[Image from stoneofakind.com]I'd be the first to admit I'm not an economist, but I can't help observing how certain economic ideas have played out in our country's recent history.
Consider this business of helping the rich.
Geoff Colvin, writing in the February 2 edition of Fortune magazine, suggests that's exactly how President Obama should design his economic plan. Stimulus plans, tax rebates, and increasing the capital gains and dividend taxes on people earning more than $250K a year, just won't do it, says Colvin. While they may provide a short-term boost, they won't succeed in the long-term.
Here's Colvin's idea: "Let's help corporations and the rich."
Why would we want to do that? Because we all want to create jobs and increase investment, and those things come from "companies and the wealthy."
Now, that doesn't mean we just hand out checks to very rich people. "Rather than spending more, our plutocrats need to invest more, since private investment creates long-term jobs. So let's offer high earners the very modest help of just leaving them alone..."
Oh, one other thing: we need to reduce our corporate income tax, which says Colvin [untruthfully] is "among the world's highest."
Colvin sums up his ideas by referring to that late great, but very sleepy president, Ronald Reagan. The initiatives he proposes "could be parts of what will surely be the most ambitious economic program since Ronald Reagan's first term."
Yeah? And we all know how that turned out! What is it with these guys? They never give up. Colvin is doing nothing more than offering the same old failed "trickle down" economics that didn't work before and won't work now.
