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Oh say can you bourgeois-ie
"Let me tell you why I'm no fan of the middle class, okay? Nothing 'middle' is all that great. Middle class, Middle Ages, Middle East ... they're trouble."
- Esteban Colberto (a.k.a. Stephen Colbert), The Reporto Colberto (a.k.a. The Colbert Report)
The President's State of the Union address is now mere minutes away, and we are certain to hear about some sort of "stimulus package," the "thrust" of which is to "goose" the economy through the "injection" of capital, thereby avoiding a "sagging" markets and a "flaccid" economy. To economists, a stimulus package is the fiscal equivalent of Spanish Fly.
According to most reports, the heart of the package is a broad tax rebate, geared toward individuals and families between the income margins. Meanwhile, Lou Dobbs (your everyday man-of-the-people) has a best-seller with his tome War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back Against Ridiculously Long Subtitles. John Edwards has based his entire campaign on "fighting for the middle class," which is a remarkably noble gesture from a guy sporting a $400 haircut.
Of course, when media and politicians wax rhapsodic about the noble middle class, what they're really doing is aiming at the biggest target. This is not just because the "middle class" constitutes the bulk of the population's bell curve, but also because so many of the people outside the middle class like to think of themselves as inside it, anyway. Somewhere out there tonight is a skunk-eating yokel who thinks he's a yuppie, and a millionaire in a first-class airline seat cursing the billionaire in his private jet.
I don't know if I'm middle-class or not. But I'm nearing middle-age in a middling middle-management job, living in a mid-sized apartment building (furnished according to middle-brow tastes) with my lovely girlfriend, who is herself a middle child from middle-America. Is that enough to earn me my $600?
At least I'm at the end of this entry.
- Esteban Colberto (a.k.a. Stephen Colbert), The Reporto Colberto (a.k.a. The Colbert Report)
The President's State of the Union address is now mere minutes away, and we are certain to hear about some sort of "stimulus package," the "thrust" of which is to "goose" the economy through the "injection" of capital, thereby avoiding a "sagging" markets and a "flaccid" economy. To economists, a stimulus package is the fiscal equivalent of Spanish Fly.
According to most reports, the heart of the package is a broad tax rebate, geared toward individuals and families between the income margins. Meanwhile, Lou Dobbs (your everyday man-of-the-people) has a best-seller with his tome War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back Against Ridiculously Long Subtitles. John Edwards has based his entire campaign on "fighting for the middle class," which is a remarkably noble gesture from a guy sporting a $400 haircut.
Of course, when media and politicians wax rhapsodic about the noble middle class, what they're really doing is aiming at the biggest target. This is not just because the "middle class" constitutes the bulk of the population's bell curve, but also because so many of the people outside the middle class like to think of themselves as inside it, anyway. Somewhere out there tonight is a skunk-eating yokel who thinks he's a yuppie, and a millionaire in a first-class airline seat cursing the billionaire in his private jet.
I don't know if I'm middle-class or not. But I'm nearing middle-age in a middling middle-management job, living in a mid-sized apartment building (furnished according to middle-brow tastes) with my lovely girlfriend, who is herself a middle child from middle-America. Is that enough to earn me my $600?
At least I'm at the end of this entry.
A middling mid-morning response
Re: A middling mid-morning response
Expensive haircuts
How a person spends his or her money has little connection to where his or her public policy priorities lay.
Re: Expensive haircuts
I just think that Edwards' indulgence in his personal grooming is a particularly galling kind of hypocrisy given his screaming about how lower- and middle-class people are getting the shaft. It speaks to inconsistency in his values, just like when rock stars take private jets to environmental benefit concerts.
If he believes so much in empowering people, he could spend his money investing in job training facilities, or renewable energy research, or free community medical clinics, instead of spending it on a palatial ranch or to look good on TV.
It doesn't really matter. I'm never going to respect anyone who gets a $400 haircut, anyway.
Re: Expensive haircuts
$2,900,000,000,000.
The impact that the president can have -- using the powers of that office -- on that $2,900,000,000,000 on the lives of individuals dwarfs the influence that $386 dollars ($400 - $12 at Supercuts, plus a 2-dollar tip), given monthly, to a food bank.
Hypocrisy, regardless, is not the worst crime in the world. Dick Cheney probably isn't a hypocrite. Is it better or worse to spend $400 monthly on pheasant hunting or haircuts? We may object to many ways that an individual spends his money.
I think it's preposterous to spend $400 on a haircut. I think it's ridiculous to pay Johnny Damon $13 million to play baseball poorly. I think it's significantly worse to spend a billion dollars a week on the war on Iraq. And only in the case of the last one is it my money being wasted.
Re: Expensive haircuts
I believe that Edwards could do a lot of good for a lot of people if he were President. (I also think he would also hurt a lot of people, which is why I won't vote for him. But that's not the point.)
I just think that the haircut revelation undermines both his image and his message of salvation for the poor and middle-class. My distaste is for Edwards as a politician, not as a public servant.
It's a fine distinction, maybe, but I can see it.
Re: Expensive haircuts
And I further believe that our current president -- the candidate we all agreed we'd rather get a beer with -- should have removed any doubt about whether we should care about candidates' imagery.
Re: Expensive haircuts
But we have to remember that every word an American president says has some kind of impact on the stock market or world diplomacy. Other leaders must respect our president. Image counts on the world stage.
When did people decide they wanted a beer with Bush? Nobody asked me.
Re: Expensive haircuts
But, secondly, we don't all agree on what issues are important.
http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm
A CBS News/New York Times Poll, taken Jan. 9-12, 2008, showed that "Other" was the most important issue for 35 percent of voters, down from 45 percent in December. That the number one answer on any of these typically is given by about a quarter of respondents shows the lack of consensus.
More interestingly, scroll down to the Newsweek Poll. Terrorism is the most important issue of a plurality of Republicans (27 percent), and 5 percent of Democrats. Splits like that appear throughout.
Re: Expensive haircuts
Re: Expensive haircuts
Re: Expensive haircuts
And despite all that, a majority of people want him to drink a beer with them?
Maybe that's not a sign of popularity at all. Maybe it's a sign that we're just bored.
Re: Expensive haircuts
Re: Expensive haircuts
I guess I'm like the people in that poll: I'd much rather hang out with him than John Kerry.
Re: Expensive haircuts
I also think that he was in AA, at least briefly, but I could be wrong about that, too. I could probably look it up if I really cared. But I don't.
Me, middle class?
The bleeding heart liberal in me says that we should be socially responsible and share resources with those who truly need it -- everyone should get a piece, even the poorest citizens. But the dyed-in-the-red Republicans see this only as a Robin Hood trick -- tax payers hard-earned money shouldn't just be given to poor people for no good reason.
The real reason the money won't go to people below the poverty line, or elderly folks living off Social Security, is that these rebates are part of an economic stimulus plan -- and these people will only take their rebate money and spend it on stupid things like milk, diapers and heating oil. If you give the money to the "middle-class" they will spend it as if they are "upper-class." They will take their rebate and buy durable goods like new rims for the Hummer or custom storage units for their overly-stuffed McMansion. Now that makes for more jobs and faster economic growth.
And in the truest spirit of today's middle-class, they will take their $600 rebate check and spend $800 on their new toys, escalating their debt, which is what got us into this mess to begin with, isn't it?
Re: Me, middle class?
Most of the economic intelligentsia seems to prefer a "marginal rate tax cut," which is difficult for me to understand. According to Money Magazine...
"Your marginal tax rate — including federal, state, and local income taxes and federal payroll and self-employment taxes — is the percentage that will come off the top of your next dollar of incremental taxable income. Put another way, the percentage of that next dollar of income that you'll actually be allowed to keep is 100% minus your marginal tax rate."
Maybe an across-the-board tax cut will stimulate the economy. I happen to believe that a reduction in the corporate tax rate would actually do the most good for the economy, but you'll never see a tax cut for corporations in an election year.
Re: Me, middle class?
Giving money to people who will spend it -- and the poorer that people are, the more likely they are to spend it -- would have a certain immediate impact. (I have no absolutely idea how much.)
Giving more money to rich people would have pretty much no immediate impact. Rich people would invest it in stocks, bonds, Mitt Romney, whatever. But they wouldn't buy more groceries or more haircuts or another car. They can already afford these things.
Re: Me, middle class?
Of course, this sort of assumes that they will invest the money here instead of Asia or wherever, which is not exactly a sure thing. But because of the trade deficit, increased consumption doesn't really help the U.S. directly, either.
My economic stimulus package would consist of an across-the-board rate cut, with the mandate that everyone invest the rebate in their 401(k), an IRA or a long-term CD. This would (a) provide investment capital, mostly to domestic securities and government bonds, (b) prevent people from engaging more consumer credit, which Ethan points out is how we got into this situation in the first place, and (c) prepare the citizenry for the ultimate demise of entitlement programs, giving at least some kind of nest egg for people so that their children don't have to support them in old age and infirmity.
Re: Me, middle class?
This assumes that the problem with our economy RIGHT NOW (we were discussing a stimulus, right?) is that Social Security will run out of money in 40 years.
Re: Me, middle class?
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