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burnunit$400 arrived today, labeled "tax relief for working families"
If all approx. 25 million recipients of the advance payment of child tax credit spent every dollar of the checks, approximately $10 billion would go into the economy.
Things to think about:
1) Time Warner *lost* $99 billion dollars in just a couple years. They are still going but are just one portion of a truly enormous trillions-of-dollars economy.
2) Some estimates of the Sept-Oct, 2002 west coast dockworkers lockout (initiated by management, ended by presidential fiat and implied threat of force) stated that the effect on the economy of stalled supply chains added to $1 billion dollars a day. The lockout lasted 11 days.
3) Exxon's quarterly profits for 2003 were on the order of $4 billion, or $12 billion for a year.
Which is to say, that if every person who gets a refund check spends every dime on consumer goods and services, they will fall shy of the money-making ability of one oil company in a year... and be a billion short of matching the losses incurred economy-wide in 11 days of 2002... and equal about one tenth of the losses of one media company in the paroxysms of 2000-2002.
Exactly how much stimulus are we now responsible for, we fated few who hold $400 checks from the Treasury? And what about these checks, which are simply advances on the credit we were going to take at the end of the year, which we may need as the economy worsens and new debt problems arise?
In other words, unless you can't do simple math, it should be clear to you that it's not enough. It's not enough even if we spend every red cent, every thin dime, on DVD players and new memory for the laptop and some ammo for my home protection system or the back catalog of U2...
So I've got my payoff and here's how I'm spending it:
1. a savings account for my daughter (it's her tax credit after all)
2. a donation to a couple causes, probably ACLU and either Dean for America or just the Democratic party for now (with specific donations to the best candidates to emerge from the primaries next spring) and probably Amnesty Int'l.
3. small economic stimulus in the form of an absolutely drop dead shameless great deal on this excellent pair of steel toed Doc Martens. I'm not a huge brand loyalist, except to Dickies jeans, but my last pair of Doc Martens lasted 6 years and was incredibly comfortable even after the air pockets blew out (yeah, if you're fat enough that will happen). I've missed them ever since, but I've had so many monetary distractions since retiring them. Until now. Now when the local retailer is going out of business (yeah,it's still the damn economy, stupid) and I get a bribe from Uncle Sam to consume and obey, now I'll buy some new Docs. DUDE, these are brown DM industrials, steel toed, comfortable and durable. Priced at $109... I bought them for $43.98 that's forty-three dollars and ninety-eight cents!
So, yeah, I think it's a total fricking bribe from the Gang of Four (that's Bush, Cheney, Delay and Frist) to get my neighbors to keep voting GOP. And I'm determined to do some long term damage by donating to distinctly anti-fascist causes. But sixty percent off a shoe I love, and just haven't been able to return to? I refuse to feel guilty about that.
I urge you to do the same, think of it as a series of symbolic gestures:
something for the future (savings accounts are practically unpatriotic in the "president's" schemes)
something for the great fight brewing in civil and human rights
a little something to kick the teeth out of the G.O.P., literally and figuratively.
If all approx. 25 million recipients of the advance payment of child tax credit spent every dollar of the checks, approximately $10 billion would go into the economy.
Things to think about:
1) Time Warner *lost* $99 billion dollars in just a couple years. They are still going but are just one portion of a truly enormous trillions-of-dollars economy.
2) Some estimates of the Sept-Oct, 2002 west coast dockworkers lockout (initiated by management, ended by presidential fiat and implied threat of force) stated that the effect on the economy of stalled supply chains added to $1 billion dollars a day. The lockout lasted 11 days.
3) Exxon's quarterly profits for 2003 were on the order of $4 billion, or $12 billion for a year.
Which is to say, that if every person who gets a refund check spends every dime on consumer goods and services, they will fall shy of the money-making ability of one oil company in a year... and be a billion short of matching the losses incurred economy-wide in 11 days of 2002... and equal about one tenth of the losses of one media company in the paroxysms of 2000-2002.
Exactly how much stimulus are we now responsible for, we fated few who hold $400 checks from the Treasury? And what about these checks, which are simply advances on the credit we were going to take at the end of the year, which we may need as the economy worsens and new debt problems arise?
In other words, unless you can't do simple math, it should be clear to you that it's not enough. It's not enough even if we spend every red cent, every thin dime, on DVD players and new memory for the laptop and some ammo for my home protection system or the back catalog of U2...
So I've got my payoff and here's how I'm spending it:
1. a savings account for my daughter (it's her tax credit after all)
2. a donation to a couple causes, probably ACLU and either Dean for America or just the Democratic party for now (with specific donations to the best candidates to emerge from the primaries next spring) and probably Amnesty Int'l.
3. small economic stimulus in the form of an absolutely drop dead shameless great deal on this excellent pair of steel toed Doc Martens. I'm not a huge brand loyalist, except to Dickies jeans, but my last pair of Doc Martens lasted 6 years and was incredibly comfortable even after the air pockets blew out (yeah, if you're fat enough that will happen). I've missed them ever since, but I've had so many monetary distractions since retiring them. Until now. Now when the local retailer is going out of business (yeah,it's still the damn economy, stupid) and I get a bribe from Uncle Sam to consume and obey, now I'll buy some new Docs. DUDE, these are brown DM industrials, steel toed, comfortable and durable. Priced at $109... I bought them for $43.98 that's forty-three dollars and ninety-eight cents!
So, yeah, I think it's a total fricking bribe from the Gang of Four (that's Bush, Cheney, Delay and Frist) to get my neighbors to keep voting GOP. And I'm determined to do some long term damage by donating to distinctly anti-fascist causes. But sixty percent off a shoe I love, and just haven't been able to return to? I refuse to feel guilty about that.
I urge you to do the same, think of it as a series of symbolic gestures:
something for the future (savings accounts are practically unpatriotic in the "president's" schemes)
something for the great fight brewing in civil and human rights
a little something to kick the teeth out of the G.O.P., literally and figuratively.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-02 07:33 am (UTC)Now all you have left to do is stop paying your taxes all together!
"For those who cannot...participate in killing, the payment of taxes causes a moral dilemma."
http://www.nonviolence.org/issues/war-tax-resistance.htm
tax resistance
Date: 2003-08-02 11:32 am (UTC)But I've had to weigh it.
And I think I can't afford to make that stand and actually not file taxes. Or more to the point, I don't know if my little family can handle it. I don't want to short change Eleanor's childhood by spending half of it in jail for tax evasion.
I totally love the idea of a peace tax fund. And I'd love to work to change the system, rather than just violate it and go to prison.
I've been thinking about 'creative' taxation for a while now. I'd like to see either a peace fund like that or a portion of the form where you "modify" how the government spends the money. Like *voting* with your dollars. So you could designate a percentage of your own taxes across five or ten budget areas.
Like the logical extension of the "yes, give money to the federal election fund" checkoff. So at the end of the 1040 it says:
Please distribute my tax payment as follows to these government projects and agencies:
Health and Human Services 20%
Infrastructure 10%
Defense and Homeland Security 3%
National Parks 7%
Environmental Protection 20%
Bureau of Indian Affairs 10%
Trade 10%
Paying down the debt 20%
or whatever.
Or if someone has to compromise on the situation (there's always stupid compromises by stupid pols) you could make it so the amounts you choose are *modifiers*-- thinking like a role playing gamer I guess, gee play much Champions, Jon?-- anyway, the congress could vote to say "okay a bare minimum of our budget is going to be spent on these areas. when you say how much of a percentage to go, you're *adding* to that total."
Either way, the idea is that the budget *can't* be set until they know how much money there's going to be. And therefore it has to be balanced and be within our means.
That's what's wrong with the damn economy. It's not just that it's out of balance, it's not economical, as in oikonomos or whatever (hello, Greek! hello, Wendell Berry!) and maybe a way to rescue our economy would be to treat it a little more like some of us treat our home economies-- like the only way to avoid problems is to spend within our means and to follow budgets and to pay off our debts. Sheesh.
Otherwise, it's just a lot of hot air. A giant balloon of money and debt slowly losing its lift... (see also, Forde's commentary on 'the human project' using the balloon metaphor)
Yeah.