The Written Peace: Open Forum of December 9, 2005

Consider this a page insert to allow your host to make some notes and offer a few disconnected items. It is also a forum where you as readers may write comments as you see fit on whatever topics strike you as worthy of an audience.

First, if I haven't made the point for a while, I should now make it again. I do appeciate the level of commentary here at The Dark Wraith Forums. The article just previous to this Open Forum once again provided fertile ground for a discussion not ordinarily found in blog comments.

Enough said about the amazing groups that graces this all-night diner on the outskirts of nowhere.

You might have noticed down in the sidebar that there is now a robust column of advertisements. Yes, The Dark Wraith Forums has become rather the haven for capitalistic efforts. Since the advertisers occasionally pass through to ensure that their decision to be presented here was wise, I shall take this opportunity to thank them. The list is complete, save for one that has not yet completed its review. I am hopeful that the readers here will find a reason to click on one or more of the ads from time to time; and I am even more hopeful that the readers here find the choice of sponsors in good taste. Click on the ads: the companies are worthy, considering as first evidence that they found this blog meritorious of their approval.

A few blog mentions are in order. The blog American Regression is now gone. It took me awhile, but I finally tracked Gary down to his new blog, American Agenda.

A new commenter here, Progressive Traditionalist, has a blog called The Anti-Fascist. It's not merely a good read; it's a very good read.

You will note some other additions over in The Dark Wraith BlogRing. Journalist Rory O'Connor is now cross-rolling with The Dark Wraith Forums; his blog is called Media is a Plural, and he publishes exhaustive articles, often on subjects like Able Danger, which is one of my favorite little percolating footnotes in the weirdness of our time.

Another new entry is fatcat politics, which is like a treasure trove of online, progressive resources.

Other new entries include the ethereal and off-the-usual-trail blog, The Moon's Favors. It has a good color scheme, too: rather on the darker side.

You should also have a look at Debsweb. Follow it for a while, and you'll notice that the blogger, Debra, does more than just echo bigger blogs.

Also new since my last mention of blogs is The Fulcrum, apparently known to others here long before I became familiar with its author, Charles Perez.

And finally, I keep meaning to mention Eric Hopp's news and politics blog, Oh Well: A Commentary. He has begun to offer comments here, and I should hope that he'll continue to do so from time to time.

Speaking of commenters, the regular from BlondeSense named "Terrible" has finally posted here, and that's good news. A few other new names have appeared since last I welcomed people, including Donviti and Isabelita.

Finally, I need to direct a special note of gratitude to the blondes at BlondeSense, who are always gracious when I wander over there to post some comments. (There are a few places these days where my comments earn me rather uncomfortable silence from the crowd. Go figure that.) The hit meter has been spinning here at an increasing rate recently, and that is in no small part due to links Peter of Lone Tree has offered from BlondeSense. This does not, however, mean that Peter will be exempt from facing my latest, upcoming challenge, designed to get the attention of a certain Right-wing lunatic who vowed an enemies list that has yet to include any decent blogs. We'll see if my newest attention-getter garners any volunteers (gentlemen, are you listening?); and then we'll see if the Right-wing whacko to which I alluded above can ignore the Google-bait strangeness. (No, the challenge will not start right away: didn't you notice that I'm waiting for a reputable, prospective advertiser to finish reviewing this Website, for cryin' out loud?)

And, yes, I know I'm going to regret this challenge once it's too late to withdraw it.


In other news, the U.S. House of Representatives today approved legislation to extend tax relief on capital gains and dividends. That portion of the overall tax cut giveaway to the rich will cost an estimated $21 billion dollars of which the overwhelming percentage will be realized by those making over a million dollars a year.

The theory of this kind of tax cut, painfully simplistic and dangerously misguided as that theory is, has to do with targeting fiscal stimulus on those people whose proclivities for the use of money are the most "productive" to economic growth. Rich people, according to this theory, will use the money not taxed to invest, which will create jobs for average Americans, who will then earn more money, pay more taxes, and be more productive as citizens.

As I have noted in comment threads before, this is nonsense: it is predicated on several assumptions that tail off steeply in soundness. First, the old supply-side economics grind assumes that the marginal propensity of wealthy people to invest is high. That one's not too bad.

Second, it assumes that the investments they make will be primary capital investments. Just going out and buying stock is not an investment in the plant and equipment of a company; instead, it is an exercise in buying a security from someone else who's trying to unload it. Only if the money goes into a public or private offering of common stock, into a loan to a company (usually through the purchase of a bond the company is selling), or through some other investment vehicle by which a job-producing company then has more capital will the investment make business capable of offering new jobs on balance.

Otherwise, an investor could lend the money to a government or quasi-government entity, the biggest vacuum cleaner of which is the United States Treasury. But in that case, the money is simply going to replace revenues the government is surrendering via the tax cut anyway! And as the government goes deeper and deeper into debt, its appetite for money drives rational market participants to pump up the interest rates the government will have to pay. Uncle Sam will always pay whatever interest rate necessary to obtained required funds, which means that all interest rates go up, making it more and more painful for businesses to attract investors. Worse still, as the federal debt piles up, the service of it (the interest it must pay) becomes more and more onerous, thereby forcing the government to borrow at an accelerating rate to pay the interest on money it has borrowed in previous periods. And that spiral is exacerbated by a tax cut that starves the government of tax revenues, which are the alternative to cash inflows from borrowed funds. Of course, the government could cut spending, and the House of Representative, may God bless its responsible Members, is doing that to some extent. No, the black hole of endless and unproductive war will continue unabated; but the lower chamber of the federal legislature has approved spending cuts of about $45 billion, these savings to be made largely in programs like food stamps and other aid to poor families.

Returning to the assumptions underlying the theory of tax cuts for the rich, the third is the kicker, and it's a little more complex. Even if an investor makes available to a corporation money by which the company can expand its operations, there is no reason to believe that such expansion will, in some lock-step fashion, create jobs; and in particular, there is no reason to believe that the expansion of production facilities will create jobs at living wages, or that the jobs created will be offered in the United States. The extent to which labor is hired as production increases has to do with the relative scarcities of various factors of production, the production technology employed, the ability of the enterprise to locate the production facilities next to factors of production that give the most efficient (that is, the minimum-cost) factor mix, and numerous other considerations. Simply waiving a hand and claiming that money flowing to corporations creates "jobs" is nonsense. The questions are simple: how many jobs? at what wage rates? where? for how long? and to the detriment of what opportunities foregone by the placement of the capital where it has decided to land for the maximum return on investment?

What does all this mean? Clearly, it means that The Dark Wraith Forums is the indispensible guide to learning why Right-wing and assorted other neo-cons who have come to befart our world are twits. They rely on appealing, simplistic declarations that the mainstream media cannot fathom as deeply flawed.

The bottom line is this: read The Dark Wraith Forums, and you'll be better informed. You won't be any better off in any material sense, of course. We're still going to Hell in a handbasket woven by amateurish, war-mongering, corrupt fools; but at least you'll understand the physical dynamics as the rollercoaster careens down the shaft into the bowels of Hades, where awaits us the final and momentous encounter with the very nexus, itself, of evil. That's right: we're headed to the strategic planning room of the Republican National Committee.



The Dark Wraith wishes the road ahead weren't so inevitable.