A very scary reality...

[emily6182005]

...I thought this was a great article (regardless of which side of the fence you're on) from the Wall Street Journal summarizing exactly what Obama is likely to implement should he be elected. It's great because it cuts through the campaign rhetoric to the core of what he would be able to push through, which I find helpful and personally

Comments

[emily6182005]

Having watched my father build a practice from scratch (at the expense of his family in the early years because, like Steve, he did a fellowship and then in starting his own practice at 32 he either moonlighted or was on call every night and weekend for years), clearly I'm more keyed into the reality of what universal healthcare really means. My father is a really savvy businessman - and thank god - because in spite of finding ways to grow and expand his practice 10%+ a year, there were years where he made half of what he had the year before because of medicare cuts, etc. To think that someone can dictate what he is paid and his growth when he works that hard is beyond disturbing, but now telling him that he must care for all and that he'll be paying more taxes on the business as well as his personal income is a triple threat.

I'm sure people think they sound smart when they say that "trickle down economics doesn't work", but honestly it's just an easy way out of the conversation and they will soon see in the same way that investment banks did that everything is more correlated than they had originally anticipated. What they don't think about is how many people are employed by small businesses - like my father's practice - and that when he gets hit by higher taxes, etc. he'll either shutter his practice or he'll decide to run it more efficiently (ie., he'll lay people off) because he's worked hard to achieve a certain level of income and so he'll find a way to keep that. THAT IS WHY TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS DOES WORK - it results in jobs!!! But the naysayers simply focus on income levels or percentage of the population living at a certain level. Well, that is going to increase 50%, like other socialism european countries we'll soon see a natural unemployment level of more like 7.5% (as the base) instead of 3.5% -- meaning that we'll easily achieve 10% unemployment under Obama. And what that does mean. Well, since we'll now be responsible for supporting them, your taxes will go up even more. And that is what we call a welfare state death spiral.

So yeah, unfortunately "trickle down economics" is as good as it gets, but sadly, the people who realize that will have to wait and watch from the sidelines as this country gets run into the ground first for everyone else to learn what they could have had they simply picked up a macroeconomic textbook or looked at the history of any socialist country.

I'm off my soapbox - for today ;)

xx