In part one of this article, I showed you several videos and articles demonstrating that when you tax higher income, harder-working people it actually harms the economy as a whole, including and especially the middle class. I also made it clear that there are two kinds of “rich”; ultra-wealthy corporatists who make millions of dollars a year, usually with assistance from big government, and normal, hard working Joes who make mid to low six figures and who are net contributors to the economy. If you want to raise taxes on the first group, then fine. If you want to raise taxes on the second group, you’re damaging the economy for everyone, including and especially the middle class and working poor.
Today I’m going to show you a left-wing video that attempts to refute this. Take a minute and watch it (if you can stomach it):
This video is so full of untruths that it would take too long to go through them all, but I’ll attack the biggest ones.
1. It continues the narrative of the Biggest Lie, that the 2008 crash was caused by too much capitalism. According to the video, the crash of 2008 was caused by rich people having too much money.
No.
The crash was caused by too much government, not too much money. Big government forced banks to give loans to people who weren’t qualified to repay them. Big government promised to reimburse banks with taxpayer dollars if the banks lost money on their crazy schemes. Big government artificially forced lower interest rates onto the economy. I could go on. The video says none of this. Nope. Government had nothing to do with it. It was all those Evil Rich People™.
To be clear, there were plenty of Evil Rich People™ involved with the 2008 crash, as shown in the great movie The Big Short, but these jerks wouldn’t have pulled what they pulled if they didn’t have Big Government at their backs ready to bail them out if they lost any money.
2. It reinforces the other big lie, that decades ago everything was great because rich people were paying higher taxes. As I clearly demonstrated in the first part of this article, the rich were paying much less taxes back then than they are now. The video says we had “safe streets,” which is untrue, since the crime rate in the US was much worse decades ago than it is now. It said that there was a “job for everyone,” which is again untrue, since there were regular bouts of extreme unemployment all throughout the 20th century.
Frankly, this “everything was great years ago” bullshit is usually a tactic that right wingers use. It’s bullshit when they use it, and it’s bullshit when the left uses it too.
3. It says that “rich people” created tax loopholes, which resulted in governmental services being cut. Nope. Most tax loopholes that existed prior to 1980 have been eliminated, and to this day the government is still removing these. And to say the government services were cut? This is obviously insane, since government spending in the last several decades has SKYROCTED in just about all areas. As just one example, the amount of money the government spends (read: wastes) in education alone, and for no noticeable improvement in results, has increased dramatically. Government didn’t “cut” a damn thing.
4. It says government bailed out rich people, which is true and should never have happened. This is one of the many reasons why corporatism is evil and must be destroyed. But then it turns around and says government didn’t bail out anyone else, which is false, since Obama’s $787 billion dollar stimulus package was meant to help non-rich folks (which also should not have happened; government shouldn’t give any money to anyone, rich or otherwise).
I could go on and on with all the incorrect statements this video makes, but that goes to show you that the people who are on that side of the issue must clearly lie about it in order to make their “point.” By the way, this video was made by a teacher’s union (surprised?). I shudder to think that this video might be shown in classrooms to young students.
To be fair, the video is correct about two things (just two things in an eight-minute long video!). It’s true that we suffer from corporate control of the media. This is a big problem, but we’re talking economics today, so that’s a topic for another time. It’s also true that government printed more money to bail out rich people. This is absolutely horrible and a key component of corporatism, which is why I hate that economic system so much. As I’ve discussed many times at this blog, US monetary policy has caused a vast array of wide-sweeping economic problems for all of us.
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Adam
Posted at 09:56 pm, 6th June 2016We haven’t had a true free market capitalist economy for quite some time. What we have is crony capitalism as you have pointed out. Reserve Bank manipulation of interest rates is just one example of this. But it’s been a long-term tactic of the left to water down the free market with over-regulation so they can pounce and declare capitalism to be evil and bad, (always emotions with them), so they can replace it with their favored socialist hell-hole of choice.
But they don’t talk much these days about Venezuela.
George
Posted at 05:26 am, 7th June 2016What is your opinion on the Libertarian ticket and their chances of winning?
Caleb Jones
Posted at 10:11 am, 7th June 2016I like Gary Johnson despite a few tiny left-leanings he has, and think he would make a great president.
Zero, if not less. Modern-day Westerners hate personal freedom and prefer the socialism of the left or strongmen on the right. The US is not a fixable system.
Andrew
Posted at 07:39 pm, 7th June 2016Have you heard of the sovereign man? They basically teach everything you teach except they go into more detail. You might want to check it out.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 08:27 pm, 7th June 2016Of course. I’m on their newsletter. Simon Black is awesome.