Alan Mulally didn't create jobs at Ford, their customers did. They commissioned the workers to design, manufacture and assemble vehicles *for them*.

Mulally simply managed the transaction.

It was a predictably flawed theory before Saint Ronnie, and proven wrong after Saint Ronnie. As if anyone reasonably intelligent had any doubts afterward, Shrub himself commissioned a study that also verified it was nonsense and still they keep pushing it. Everyone who consumes is a job creator, which translates to everyone above ground.

Alan Mulally is a middleman. That's all.

in the primary against Reagan, he called it "Voodoo Economics"

I'm not kidding.

At least Saint Ronnie was suffering from geriatric dementia and you can say he was incapable of knowing better due to the brain rot.

while he may have railed against it during the campaign, he would have embraced it if he had won instead of Reagan. It helps his class out tremendously. Never believe things a candidate says on the trail.

Poppy embraced it on the campaign trail and rejected it once in office.

was a modest tax increase. I was young at the time, though, so I didn't really focus on politics.

The "read my lips" thing was given to him by his handlers because they knew it would play well with the Norquist lemmings. Poppy thought it was a bad idea from the beginning because it directly contradicted his "voodoo economics" belief and he knew it would back him into a corner that was untenable unless he could cut enough out of the military budget. After he lost his reelection it sent a loud and clear message that any Republican that didn't embrace the dipshittery had no political future.

Big money today is rotten and corrupts our political system.

in their stocks and offshore accounts.

That is exactly what Modern Monetary Theory has to say...except it prescribes more effective spending of the money -- the Fed is pretty much stuck buying Treasuries, which is just exchanging one government obligation for another.

which they are below now. Money being sucked out of the economy by the top 1% hoarders can cause deflation which is the worst enemy for a healthy economy.

I don't know why not?

That's what the elite create for jobs. They also drain the economic system of capital by wasting it on their servants, servants, and more servants.

in 2008-9 when taxes had just been cut under Shrub.

How many jobs has that more than doubling of the DOW created? Answer, not many. So many of the job being created are in the service sector and a lot of those are being created by small businesses. The DOW companies are not creating many jobs. Today's high stock prices are a result of high profit margins so where are the jobs from those high profit margins?

I especially liked this explanation:

Once they are in the drivers seat their main fear is the tens of millions of middle class tinkerers out there trying to come up with something better.

if I didn't think that they were too arrogant to think that anyone could unseat them from their thrones. Whenever someone from the middle class actually puts pressure on their business, they just buy them out.

never sold out even though I think all were made offers by the big sharks.

The flat tax would at the very least create stability . the one thing that business owners constantly want . Who ever it was that tried to assert that big business is the sole creator of jobs is in need of help. small business is the engine of a powerfull economy.

That just shifts the burden onto the poor.

It was 86.5%.

The cap for Social Security tax is $105,000. After that there is no SS tax so that it is reverse progressive. The higher the income the lower your rate. A person making $100 million salary for instance pays a tiny fraction of his income for SS tax while anybody underneath $105,00 is paying 8-15% of their income for it.

as a solution to the problem of wealth inequity. Do some research and you will realize that it will work against the lower classes and benefit the wealthy.

The only way to get businesses to distribute more money to the employees with better wages, and to get them to invest in updating their businesses is to make the taxes incrementally higher as they horde money.

The flat tax that I am referring to is meant to not favor the rich . it is a percent tax on what your income is.
and as for the poor they are exempt from tax at all somewhere around 12,000. also a sales tax is part of the program . or if you like a luxury tax if you prefer. But if you just want to shoot holes in the flat tax you will have no problem no solution is perfect. but this present tax code has becoming so corrupt . we need to put a stop to all this abuse. ie tax breaks for the religious. Any body want to stick up for the I.R.S. ????

I am not sure how that would not favor the rich, but you are welcome to expand on that.

A good example of a flat tax is the sales tax. Everything that you buy, you pay tax on. So since the poorest among us are spending every dime that they have, they are paying that sales tax on everything that they earn. But the wealthy do not spend all the money that they are making....they invest a lot of money. Yes, they do spend a lot of money, but it is not all going to consumption. That means that someone who makes a million annually, and spends half of that, is only paying that sales tax on half of their income. But the person making $12,000 is paying it on every penny that they have made.

You are right, the tax code is corrupt. But that doesn't mean that loopholes cannot be plugged, or that it cannot be made more equitable. They have increased and decreased the rates paid all the time over the years since income taxes were first instituted, and that can still be done if the people in Washington had the guts to do it. It is like the arguments on the ACA....you can scrap the whole thing because some things are not going as planned, or you can make corrections that make it workable.

the rich who control congress will never let those precious loop holes be pluged. Really Curmud!!! how old are you anyway ??

that I have heard that are more fair, if they were to adjust it by closing loopholes and raising the rates on higher income individuals.

How do you deal with the inequity in a flat tax (sales tax) against the poor? How do you get the wealthy to pay tax on every penny that they earn? And how do you keep the poor from paying that sales tax from the first dollar that they earn? If there are ways to make this fair, I have not heard them...not from you and not from others who have proposed a flat tax.

And as to my age, it is not really polite to ask a woman her age, but I will answer you with this....I am eligible for most senior citizen discounts.

that you may not have heard of the measures that can make the flat tax more fair. than previous descriptions of the flat tax. And you should take it as a compliment that I thought I was talking to a much younger person.
you are still young at heart.

But I have yet to hear your defense of a flat sales tax, or the ways that it can be made more fair. Enlighten me.

am not up to a level of capability that I can enlighten you. you have blocked your own understanding . I have given you facts that are common knowledge. if you choose to ignore those facts. that is your free choice.
At this point you will not believe anything I tell you. But for what it is worth . I did not make up any of the points that I brought to this discussion.

we have now is truly the worst idea . It is based in religious favortism . Yuck...... And haven't you heard the rich who hord money do it overseas where they cannot be taxed. under a flat tax they can do there hording after they pay their tax

As a declared atheist, I am also against any special benefits to the churches. But that is just one of those loopholes that should be plugged.

The wealthy will always find ways to hide assets from taxation. There is no way to stop that, although there are ways to adjust the tax code to make it harder......and illegal.....to do so.

Even with without loopholes it is stupid and unfair to tax someone making 20,000 a year 20% and someone making $20 million a year 20%.
And the top 1% will ALWAYS put loopholes in while nobody else is noticing. They own the congress remember. The most successful decade of AMerica was the 1950's when we had a top tax rate of 90% on any income over $3 million a year. This keeps the companies from sucking all the money out of the company for the top tier executives which they would hoard doing the company or the US economy no good.

when something is as obscene as is our present tax code. it is our right it is our duty to throw off as law abiding citizens, a tax like the one we have now into the same jail we throw all the other criminals that prey on all honest citizens who try to abide buy the laws as they are written. Must every opinion here be either a republican or democrat ?? get past that!
Erik are you actually going to defend the I.R.S.?????????
You want to tax the rich 90% Really. France is loosing its most capable citizens over a 75% tax rate. Is there any one else you want to steal from. I can tell you have no background on the details of the flat tax . the proposed rate is around 7%, not 20% as you have asserted.( And by the way big corps. pay 0% tax so 20% is a big improvement. )
It is the Rich that have kept the flat tax from the light of day. the loopholes they now enjoy would be gone. So how can this possibly be a republican dream?????????????. as I said in a previous post the flat tax is not perfect . But with it the ability of the rich to create new loopholes would be much harder . lets talk about the effect a more fair tax would have on the everyone . like small business. !!!!!!!!!!!!!! The solution is not to declare war on the rich.
Could we please make the label we put on the flat tax be progressive. when an economy is free and fair When regulations stop being so overtly oppressive . there will be Jobs for all who are willing to work.
And also please do not forget the sales tax is a part of the proposed flat tax. do you think the rich like that??
Food and medicine suppose be exempt.
IM not usually this windy .
the 50s economy was a vastly different economy .
Sorry if I have been a little harsh . I just got on a roll.

But I say let it all hang out.

("steal"?)

I was using the word steal to more effectively bring home the point that war on the rich is an affront to a free economy . and a free country .
Human nature is often times at play in this idea that taking from the rich is even morally acceptable. not all the rich are vile human beings. who deserve to be unfairly taxed.
But I guess you did not catch on to that. I can further describe this if you are not understanding yet .
I know that I am not the best teacher . But Ill do my best.

The same entity that levies taxes also issues currency and defines and enforces property and contract law. If you are going to see theft under such an arrangement, it takes a certain kind of blindness or dishonesty to find it exclusively or most egregiously in (progressive) taxation.

I have thought it through . If I understand correctly you are asserting that the same entity that oversees the present tax code.( the code you referred to as progressive.) is certified as honest because it( the tax code) is overseen buy the same entity (the government ) that has so often proven their irreprochable integrity?
PETRUS........BUDDY you then imply I have fallen victim to a certain kind of blindness? Because I am (to put it mildly ) less than convinced of our Governments forthright intentions. and then to go further and use the word "dishonesty " in my direction.
PETRUS I INVITE YOU TO THINK THIS THROUGH.
Are you saying that I have erroneously referred to this government as an entity that no one should be convinced of their irreproachable integrity? That I have no justifiable reason for such an assertion?
This is how I have understood your last post.
But Im not the sharpest knife in the draw. So you will have to help me.
Also isn't PRETRUS the name of a Christian rock Band?

prefer small business

Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo on and on. Almost all successful companies were started by lone middle class entrepreneurs rather than the top 1% and/or big corporations. That's the power of America, a huge well-educated middle class of tinkerers and risk takers.

Scientists, doctors, engineers, etc. in research and the application of research.

If the wealth that this increased productivity produces isn't spread around, it kills jobs.

They say it all.

IMO pillow-making millionaire Nick Hanauer is arguably the star of this movie. IIRC he makes $10-15 million during a bad year and $35 million in a good year. He says "the rich are the job creators" meme is a lie.

I see he's behind the push to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour.

http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/nick-hanauer-help-capitalists-by-raising-minimum-wage-to/article_b3d32454-27a8-563e-b052-e38f483228ac.html

-p

Labor creates capital not the other way around. It isn't some wild ass marxist theory, just a fucking common sense fact.