Let Them Eat Vouchers

Unguarded remarks are the bane
Of many a White House campaign;
It's hard to promote
The popular vote
From people you clearly disdain.

For example said Governor Romney,
The Republicans' President nom'nee:
"47%
Will never consent
To pull their weight in our econ'my."

While confiding in generous friends,
Mr. Romney ineptly offends,
Since half of the tax-free
Are elderly, actually,
On whom his election depends.

Several months ago, Mitt Romney held a candid Q&A session with well-heeled supporters at the Miami home of hedge fund manager Max Leder. In refreshingly (for him) blunt terms, Gov. Romney discussed the strategy and tactics of his campaign. In one point, however, Mr. Romney was a little too blunt, asserting that President Obama's core support derives from the 47% who pay no federal income taxes and purportedly expect a litany of free government services. "My job is is not to worry about those people," Romney said. "I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

If you're not too stunned by a Presidential candidate dismissing half the country as freeloaders, consider the following:

• The original video of Governor Romney with his donors, published by Mother Jones; 
• An analysis by Slate's Dave Weigel of why "the 47%" are not who the Governor thinks they are; 
• The National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru on why conservatives need to let go of the "47%" meme. 

Waning Middle Class

A big social sciences trust
Researched and concluded, nonplussed:
"Our suburbanite set,
Adjusted for debt
And inflation, is actually bust."

Aaron Task and Henry Blodget of Yahoo! Finance alert us to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center. Pew looked at the data related to income and wealth inequality in the US and determined: the US economy sucks because the middle class is broke. Task and Blodget agree, in their discussion below, that US employers must hire more workers and pay them more, for the good of the economy as a whole. As Henry Ford realized a century ago, well-paid workers can afford to buy things, and their liquidity feeds a rising tide that lifts all boats. Can the private economy, which is sitting on mountains of idle cash, do this on its own without the intervention of our dysfunctional government? I ask you.

Mr. Buffett, His Secretary & Their Tax Rates

Inequality's pair most iconic,
Mr. Buffett and Mrs. Bosanek,
Have talked up the facts
Of the rates of his tax,
Which are lower than hers – most ironic.

"But investors like Buffett," says Mankiw,
"Have firms that pay tax as well, thank you;
We must add the taxation
Of each corporation
To see in which bracket we rank you."

So taxation's not simple as "one-two",
You can argue the point if you want to,
But unequal or not,
Ms. Bosanek ain't got
Someone else she can pass the tax onto.

Harvard's famed Professor Greg Mankiw, who chaired President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers (and may someday do the same for Mitt Romney, if things should take such a turn), has made his voice prominent in rebutting the claim of Warren Buffett that he pays a lower income tax rate than his secretary. Debbie Bosanek pays roughly 33% of her income in taxes, while her billionaire boss pays 19%. The difference is due to the 15% rate of taxation on capital gains, which liberals argue is unfair. Professor Mankiw has argued that one must consider the shareholder's stake in the corporate income tax paid by the companies he owns.

Along comes a new and intriguingly anonymous blogger to put meat on the bones of Mankiw's argument. "PrometheeFeu" points out that, if Buffett pays 15% tax on his dividends and the company paying the dividend has already paid 25% income tax, then this is the same as a 35% income tax between Buffett and the original source of the income. Furthermore, one must distinguish between the person who pays the tax and the people on whom the burden of the tax ultimately falls. In other words, corporate tax burdens can be passed along to customers, vendors and employees as well as shareholders. However, this second point undermines the first, since it suggests that the companies owned by Berkshire Hathaway may spread the burden of their taxes, while Mrs. Bosanek would be hard-pressed to do so.

Walking out of Econ 10

Said Harvardian students of Mankiw:
"Shall we occupy seats here? No thank you!
We simply despise
Inequality's rise,
Among whose enablers we rank you."

The professor replied in an entry:
"You need learning that's more supplement'ry
Before jousting the rich
With your knowledge base, which,
Like my lectures, is quite element'ry."

One of the recent highlights of the Occupy movement was the walkout last month of some of the Harvard freshmen in Professor Greg Mankiw's Economics 10 introductory class. The students asserted that "the biased nature of Ec10 contributes to and symbolizes the increasing economic inequality in America." Though the story has faded from the front pages, the Professor is continually asked about it, and gave his thoughts in a New York Times op-ed piece on Sunday. While acknowledging that claims of inherent conservative bias in the economics field are not new, Prof. Mankiw prefers to cite Keynes' view that

The theory of economics does not furnish a body of settled conclusions immediately applicable to policy. It is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique for thinking, which helps the possessor to draw correct conclusions.

Wage Index Report

The data on wages disclose
That the specter of joblessness grows,
Except for the few
Making mega-bucks, who,
In their number, substantially rose.

The Social Security Administration released its Wage Statistics for 2010, and - with one glaring exception - they tell a sorry tale.   Journalist and author David Cay Johnston crunched the numbers and found that

There were fewer jobs and they paid less last year except at the very top, where the number of people making more than $1 million increased by 20 percent over 2009. The median paycheck — half made more, half less — fell again in 2010, down 1.2 percent to $26,364. That works out to $507 a week, the lowest level, after adjusting for inflation, since 1999. The number of Americans with any work fell again last year, down by more than a half million from 2009 to less than 150.4 million.

Hat tip to Barry Ritholtz, who notes the obvious statistical underpinning for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

To The Point

America's unequal strata,
As confirmed by definitive data,
Have made it quite plain,
On Wall Street and Main,
That something is deeply the matta.