The Myths of the Evil Rich

[swivel]

My wife is reading a book her father sent her called "Free Lunch". I need a place to compile my criticisms of the book, so I can in-line graphs and links, and my laziness is prompting me to use a new thread in a quiet portion of the forum. So, feel free to ignore these entries, as they are intended primarily for her, or feel free to join the discussion in any way you see fit. You can help me by either pointing out the faults in my reasoning, or buttressing my data.


On the evils of rich people and corporations:

Johnston's primary tactic in the book seems to be one of anecdotal evidence. This is the primary form of reasoning for conspiracy theorists, and Johnston treads dangerously close to this designation. For ever Enron there is a Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. For every Ken Lay there is a Warren Buffett. There is no effort in the book to show rates of abuse (how many companies commit crimes/how many companies total). You just get the stories about the famous few.

Another problem with this argument is the lack of correlation, or the possibility of a hidden variable. For instance, informal surveys show that a large minority of office workers steal office supplies. (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21962966-5001024,00.html?from=public_rss) When Johnston tries to demonstrate a link between wealth and corruption, he does not control the variable "wealth". The "Human Being" variable could be the true source of correlation, and it would take some scientific reasoning to sort this out, not armchair Jeremiads of the sort that he seems to have written.


The best way to dismiss anecdotal arguments is with a non-anecdotal argument for the other side. If the first group can't counter, you realize that their stance has no merit. So, a few non-anecdotal arguments for the case that wealth INCREASES morality:

The richest countries (populace) give the most to charity. The United States gives TWO TIMES more than the next most charitable country, the United Kingdom. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_charitable_countries)

Most of this comes from individual donors. And the United States has set records for donations in several recent years. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19409188/)


The majority of the book argues that the rich "fleece" the poor, robbing them blind, and taking their money, etc, etc...

A few simple graphs demonstrate quite the opposite to be true:

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/2659/graphindtaxcumpf7.gif

The above shows the percentage of income paid by each quintile. Each quintile, remember, is 1/5 of the population. This allows us to talk about the median quintile as the "center", and allows for an upper-middle class and an upper-class (and respective lowers). As is clear from this graph, the reason that Johnston can detail so many tax breaks for the rich is because they need them the most. Let's see if all of these tax breaks amount to anything, shall we?

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/7039/whopaysarea0bf0.gif

Wow. Just who is fleecing whom, Dr. Johnston? The lower (and enormous) area is the tax burden of the top fifth of the income bracket. Look at the minuscule burden placed on the other 80% of the population, not to mention the non-existent burden of the lowest 40%. This graph demonstrates the truth of the class wars: The poor are leeches on the rich. Parasites. We send our kids to schools that are paid for by the rich (colleges and their buildings are NAMED after the benevolent rich, for heaven's sake). We drive on their roads. We use their infrastructure. We are protected by the military that they pay for. They fund Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. And we hate them. We want more from them. Because the $143.27 in taxes we pay each week is too high, and the $16,712.39 that a rich CEO might pay in a week is just too little. We try to take HALF of their sweat and blood, and still cry for more.

Sorry, but anecdotes just don't combat these numbers, freely available:

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/7509/whopayspie99pe7.gif

Tragic.

[swivel]

Declining corporate tax rates:

This is one of the most disgusting arguments in the "Class Wars" today. And it serves as the crooked spine throughout Johnston's book. The decline in the rate of corporate tax contributions.

The way this argument is twisted is by selecting a convenient portion of the data, rather than telling the whole story. What they love to point out is that the corporate tax burden keeps falling, year after year. What they don't explain is that this has been a trend, since the Second World War, of correction. At the beginning of the 20th century, the corporate tax rate was in single-digits. In the need to quickly ramp up for war, the rate shot to 40%. That is, businesses were paying almost half of the federal budget. And, once politicians had their hand on this money, it was hard to pry their fingers off of it.

After military spending came to a crashing halt, that money went everywhere else it could. Meanwhile, intelligent and honest politicians have tried to correct back to the single-digits, and have done so, to the horror and protest of parasites like Johnston, who look at the graphs in the previous post, and see more flesh they can excise from the fat carcass.

When taken as a whole, the corporate tax graph looks like a Bell Curve, not the downward spiral presented in "Free Lunch". To take the second half of the curve is just intellectually dishonest, and allows us to question the motives of the author, and his journalistic integrity.

Look at the following data:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/2140.html

This does not show the percentage of corporate taxes, but rather the actual rates of taxation for corporations. As you can see, by the end of WWII, we were taking HALF of a corporation's profits. From the singe-digits and teens of just a generation earlier. Look at how much that rate increased in such a short period of time, and how long it has taken to fall a much smaller amount. For all the vilification Johnston heaps on Reagan, the man (and Clinton), need to be commended for trying to remove the leeches from the hardest-working and most deserving of our population.

[kakihara]

But HE told me that rich people are bad!

http://thephoenix.com/phlog/content/binary/michael_wideweb__430x392.jpg

[swivel]

But HE told me that rich people are bad!

http://thephoenix.com/phlog/content/binary/michael_wideweb__430x392.jpg

And he won't tell anyone how much he is worth.

Funny. The guy makes a fortune screaming for rich people to be more open and honest, and when he joins their ranks, he clams up like the best of them.

I can't believe anyone still takes this joker seriously. I've met people that ADORE him. That quote his movies as if they are documentaries. Bizarre.



The year that Moore claimed in "Stupid White Men" that he didn't own any stock, he told the IRS that a foundation totally controlled by Moore and his wife had more than $280,000 in corporate stock and nearly $100,000 in corporate bonds.

Over the past five years, Moore's holdings have "included such evil pharmaceutical and medical companies as Pfizer, Merck, Genzyme, Elan PLC, Eli Lilly, Becton Dickinson and Boston Scientific," writes Schweizer, whose earlier works include "The Bushes" and "Reagan's War."

"Moore's supposedly nonexistent portfolio also includes big bad energy giants like Sunoco, Noble Energy, Schlumberger, Williams Companies, Transocean Sedco Forex and Anadarko, all firms that 'deplete irreplaceable fossil fuels in the name of profit' as he put it in ‘Dude, Where's My Country?'

"And in perhaps the ultimate irony, he also has owned shares in Halliburton. According to IRS filings, Moore sold Halliburton for a 15 percent profit and bought shares in Noble, Ford, General Electric (another defense contractor), AOL Time Warner (evil corporate media) and McDonald's.

"Also on Moore's investment menu: defense contractors Honeywell, Boeing and Loral."

Does Moore share the stock proceeds of his "foundation" with charitable causes, you might ask?

Schweizer found that "for a man who by 2002 had a net worth in eight figures, he gave away a modest $36,000 through the foundation, much of it to his friends in the film business or tony cultural organizations that later provided him with venues to promote his books and film."

Moore's hypocrisy doesn't end with his financial holdings.

He has criticized the journalism industry and Hollywood for their lack of African-Americans in prominent positions, and in 1998 he said he personally wanted to hire minorities "who come from the working class."

In "Stupid White Men," he proclaimed his plans to "hire only black people."

But when Schweizer checked the senior credits for Moore's latest film "Fahrenheit 911," he found that of the movie's 14 producers, three editors, production manager and production coordinator, all 19 were white. So were all three cameramen and the two people who did the original music.

On "Bowling for Columbine," 13 of the 14 producers were white, as were the two executives in charge of production, the cameramen, the film editor and the music composer.

His show "TV Nation" had 13 producers, four film editors and 10 writers – but not a single African-American among them.

And as for Moore's insistence on portraying himself as "working class" and an "average Joe," Schweizer recounts this anecdote:

"When Moore flew to London to visit people at the BBC or promote a film, he took the Concorde and stayed at the Ritz. But he also allegedly booked a room at a cheap hotel down the street where he could meet with journalists and pose as a ‘man of humble circumstances.'"

That's hypocrisy with a capital H!

Source (http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/11/3/150518.shtml)