Very interesting post by David Atkins at Hullabaloo on a long time policy preference for Americans to be more invested in assets than wages. This helps explain some of the policy choices of recent decades without resorting to characterization of lawmakers as cartoonish supervillains. He keys on a passage from a 1975 Ronald Reagan speech:
Roughly 94 percent of the people in capitalist America make their living from wage or salary. Only 6 percent are true capitalists in the sense of deriving income from ownership of the means of production…We can win the argument once and for all by simply making more of our people Capitalists.
One problem with this goal is that asset based income can be very unpredictable. It’s hard to mitigate that unpredictability when your need for the income is immediate because you need to eat and whatnot.
And yet, some of us take that risk every day.
Well, we have moved in that direction, especially with respect to 401(k)s and the wholesale abandonment of defined benefit pensions. Guys like Larry Kudlow talk of an “investor class” resulting from the proliferation of 401(k)s, but I don’t see it.
Of course, when even Wall Street itself is giving money to Obama like crazy, you have to wonder if anybody votes in the interests of their own financial pocketbook. It seems like tertiary issues drive our politics these days.
I think, so far during the Obama years, Wall Street execs are doing comparably or better than they did during the Bush years; with the possible exception of having their tender feelings bruised when Obama says something mean about them to appease his base.
And, in any event, as a percentage of the overall take; it probably doesn’t cost too much to keep both of the major parties in D.C. greased.
Wow, that’s a very realpolitk view there, Doug. What other Obama-rhetoric do you think is total bullshit, just put out there to satisfy the rubes?
The financial rhetoric is first and foremost in my mind, given who he put in positions of influence on his economic staff. Rubin acolytes like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. Rahm Emmanuel probably gets honorable mention too.
I think he’s more or less sincere in other areas (given a good deal of Kentucky windage for liberal margins of error in politics). He probably played up his anti-war sentiments for the campaign and he hasn’t covered himself in glory in the civil liberties arena.
These grievances notwithstanding, I don’t know that we have any superior, viable alternatives.
What’s your beef with Romney? Don’t like Mormons?
I don’t know that Mormon beliefs are inherently any odder than those of other religions; they just happen to be newer.
Romney is the Land Shark of American politics: relentlessly changing his story until you open the door. I suspect that his inclinations are to align with the very wealthy, continuing the erosion of the middle class if that helps to enrich the wealthy.
But, his lack of firmly held convictions might be a blessing in that area. If measures that help the middle class are expeditious and popular, I can see him going along with them.
Why do you think that Romney would align with the interests of ‘the wealthy”? Because he worked at a hedge fund?
If anything, I think his recent hints that he agrees with Obama about tax policy shows you where he’s at. He’s an Eisenhower Republican! ;)
I agree that Romney doesn’t believe anything, but I don’t see how that is a negative for you.
He believes whatever his audience at that moment wants him to believe. That’ll change for the worse if he’s elected.
How is that any different that Clinton? Clinton is arguably our most successful president on the last generation (and I’m saying this as someone who hated him intensely), was that just luck? Or was there something to “triangulation” and swinging with the polls? (as opposed to swinging with the Pols, which is something completely different, but I bet Clinton did that too!)