re: Who is to blame for this alleged disappearance of the middle class?

quote:

---

No it isn't. No one claimed the money is completely removed.

---

Yes, some of you will claim this until called on it, and then you will start to claim that it isn't "completely removed" as you just did, suggesting that some it has disappeared into thin air. None of it disappears...it is 100% intact and doing the same thing in the economy it would have been doing had it not been taken away at the point of the gun...unless of course it is being spent to defend the nation or improve infrastructure that pays a higher dividend in the long run than someone buying a bigger car or a boat.

quote:

---

Try to process this - if the government takes the dollar and spends it on food stamps - Wal-Mart makes an additional fraction of a dollar sale. The government worker makes his salary.

Of course turnover happens - but it is not directed at economic improvement - that's for sure - it is a drag on the economy.

---

A drag on the economy....trust me I want to process this...I desperately want to have solid evidence that this is so....I don't like paying taxes anymore than the rest of you...but, as I have said, you all sound like Max Bialystock in "The Producer's"....you keep saying it ..."you just don't say hooowwww...". How is it a net drag on the economy? It is a drag on my personal economy, for certain....but it is a bump in other people's economies....so for it to be a net drag something has to happen that reduces my payment in value in some way. And none of you know how this is....you just take it as an article of faith. Time and again I have offered a plausible way that it could be a drag....it is psychological....it pisses folks off who pay the taxes and they become distracted and less focused on making money and more focused on paying fewer taxes.....NO ON WILL ACCEPT THIS!!!! It seems like it is much better to beleive in the fairy tail that re-dsirtibution involves some sort of friction that erodes the value of a tax $, when there is no evidence of this, than it is to admit the obvious truth and that is the dammed $ is mine, I earned it, and when you take it away from me at the point of a gun it pisses me off and gets me distracted...I start to look for ways to keep you from getting my money which includes all sorts of loop holes, cronyism. I will buy this...it makes sense....but I have never had anyone admit this was the case....ya'll always fall back on it being a basic economic law which simply isn't true....and like so many things from the right it takes an act of faith in something that is obviously flawed and I just can't do it...I would like to...I just cant