Quote of the Day

But it seems to me that it might be time to wonder if is this the most disappointing president we’ve ever had. - Matt Taibbi

Actually, Matt, it's the "Worst President Ever". And yes, he is all that and more.. clearly the complete opposite of what we were hoping for, hell bent on protecting the wealthy and powerful at the expense of.. everyone else.

The article is about how Obama wants to make the largest criminal enterprise in history pay a small fine, and flush the rest down the toilet.

I still think it's sad that Obama has any support left at all.. but you know that Sullivan would be first in line to clap louder. The reason is obvious.

/adding

For some amusement, noted atheist, Sam Harris, received quite a reader backlash when he had the temerity to suggest that very wealthy people should pay more of the tax burden than the poor and middle class.

I don't get why people who are not rich lose their mind over that.. I mean.. they don't know what being wealthy is like, and why, say, a 10% increase in income taxes is not going to mean anything to a wealthy person. Wealthy people already engage in massive amounts of tax fraud in the first place. A 10% increase might just bring them up to what they should be paying anyway.

Besides, if you look at a graph of GDP overlapped on a graph of top marginal tax rates, you'll see that the nation does better when the rates are higher on the wealthy.

Most very stupid people think that if we just cut taxes for the wealthy, they'll have extra money with which to hire people.. and thus unemployment will drop. That takes a remarkable level of dumb to believe. Employers hire people to meet demand, not just because they have extra money. If you have extra money, you take a vacation, or buy a yacht.. you don't simply hire people you don't really need just out of some sense of altruism.

This stuff isn't very complicated.. and you know that when people like Sam Harris advocate for higher taxes on the wealthy, they are talking about themselves too. Sam Harris makes a lot of money - he argues he should be paying more in taxes - and his readers riot.

But if you wonder how things like that happen, you just have to rely on the standard cause for just about everything that happens in the world. Most people are stupid.. they are breathtakenly stupid.. and nothing will help them understand basic facts because they thinks "facts" are a liberal plot to enslave them.

Most stupid are proud to be stupid.. but there is the other stupid that are absolutely convinced that it is everyone else that are the stupid ones.. usually academics and professionals. Those people are just beyond reasoning.. and I don't think the stupid is going to change.

Which.. you know.. is a good thing. It's fun to know you're much smarter than the vast majority of people around you, and you make a lot more money then them.