Tax cuts for the rich will NEVER help the poor, and here's why...
by David Davila (playwright / songwriter)
Occupy Wall St was right. They had it right. They were right all along. The movement seems to be long gone as a few hippies camp in Union Square and smoke out, claiming to be the 99%, but the ideas they brought to us are real.
Sometime over the past 30 years, the wealthiest people in the United States took control of the media and government; changing laws and tax rates to make themselves even richer. To safe guard their little scheme, they then spread lies about how making rich people richer would help the economy.
It just isn't true. The rich becoming richer will NEVER help the poor. Rich people do not create jobs. Demand creates jobs. When a business becomes so popular that they literally can't go another day without hiring another employee, THAT creates jobs. The business only becomes popular when customers spend their money at this business. Customer's only spend money when they have it.
See how it works?
It's the circle of business.
It's supply and demand.
It is NOT rich people.
In the perfect scenario, the economy would continue to feed itself and circulate money and jobs. That worked pretty well in Normal Rockwell's America, but times have changed. That system begins to fall apart with the introduction of mega-chain stores like McDonalds and Wal-Mart that put small businesses out of business. Once chain stores were introduced into the market place money stopped circulating evenly back into the small communities where it came from. Instead money spent at chain stores went to someone sitting in a luxury suite somewhere in a corporate office somewhere else in the world, and the circle of business changed.
(Around 5:48 he starts making the most relevant points about the state of the economy and the lies of trickle-down economics.)
Monopolies grew and more middle class people became poor, and the amount of business owners shrank, and the amount of people at the top shrank, and our economy evolved. As those mega-companies became bigger and bigger they had enough money to start interest groups that began funding political campaigns. These political contributions made it possible for the government to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act which was a law that was put into place to safe-guard the country from "greedy banks" and prevent another Great Depression.
The law was overturned, and within seven years we were heading toward another depression.
Am I saying that big business is bad? It doesn't matter what I say, McDonald's is not going to go out of business any day soon. I do think that giant corporate contributions to politicians is bad, and the results of big business on the economic cycle are real, so the next question is how can we make things better for the poor and middle classes now?
(Here's a song I wrote about it all for OCCUPY THE MUSICAL)
The only thing that makes any palpable sense, is to raise taxes on the wealthy; and raise wages for the working class.
It's easy to argue that companies will only choose to send their jobs overseas - which is very true; so let's put laws in place that make it harder for them to do that. If the jobs stay in America, then the money from those jobs stays in America, and will be spent here in America. In theory the business cycle would fix itself.
I'm not an economist, but to me these things are just common sense. If everyone took a few minutes to learn the basic laws of economy then the United States would be in much better shape!
(Joanna already posted this on Tuesday, but it's soooo good that it's worth another look. If you haven't seen this yet, please take the time to educate yourself.)
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... and now for the 90's jam of the week. In honor of all the poor people who can't afford a car, here's a little TLC. Until wages go up for the working class, there will be wayyyy too many "scrubs" on the streets. lol.
DAVID DAVILA is the guy behind those 52 SONGS concerts and half of the song-writing duo Havrilla & Davila. He is author of the Tex-Mex plays ADAN Y JULIO, MEN OF GOD, CREDO, REQUERDOS OF MY LIFE, and AZTEC PIRATES AND THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE ON MARS. He is a self proclaimed Voxist, a Diva enthusiast, and founder of Lone Star Theatre Co. Wanna talk about it? www.daviddavila.net
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You know I agree!
Posted by: Leah Bonnema | Thursday, March 07, 2013 at 10:02 AM