Digby's Rule For Success In Today's America: Find The Right Young Wealthy Philanthropically Inclined Aristocrat... And Brown‑Nose Him Or Her

Sadly, Digby is probably right about this. Her exploration of the subject is nonetheless well worth reading. She starts with a quiet invitation to the White House offered to 100 young aristocrats... I can't find a better word for them; they're heirs to great estates who are likely to engage in major philanthropy as they come into their various family fortunes... and frankly, as I am reading the indefatigable Michael Moore's autobiography, Here Comes Trouble, and I see no other direct path for someone born to limited means (as Moore was) to pursue great things, I suppose I have to recommend Digby's course of action to today's bright but poor youth.

More and more (Moore and Moore?), I realize America is, as the Princeton study found, no democracy, clearly an oligarchy and, unsurprisingly, has an aristocracy. Fight it, but if you're old like me, get used to it; it's going to take more than the rest of my life (and possibly more than the rest of America's) to change. 

Firestone On Inequality, Plutocracy, Oligarchy

Joe Firestone at New Economic Perspectives (home of the Modern Monetary Theory folks), who apparently is also letsgetitdone at Firedoglake, asks the question, Is the MSM Blackout on Inequality, Plutocracy, and Oligarchy Ending? His answer is one of the most insightful examinations of the causes and consequences of the dramatic inequality in wealth in America today that I have ever read, and I've read a few recently. If we are lucky, perhaps the overall answer is Yes, and if we are even luckier, perhaps TPTB will at last see inequality as the core flaw in our economy that it actually is, and begin to rearrange things so we can all enjoy greater prosperity.

Tax Rates And Job Creation

Here's a conversational tidbit for you, via ThinkProgress. The next time your Republican friend or colleague (or, heaven preserve you, close relative) brings up the "fact" that raising taxes on the "job creators" (i.e., the wealthy bastards and the corporations they control) is a "job killer," remind them that during the Bill Clinton presidency, which was our most recent era of substantial economic and job growth, the top marginal tax rate was 39.6 percent... and small businesses grew twice as fast during Clinton's term as during the Dubya Bush years. In other words, Reaganomics and Bushonomics just plain didn't work, despite all the GOP's fancy arithmetic.

On the other hand, the numbers that DO add up, those from Clinton's presidency, reveal that a moderately high top marginal tax rate (39.6 percent is by no means the highest individual tax rate ever; that was 90 percent, under... sorry, GOPers... Eisenhower) leads to lower unemployment, greater productivity and yes, solid economic growth.

There is one other reason I know this is true. I experienced it firsthand. I am a living, breathing example. The Bill Clinton years were the golden age for my one-man self-employed contract IT business: I seldom lacked for work during those eight years, and my income grew steadily. Momentum carried my little shop through the first couple of years of GeeDubya Bush, but after eight years of economic "malfeeance" (Bush-speak for "malfeasance"), the bottom dropped out, and I had no choice but to close the doors. Leave it to a Republican president... an unelected Republican president... to kill "job creation" for fun and profit, while preserving the privileged class untouched. That's what Republicans do. That's who Republicans are.