The Abandonment Of Free Markets By The Right

I know, the leftists here probably got excited by this title, but let me squash that excitement: As of now, the left is so far left even the abandonment of free markets by the right is not a deal breaker because the left abandoned free markets thirty years ago. As Ronald Reagan joked: "What's the difference between a republican and a democrat? It takes a republican a day longer to become a communist."

With that behind me, let me start on the meat of this topic.

Conservatives are shifting away from free markets and are turning into anti-capitalists. It has been a slow shift. Yes, we all know the establishment republicans long ago abandoned free market capitalism (see too big to fail bank bailouts), but the rank and file and talking heads always paid homage to them. Then came trump. He agreed with free markets BUT wanted fair trade between countries. This is a change in platform and, in my opinion a welcome change due to the data we've been able to collect since the passage of NAFTA and other such FT deals.

Trump would use tariffs (a traditionally big no-no) to extract better deals and freer trade. This is an ends justify the means position. Being that we're talking about taxes I'm only lukewarm to this idea, but not fully opposed. This uncomfortable tone could be seen in many of the right wing talking heads. Rush limbaugh would toe the line but not forcefully, agreeing that if we got better trade deals out of it the tariff's would be well worth it, but stopping short of endorsing the idea of tariffs.

Then I saw this article by tucker carlson. This is a full throated assault on free markets. Very anti-capitalist. Very anti-libertarian. He uses social conservatism to attack fiscal conservatism. It's really an interesting piece but it's alarming to me. Here are a few of the paragraphs I have a real problem with:

In 2010, for example, Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income. He paid an effective federal tax rate of 14 percent. For normal upper-middle-class wage earners, the federal tax rate is nearly 40 percent. No wonder Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But for everyone else, it’s infuriating.

This is so intellectually dishonest I would expect this line of attack from barack obama. First, the federal tax rate for upper middle class wage earners is not 40%. The top rate is only 32%, now at the time romney was relevant it was 39% BUT that's still dishonest! Why? Because on one hand he's talking about romney's effective tax rate and on the other hand he's talking about the top rate. Those are completely different things.

ONLY DOLLARS EARNED OVER 400K IN A YEAR ARE TAXED AT THE TOP RATE (for married people). 400k/yr isn't upper middle class. That's the top 0.5%. To have an effective tax rate of nearly 40% you'd have to make tens of millions per year (if you make $400,001, only that one dollar is taxed at the top rate). I'm talking the top 0.01% or so.

But another problem with this idea can be illustrated with another paragraph from the article:

Under our current system, an American who works for a salary pays about twice the tax rate as someone who’s living off inherited money and doesn’t work at all. We tax capital at half of what we tax labor. It’s a sweet deal if you work in finance, as many of our rich people do.

Suddenly inherited money is bad? Suddenly capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as wages (well, if they're both zero, then yes, I agree)? Capital gains is what most people pay on their retirement, so do we want retirees to pay a bunch of extra taxes because they spent their whole lives working and saving and investing but because they invested they should pay wage tax? Is that a conservative position now? Just so we can "get the rich?"

But the paragraph ends with more intellectual dishonesty, when he says it's a sweet deal if you work in finance is a bunch of BS. You only pay the capital gains rate on investments longer than a year. So these day/swing trading financiers don 't get that rate. So what rate do they pay? They pay the wage rate!

And what's with the demonization of the rich? why is it suddenly evil to be rich? Why is every rich guy "fleecing" the working class? That's not a conservative position at all. Last I checked anyone in american work/save/take risk/profit/fail (other than some too big to fail banks).

The last paragraph I want to highlight is this one:

What kind of country do you want to live in? A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don’t accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when you’re old.

This is a straight left wing talking point. It denies reality. The more the government tries to create fairness, the less fair things become. There's no way America will ever be a cohesive country again (politically speaking) unless there is a mass culling of thought (which the leftist authoritarians are trying their hardest to implement) or people (that will be their next step when their censorship fails). The american system of government takes into account the greed of people and there is no system better at keeping their greed in check. It's not perfect, but perfection is unattainable. Yes, we must combat new modes and methods but that's not what tucker is alluding to.

Alright, I lied, there is one other paragraph I'm going to talk about. He's discussing the breakdown of the family then he makes this crazy assertion:

This isn’t speculation. This is not propaganda from the evangelicals. It’s social science. We know it’s true. Rich people know it best of all. That’s why they get married before they have kids. That model works. But increasingly, marriage is a luxury only the affluent in America can afford.

First, how is marriage expensive? In my state a marriage license is $30. In the modern age of working wives, it's all the more affordable. Your two incomes combine for a much better lifestyle. How in the world does he come to the conclusion that only the affluent can afford to be married? I got married making 15k a year, 13 years ago (my wife worked too). It is a huge tax advantage to be married, so how is it too expensive for the non-affluent????

Now, there is a social decay around marriage but it's not based on economic status. It's based on lack of morality. It's directly correlated to the decline of religion.

But back to the main point, this distancing from free market capitalism is really concerning to me because I can't go to the left and find free market capitalists, and if the right is trending against free market capitalism where would I go if they succeed in pushing that out??

a reply to: Dfairlite

Ok, I'm going to go into yet another paragraph:

They should also speak out against the ugliest parts of our financial system. Not all commerce is good. Why is it defensible to loan people money they can’t possibly repay? Or charge them interest that impoverishes them? Payday loan outlets in poor neighborhoods collect 400 percent annual interest.

If they can't possibly repay it, then who loses here, tucker? He's making the person being loaned money the victim when the premise is that they don't pay it back. That's why there is 400% interest on it, because one in two don't pay the money back. So to make the model work (which provides liquidity to people who otherwise would have none) they have to soak some people (the ones who do pay it back). And guess what, those people who borrowed 250 and paid back 1k a year later probably learned a lesson on finance and are better for it. Those who didn't pay it back got free money (and worse credit than they already had, which they probably don't care about at all).

I'm no lover of payday loan places and would never step foot in one unless I had nowhere else to turn. But to advocate for the complete destruction of that industry and act like positives would come from that (at best it's a neutral move) is just very much a crazy liberal idea. It's economic illiteracy and emotional appeal. Not substantial.

a reply to: Dfairlite

You are right...

But Trump and Romney are Progressives.. They may be "Republican" but they are Progressives.

Many of the "pundits" on the right are not Libertarians or Constitutionalist in the least... many are "Republicans before Constitution".

a reply to: infolurker

But is tucker carlson a progressive?

a reply to: Dfairlite

Tucker Carlson is a pundit. His words are for sale.

Now, I like to watch Tucker. He gets this confused look on his face which is hilarious, and he gets on the most ludicrous leftists to give that look to. The result is that his guests come across looking like even bigger fools than they are. Well, usually.... I have seen him embarrass himself on a couple of occasions by taking on a topic and guest that the guest was able to refute successfully. That is kinda funny as well, because Tucker doesn't know what to do when that happens.

I really don't think true conservatives are moving anywhere... I know I'm not. CNN, MSNBC, NBD, and the other usual MSM suspects are definitely moving far enough left they're going to fall off the planet any moment now. Fox is moving... somewhere... The truth is that the parties are moving. Fox follows Republican agendas, while the rest of the MSM follows Democratic agendas. The DNC is off the map to the left, and the GOP is trying to pick up the disillusioned ex-Democrats. In the meantime, who is left for the Independents?

Donald Trump, that's who. The Democrats hate him, and the Republicans only tolerate him because he's so popular. If he has a classification, it's Centrist.

TheRedneck

This shouldn’t be surprising. It just took Republicans longer to be infiltrated by Globalist scum than it did Democrats. None of these people are a friend to true conservatives and true liberals. They want to destroy our country, destroy Western values, destroy all religions except worship of the state and enslave I all humanity.

Most people on ATS already know the Globalists / Authoritarians are the real enemy of “We the people”. We are all in the same boat and likely to keep losing our rights and the purity of our founding documents if we don’t work together to stop the evil bastards before it is too late.

The goal is to put us in a Authoritarian-socialist hell hole much like Europe and other parts of the world are already in. I am not sure there are enough awakened individuals to stop it anymore. They own the schools, corporations and media.

These people are not our friends.

What is this "free market" you speak of and where might one find it?

a reply to: Dfairlite

I think you piece would be more effective if it wasn't so distorted. I saw that monologue which is good because I have to answer your essay from memory. Your link to the article does not work just like the rest of this post which is also deformed.

"Conservatives are shifting away from free markets and are turning into anti-capitalists." Anti-capitalists? No. Conservatives still like free markets but they want fair markets. Pure capitalism probably has never existed anymore than pure communism. Today's markets are so overly managed by governments, they can hardly be called free. How does all the Chinese manipulations constitute a free market? This is what the tariffs are meant to counter. If they agree to a level playing field, tariffs will go away. We are fighting for a free market.

On the subject of Mitt Romney, you say,"ONLY DOLLARS EARNED OVER 400K IN A YEAR ARE TAXED AT THE TOP RATE " Your own quote, "Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income." So when you go on about upper middle class, who is being "so intellectually dishonest I would expect this line of attack from barack obama."?

And this section, "What kind of country do you want to live in? A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don’t accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when you’re old. "

I think he's talking about the elimination of the middle class. That's not conservatism, that is bringing us back to medieval feudalism with the wealthy nobles ruling an underclass of slaves.

a reply to: Dfairlite

In 2010, for example, Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income. He paid an effective federal tax rate of 14 percent. For normal upper-middle-class wage earners, the federal tax rate is nearly 40 percent. No wonder Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But for everyone else, it’s infuriating.

If Tucker wrote that then he should know better.

In 2018 the capital gains tax rates are either 0%, 15% or 20% for most assets held for more than a year. Capital gains tax rates on most assets held for less than a year correspond to ordinary income tax brackets (10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% or 37%). Capital gains are the profits from the sale of an asset — shares of stock, a piece of land, a business — and generally are considered taxable income. A lot depends on how long you held the asset before selling.

Source

This is one of the big advantages of investing in capital markets. Unlike a payroll tax, you only pay a tax on gains. Losses can be deducted.

What the Hell it Tucker on about 40% rate on capital gains?

a reply to: FilthyUSMonkey

What was the rate for 2010?

originally posted by: toms54
On the subject of Mitt Romney, you say,"ONLY DOLLARS EARNED OVER 400K IN A YEAR ARE TAXED AT THE TOP RATE " Your own quote, "Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income." So when you go on about upper middle class, who is being "so intellectually dishonest I would expect this line of attack from barack obama."?

You obviously don't understand the difference between earned income and investment income, Romney already paid taxes on the income he then used for investment which gets taxed a second time via capital gains. That is what the Original Poster is referring to.

We don't have free markets with organic boom/ cycles

The Fed has been raising interest rates and limiting the money supply to bring asset values down rather than allow the bad debt to organically bring down asset values by stopping risky lending practices

That's called a centrally planned economy. We are much closer to communism than you think.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Oh, OK, it looks like you are right.

So when he said, ""ONLY DOLLARS EARNED OVER 400K IN A YEAR ARE TAXED AT THE TOP RATE ", he was confirming that what Tucker said was correct, at least in principle, I don't know the exact tax code.

Thanks for pointing that out.

a reply to: toms54


Tucker is a bozo and does in fact sound like that other bozo the Original Poster mentioned, Obama. Both know the difference between earned and investment income but count on the fact that the average citizen sees million dollar investment returns which causes them to lose their shizz.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Yeah, Tucker and Obama, both the same

a reply to: toms54


In so much that they are purposefully deceptive on this topic, yeah.

originally posted by: toms54
a reply to: FilthyUSMonkey

What was the rate for 2010?

I went to google and typed "capital gains tax rate 2010".

Guess what?

A link turned up with the title "Capital Gains Rates For Long Term/Short Term 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013+"

Source

a reply to: FilthyUSMonkey

So it's actually a little higher now. I thought that 40% was supposed to be the top earned income rate.

originally posted by: toms54
a reply to: FilthyUSMonkey

So it's actually a little higher now. I thought that 40% was supposed to be the top earned income rate.

The long term capital gains rate is 15% in most instances. Has bee so for years. Short term rates (less than one year) vary.

Where do you keep coming up with 40% on capital gains? I'm intrigued.

Thanks

a reply to: FilthyUSMonkey

I thought that 40% was supposed to be the top earned income rate.