The Doom Loop of Oligarchy

[carlfense]

This hits on quite a few of the things that have been discussed here in the past few weeks. Top marginal rates, estate taxes, political donations, etc.

1) In the year's scariest economics book, Thomas Piketty argues that capitalism, left unchecked, subverts democracy by always and everywhere concentrating wealth at the tippy-top. That creates a class with so much economic power that they begin wielding tremendous political power, too. And then they use that political power to further increase their wealth, and then they use that wealth to further increase their political power, and so on.

 

2) You might call this the Doom Loop of Oligarchy: wealth buys power, which buys more wealth. You can see it playing out over the last two weeks in American politics.

http://www.vox.com/2014/4/11/5581272/doom-loop-oligarchy

 

Much more at the link.

[knapplc]

An educated electorate is the best defense against this, but sadly, our electorate has been terribly lazy these past 50 years.

[Junior]

This is depressing:

 

6) It's well known that as the rich have gotten richer, the top income tax rate has gone down. In 1960, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent. It's now 39.6 percent.

7) Similarly, as the wealthy have gotten wealthier, the estate tax — which taxes inheritances — has been declawed. In 1960, the tax began at estates of $60,000, and the top rate, which hit estates above $10,000,000, was 77 percent. Today the estate tax doesn't even begin until the estate is worth $5,340,000 — and after that, the top tax rate is just 40 percent.

8) On Thursday, the House passed Paul Ryan's 2015 budget. In order to get near balance, the budget contains $5.1 trillion in spending cuts — roughly two-thirds of which come from programs for poor Americans. Those cuts need to be so deep because Ryan has pledged not to raise even a dollar in taxes.

 

9) As a very simple rule, rich people pay more in taxes and poor people benefit more from services. So if you pledge to balance the budget without raising taxes, you're going to end up making the rich richer and the poor poorer. But Ryan goes further than that: he actually cuts taxes on the rich.

[BigRedBuster]

An educated electorate is the best defense against this, but sadly, our electorate has been terribly lazy these past 50 years.

 

 

So true.

[NUpolo8]

Someone needs to credit you when Bad Religion or Rise Against uses the Doom Loop of Oligarchy for their next album title

[carlfense]

An educated electorate is the best defense against this, but sadly, our electorate has been terribly lazy these past 50 years.

I agree. One way or another we really need to address the money in politics issue.

[knapplc]

An educated electorate is the best defense against this, but sadly, our electorate has been terribly lazy these past 50 years.

I agree. One way or another we really need to address the money in politics issue.

We're going to have to wait until the SCOTUS changes, then. With the current setup this problem will get worse, not better.

[carlfense]

An educated electorate is the best defense against this, but sadly, our electorate has been terribly lazy these past 50 years.

I agree. One way or another we really need to address the money in politics issue.

We're going to have to wait until the SCOTUS changes, then. With the current setup this problem will get worse, not better.

Two more terms of a Democratic held WH should result in some changes.

[carlfense]

Someone needs to credit you when Bad Religion or Rise Against uses the Doom Loop of Oligarchy for their next album title

They'll have to credit the hard rockin' Ezra Klein.

[Junior]

An educated electorate is the best defense against this, but sadly, our electorate has been terribly lazy these past 50 years.

I agree. One way or another we really need to address the money in politics issue.

We're going to have to wait until the SCOTUS changes, then. With the current setup this problem will get worse, not better.

Two more terms of a Democratic held WH should result in some changes.

 

Depends on who retires, Scalia has to be getting close... I suppose he's waiting on the next election.

[NUpolo8]

An educated electorate is the best defense against this, but sadly, our electorate has been terribly lazy these past 50 years.

I agree. One way or another we really need to address the money in politics issue.

We're going to have to wait until the SCOTUS changes, then. With the current setup this problem will get worse, not better.

Two more terms of a Democratic held WH should result in some changes.

 

Not to get into a political discussion, but is this to infer the Democratic Party isn't beholden to large campaign contributions or wealthy people?

[carlfense]

An educated electorate is the best defense against this, but sadly, our electorate has been terribly lazy these past 50 years.

I agree. One way or another we really need to address the money in politics issue.

We're going to have to wait until the SCOTUS changes, then. With the current setup this problem will get worse, not better.

Two more terms of a Democratic held WH should result in some changes.

 

Not to get into a political discussion, but is this to infer the Democratic Party isn't beholden to large campaign contributions or wealthy people?

Not at all. I was talking solely about the current voting pattern in the Supreme Court.

[carlfense]

An educated electorate is the best defense against this, but sadly, our electorate has been terribly lazy these past 50 years.

I agree. One way or another we really need to address the money in politics issue.

We're going to have to wait until the SCOTUS changes, then. With the current setup this problem will get worse, not better.

Two more terms of a Democratic held WH should result in some changes.

 

Depends on who retires, Scalia has to be getting close... I suppose he's waiting on the next election.

Right. (I'm still pissed at Ginsburg, btw.)

[tschu]

Sadly, the last time the American sociopolitical landscape and economy looked like this, it was the mid-1920s. It took the worst depression in history and the worst war in history to pull us out of that. I think it's going to take a real crash to jolt us back to our senses. Far too many people in America still believe in Reaganomics and still vote based on "small government" and "lower taxes" and deregulation. Which is the source of the problem, not the solution.

[tschu]

If you look at campaign contributions, the Democratic and Republican contributors are vastly different.

 

Major corporations with government contracts, the big financial companies, all of the banks, pretty much anyone in the 1% supports the GOP candidate without question. Why? Should be obvious. They get rewarded with deregulation and tax breaks and the like - the 1% get richer. Meanwhile the Democratic contributors include some corporations (Microsoft I think?), a lot of private universities and organizations, law firms, etc.

 

So you tell me which party has the interest of the American public in mind.