“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” Winston Churchill August 20, 1940
In a stirring speech, Winston Churchill used these words to describe the pilots of the RAF as they defended England with their lives. For whatever reason, I woke up this morning thinking about the Battle of Britain. I’m not sure what I had been dreaming (I’m not a history buff and had not been watching a WWII movie) but I instantly made a connection between these sentiments and the protests of the last few weeks by the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I mulled this over. The pilots, 544 of them, gave their lives to protect the citizens of England in the Battle of Britain between July 10 and October 31, 1940. That represents over 20% of all the pilots that flew during that period who died protecting their nation. There is no doubt that Churchill had it right. To Churchill the “so many” were the 99% and “the few” were the less than 1% that sacrificed so much for the benefit of their country.
And now? Today “the few” are asked to do their part to try and help the American economy recover from a disaster needlessly created by greed. We ask “the few” to consider their overabundance of wealth and give a hand to those that have much, much less. Not with charity or handouts but with jobs, opportunities, or a reasonable chance of at least not being in debt or having homes foreclosed. For many reasons, “the few” are considerably less willing than “the few” of 70 years ago. Let alone risk their lives, they are unwilling to give up bonuses on top of their inflated salaries. They move jobs offshore to make more profit as opposed to paying their fellow citizens a wage that might cut into profits.
Even worse, there is a discussion in Congress regarding the extension of the reduction in payroll tax. One political party wants to have the cost of the savings to the taxpayer (it will cost the government many billions of dollars in lost revenue) to come from more cuts in Federal programs. Asking the “the many” to support “the few” is again envisioned as helping the country. Our Congress holds “the many” as hostages to make sure “the few” are well protected. Somehow giving the wealthy even more wealth benefits “ the many.” Somehow, having even more means there will be some spending that will “trickle down” (I hate the expression) to the hoi polloi.
The many have done enough. “The few, ” the wealthy executives on Wall Street and in the banking industries were bailed out, got huge bonuses, and then proceeded to screw over “the many.” When is enough going to be enough? How much greed is sufficient? Apparently we are not yet at that point.
December 5, 2011 at 3:00 am
Steve,
It’s nice to play the blame game, and there’s plenty of blame to go around:
Giving mortgages to people that have no hope of repaying them
Government policies that encouraged the loans
People that took loans they new they couldn’t repay and then walked away
Investment banks that securitized the debt, and kept the scheme going
The idea that the mess is solely the result of evil bankers and Wall Street fat cats, and punishing them will fix the problem is naive. That said, it is good politics. My concern is that while we’re busy playing the blame game, we’re not addressing the fundamental issues.
Now for my rant.
What we’re doing now is trying to figure out how to raise taxes high enough to support all of the spending the government wants.
The question should be: how are we going to get the deficit under control, and eventually pay off the existing debt?
The only real solution to the mess that we’re in is economic growth.
Class warfare is good for politicians and their campaign coffers. It’s not going to create a single job. Read the statistics on the situation we’re, and see how much taxes would have to go up on how many people to start to address the deficit. Raising taxes on millionaires won’t come close. My guess is that there are lots of millionaires that would be OK with higher taxes if they thought the money would be spent on deficit reduction rather than just going to increased government spending.
For the most part, my reading of the situation is:
The Democrats are arguing that the government deserves a bigger slice of the economic pie, so that they can redistribute it to their constituents.
Traditional Republicans only care about social policies. Besides spending went up under their watch too.
The Tea Party says the government is too big, and is the problem.
Occupy Wall Street is about economic equality (read Socialism or Communism).
None of them have a clue how to create private sector jobs.
To solve the problem, the economy needs to produce goods and services that people want. The government provides some of them: police, education, environmental protection, etc. We need to pay taxes so support them. The real question is how much of the country’s income should be retained by the people that produce it, and how much should be redistributed by the government. The last numbers I saw were that government transfer payments currently provide more than 20% of total household income.
So what would I do?
1. Figure out how to get the private sector creating real jobs again
2. Rationalize the tax code
3. Get government spending under control. Spending should not be based on how much revenue the government can collect. I guarantee they can figure out how to spend every cent they collect.
4. Figure out the tax code required to provide the necessary government services (including transfer payments). Should maximum rates be higher than they currently are? Probably.
The probability of any of this happening? Close to zero. The politicians are more interested in political gain than fixing the problem.
Ralph