirely legal means” to reduce their tax bills, but that doesn’t make them blameless because many of the tax provisions they’re using only exist because the same companies lobbied for their creation, which the Washington Weasels (which would be a great name for an NFL team that seems to need one) were happy to do.

You could argue – and some people have – that we need to be generous to these giant corporations because they’re the ones who create jobs and do the R&D to come up with the fantastic new products we all enjoy like round shoelaces that don’t stay tied and TV networks that don’t carry the Royals games even though I live 15 minutes from the stadium.

Unfortunately – according to the Post story – there’s little evidence that the generous corporate tax provisions actually boost investment in jobs or R&D and after the Trump tax cuts many of the companies sent the extra loot to shareholders (and don’t forget corporate executives tend to own a lot of stock in their own company so they pretty much sent the money to themselves) and laid off employees instead of making long-term investments. 

The “Trickle Down Theory” seems to fail because rich people just keep more for themselves while the “Trickle Up Theory” seems to have a better chance of working because poor people have no choice but to spend the money for necessities.

(Insert “Comrade Leonid Judge” joke of your choice here.)

Back to the Republicans

I get that you could make an argument against Joe Biden’s plan and maybe come up with a better plan of your own, but according to an Associated Press article the Republicans aren’t going to help Biden do anything to fix things because they think it’s good politics.

They plan to sit on the sidelines, so whatever happens can be blamed on the Democrats.

So Fuck America and What It Needs Right Now — which I’m hoping Mitch McConnell will adopt as his next campaign slogan — the real question for Republicans is how can this national crisis be taken advantage of politically. And of course Mitch (the same guy that wanted Obama to fail no matter what that might mean for the country) is leading the way, which is a pretty generous description for a guy who plans to do jackshit to fix things.

McConnell said he would fight Biden’s agenda “every step of the way.”

So here’s hoping voters are tired of these people (and on some occasions, that includes the Democrats) playing politics instead of working together and fixing what’s wrong. I also hope to see harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding, no more falsehoods or derisions, golden living dreams of visions, mystic crystal revelations and the mind’s true liberation…but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Unless a stock broker tells me to.

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