On September 17, 2011, a small group of activists rolled out their sleeping bags in Zuccotti Park, a small patch of concrete in the middle of Manhattan's Financial District. Monday marks the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street's beginning; since that day one year ago, other occupations have flourished across America and the world, though most of them have since been disbanded in the face of inclement weather and unfriendly—often even violent—police crackdowns.
"Occupy was successful in changing the conversation," said Melissa Harris-Perry on Sunday's edition of her show. "Bringing attention to the 99 percent. But they fielded no candidates, advanced no single unified agenda. ... One year later, where's Occupy?"
According to Harrison Schultz, a member of the Occupy movement, things are still moving forward. "There's so much I could possibly talk about," he told Harris-Perry. "I can only really speak for myself. You get ten different occupiers in a room, you get ten different opinions. But what I've been working on, specifically, is presenting an actual plan to the Occupy movement to actually rapidly end the economic crisis and permanently alter capitalism."
Citizen Radio's Allison Kilkenny defended the hesitation of many movement activists to get involved in electoral politics. "I'm an ally of Occupy, so I actually dig the way they do things," she said. "You know, remaining outsiders from the political system. A lot of people are like, 'Why haven't they run a candidate yet?' And the problem is, that system of our governance is broken. That's the whole idea of Occupy. That's why Occupy exists at all."
In the weekend leading up to Occupy's first birthday, organizers have been staging various events and activities around New York City. This will all lead up to an all-day series of actions on Monday.
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I enjoyed the show today and felt the section with business people was really interesting though short in time. As a former Republican and now long time Dem. I feel that the Dem. party gives up on the business community way too soon as if we feel defeated by the mention of business. But I have met some great Dems. involved with business and this area has much to contribute to the Democratic dialogue. We rightfully defend the public sectors of life but fail to vigorously dialogue about private enterprises that emphasize human values not only profit at all costs. Please, would you please have more show involvement with progress business people of many persuasions? ..... Tom
Maya Angelou interview brought tears to my eyes. I am an old Ojibwe American Indiann a tough old man, but she really touched my spirit. She has so much dignity, grace and clarity. Watching her share with you was very moving, my heart could imagine living in the world she believes in, yet which still eludes us in so many ways. It was a really great segment.
On the Sep 16 show, I was sorry to hear Eileen Guzza in her final comment suggest that a tax cut would allow businesses to hire more workers. She is certainly not alone in retailing this notion, but it is not correct, and her manner suggested that she was unsure of it herself. In a hiring decision, the tax risk is neutral, because payroll cost is deductible at the same rate that profit is taxable. The only thing that should matter in a hiring decision of the sort she describes is whether a new worker will produce enough revenue to cover the increase in payroll.
Consider hypothetically a 35% tax rate and a $100,000 employee who has the potential to produce $150,000 in incremental revenue. At worst, the employee might be completely unproductive and bring in zero revenue, leaving the business with a deductible loss of $100,000, which is an after-tax loss of $65,000. That’s the maximum risk in this scenario — the employee accomplishes nothing. On the other hand, the new worker might produce every dollar of the expected $150,000 in additional revenue, a 50% pre-tax profit on pre-tax payroll exposure. In such case, there is $50,000 profit, subject to $17,500 in tax and $32,500 net after taxes. Correspondingly, $32,500 represents a 50% after-tax profit on $65,000 after-tax payroll exposure.
The same thing will be true at a tax rate of 10% or a tax rate of 90%. The pre-tax and after-tax rate of profit will be identical. Because the risk of hiring a new worker is the same at any tax rate, hiring should be based not on the tax rate, but on the expectation of worker productivity — how efficiently do we think this worker will meet demand. In the foregoing example, consumers must want $150,000 worth of something that a $100,000 worker is able to deliver.
So when the question arises how can government help small business, the first answer should be "to support demand".
Government can
> buy goods and services in the private market, by building infrastructure, for example. Infrastructural improvements also make small businesses more efficient by reducing transportation and public utilities costs.
> anticipate and promote future demand by supporting R & D projects.
> hire public workers and pay them enough so that they introduce more demand into the market.
> support household income through Social Security and other safety net programs.
> serve public schools — thereby enhancing the ability of future generations to express demand in the marketplace while educating an intelligent workforce worth the cost of meeting that demand.
> break up monopolies and regulate unfair business practices that kidnap demand from smaller businesses and exploit their would-be customers.
> help those customers live longer, improve the cost-benefit of their health care, remove the insurance burden from private employers and bear it publicly in a single payer, return the overall financial and social gains to the market, where small businesses can profit from them.
> regulate product safety and transparency in the markets to create confidence and stimulate demand.
> direct more of the GDP away from military spending and toward environmental protection. Each dollar spent on a bomb gets blown up and is never seen by a small business person; a sufficiently damaged natural environment eventually will not support any businesses at all.
> practice a policy of “quantitative easing” to draw money into the economy for purposes of investment and consumption, i.e., to make hording a less appealing wealth-management strategy.
> circulate money within the economy by adopting tax policies more favorable to wage earners and less conducive to the creation of stagnant private fortunes.
The foregoing is “demand side” economics, politically progressive and generally good for small business. Over the past 100 years or so in the U.S., employment, household income, after-tax earnings, net new business formations, the Dow Jones Average, and GDP have all done markedly better under more liberal political regimes than more conservative ones. The conservative “supply side” economic agenda does not concern itself with these metrics. Its purpose has been to concentrate wealth and to subordinate government to that wealth. For conservatives, the relevant statistic is not how much GDP grows, but how much of it is in the hands of how few people. The middle class is not merely a casualty of this agenda, but a target, seen to be competing for both money and political power. If Ms. Guzza gives the matter some further thought, she may see that the point of lowering taxes is not to create jobs but to aggregate wealth and to turn the power of that wealth against ordinary wage earners. Small business people may, by mistakenly identifying with large corporations, subscribe to the supply side, but they do so against their own interest. Demand is their true life’s blood.
That is an excellent analysis!! I have been a small business person most of my life. The idea that Businesses are job creators is incidental to the consumer demand. The Business climate in the United States under Obama creates certainty that allows consumer confidence which in turn spurs buying, which creates the demand for the creation of new jobs. The specter of instability created by the prospects of war, may help the American military industrial complex. But it always spells greater deficit spending and The waste of human capital. Both are losses to the rest of us, and a danger to the stability of the world. For my part, Romney does not have the brass to prevent his crony, Bibi Netanyahu, from plunging Israel and the United States into yet another war.
you discuss this like it some sort of National Holiday, the wall street protesters were nothing but a bunch of filthy animals who think it is their God given right to sponge off of social programs, the rich and middle class.
oh dear, Shelia, be careful how you generalize, your ignorance is showing.