It’s worth mentioning the well funded and organized (entirely fraudulent) so-called libertarian movement, with its varied “think tanks” and propaganda factories. They reject “big government” paid for with taxes. I recall the absurd arguments of a young, very smart but right-wing deluded libertarian who was against stop signs because they represented too much government control. The myth of rugged individualism can poison even sharp minds. The anti-tax, limited government argument is one of greed, myopia, nastiness, and selfishness.
My counter-example was abolishment of the authoritarian compulsion that we should all drive on a specified side of the road. Every morning we should toss a coin and allow it to determine whether we should drive on the left or right. We should assert our liberty by sticking to our side with grim determination, driving at full speed towards any fool who was driving towards us in the opposite direction intent on battering us out of his way.
Initially there would of course be a regrettable degree of carnage, but with the consolation that it would be the most determined drivers (always the most disruptive), along with their unfortunate passengers, who would be rapidly eliminated from the population. Their lives would be nasty, brutish and short. This would increase the safety of the rest, as there would be far less of us competing for the road space. And, of course, many chicken-hearted, weak-kneed cowardly individuals, unfit to take part in this brave new world of motoring, would refuse to drive at all: they, of course would be perfectly free to walk.
I used to speculate how long it would be before those of us remaining would begin to see the point of Thomas Hobbes assertion in his book "Leviathan": that we require some sovereign power to regulate our natural propensity to destroy each other. And how would the restoration of sanity be brought about? Perhaps wars would be fought over it: people rallying under flags signifying "Left" or "Right", and swearing eternal loyalty to their sacred cause.
My grandmother, born in 1866, did not "believe in" stop signs. They were just a new fangled annoyance that she wanted nothing to do with. In response, my mother never allowed any of us kids to go for a ride with her. I only learned why when I was a teenager in the mid 1960s.
Those in the Resistance need to be thinking beyond the midterms.
Most Americans disapprove of His Royal Heinous, but they are looking for an easy solution. One that will not require even a small sacrifice on their part, or any disruption to their life.
They are putting too much faith in what the midterms will do. The midterms may have a beneficial psychologic effect but in reality the outcome will have little or no practical effect, unless the Dems can get 2/3 majority in the house and senate, which they won’t. They will not be able to undo anything His Royal Heinous has done, or pass new legislation, because of his veto power.
There will be investigations if the Dems take the House, but to what end. There will be no cooperation and HRH will pardon all perpetrators, and they know it.
They will impeach HRH, but we’ve seen that movie twice before. Convicted in the senate and removed from office? We can only hope, but hope is not a strategy.
He will continue to rule by “National Emergency“ and Executive Orders and almost surely the Supreme Court will allow it.
The greatest danger in all this is that it will appear that something beneficial is happening. The majority of people will believe the system is working. After about a year they will realize that nothing is changing. Then they will think, Oh well, he’ll be gone after the election next year.
Or will he? It took the Hungarians 16 years to get rid of Orban, and the Project 2025 people will certainly not make the same mistakes that Orban did.
For solutions, visit my profile page.
Please: Resist. Stop cooperating. Stop spending. Stop the fascist takeover.
Thank you for restacking, and sharing, to help Spread the Word!
Americans are in the mess they are, and it is a dangerous mess, because they are passive. They allow citizens to be enchained and murdered, corruption to run rife, rights diminished or eradicated, the courts and federal government to be hijacked, alliances and treaties abandoned, with hardly a murmur.
“We have a very limited window to fight this. Whatever non-violent tools of resistance we have left must be deployed - boycotts, protests, litigation, general strikes, demonstrations. We must shame those who are prepared to sit on the sidelines or worse abet this madness. Corporations (who have shockingly even allowed Trump to nationalize percentages of their companies - the great fear they all claimed they had of the left) must be called out. What media we have left must be pushed to take up their proper role of informing the citizenry about the stakes of this moment. Faith institutions have begun to rouse themselves, but their actions must intensify.”
These two approaches are attempts to evade the Hobbesian nightmare of perfect libertarianism in which we all live in "continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Karl Popper thought deeply about the paradox of tolerance while Carl Schmitt devised his "state of exception" to justify the autocratic monarch or dictator.
Passive, low information voters who put Trump in power...twice. The GOP's Big Budget-Busting tax giveaway to the wealthy & big corporations, plus Trump's illegal tariff scheme, has effectively shifted the tax burden from the top to American small business and consumers. That's why companies like Costco are suing to get their money back,
Costco is getting their money back. But not the consumers, who paid higher prices because of the tariffs. Even the conservative readers of the WSJ were in a rage in the comments over this.
First, thank you so much for introducing me to Vanessa Williamson. A fascinating discussion.
On a political level, I think the “centrest” democrats of Hillary, Biden and Harris did so poorly at convincing working class people that they cared about them was the constant reference to protecting those making $400,000 (or less). When $15 was being viewed as an outrageously high minimum wage ($30,000 at 40hrs/week for 50 weeks), declaring $400,000 as the people needing protection was insane.
I have lived a very comfortable life, but only had $400,000 in income the year I sold the house i had owned for over 40 years. When asked was I mad about having a very high tax bill, my answer was I was enormously lucky to have effectively lived for free for 40 years by the enormous gain.
Our household income is in the range of $150K. We could afford to pay more in income tax. The tax that does bother me is residential property tax, which I see as a wealth tax on the middle class.
People should consider that the payroll tax (both parts) is just under 15%, so its equivalent to the capital gains tax. But payroll taxes are extracted prior to receiving the payment. And capital gains taxes only when assets are sold. But workers also have to pay income tax on their wages--there is no income tax applied in addition to the capital gains. Thus “unearned income” is effectively not taxed as income--if you equate the capital gains and payroll taxes.
If you think of Biden as "centrist", you've allowed yourself to be fooled. The centrists pushed him out, Bernie stuck with him to the last. Why wss that? Pop over to You Tube, view "NABTU Biden endorsement", and you'll know why.
Manchin and Sinema made sure Biden couldn't put money directly in people's pockets for a reason (extension child care tax credit, child and elder care, "human infrastructure"). It turned out to be political suicide, but the checks are good.
Biden's administration did use some progressive action to get us out of the epidemic, and despite Sinema and Manchin, he had more legislative success than most since LBJ. But if you look at his political career, he was definitely centrist. He only looks more progressive because the Democratic party shifted to the right. Our most progressive administration was FDR's, but the progressiveness can be more accurately attributed to the influence of Eleanor and Francis Perkins and others he was wise enough to listen to, as opposed to his personal ideology.
More than Carter, in some ways. The Reagan tax cut and deregulation agenda actually started under Carter.
But, in fact, the last progressive president was Joe Biden. His policies were as hard a 180 on 40+ years of neoliberal governance as the Congressional Democrats would support. His "vibe", largely a media production, obscured this, but Bernie's unwavering support testifies to it.
'NABTU Biden endorsement' on You Tube, take a look. My own union, IUOE, had record membership and man-hours under Biden. UAW, obviously, big fans, visiting your picket line and having your president as his guest at the State of the Union will do that. Biden had him stand and be recognized, congratulated him on a successful strike.
And he appointed Lina Khan, Jonathan Kanter, to undo 40 years of interpreting the antitrust laws into oblivion.
None of this was welcomed by incumbent power. We've been subjected to "aversion therapy" Biden wise,, to bury that agenda. It's not working, every Democrat catching fire is anti oligarchy.
But honestly Biden for the decades he was in Congress he was a center right legislator.
He was responsible for eliminating the right to declare bankruptcy for student loans.
There are Now 70 plus year olds still paying their student loans.
It’s also true that Biden was screwed by the major media outlets in that they did not give him the credit he deserved for helping the country recover from the Covid era.
The economy was really turning around but the
Narrative from the major media was that the economy was hurting.
It was not.
He did a really good job.
It was too little too late
However he was on the right track.
After over 30 years of Neo liberalism from democrats he was he was making an attempt to Turn it all around.
If Dems control the House they can stop appropriating. That is their actual (and Constitutional) power. They need to have the courage, wisdom, and fortitude to use it.
Also, if taxes can't be raised, they can opt to fund butter instead of guns. We need the CDC, NIH, FDA, and EPA. DOD, DHS not so much.
I believe you are correct. And dark-money backed democrats are not the answer. We require fundamental reforms, and I am concerned that there is insufficient flexibility in the current system to effect the needed changes. And if HRH is backed into a corner, he may very well deploy a violent response.
Fundamental reforms would start with the Democrats getting back Congress in November.
As for violence from HRH - ICE is already doing it - and yet the brave, heroic American people have not caved into it.
Saying that Democrats are not MUCH better than the alternative is like saying that Ukraine small amount of corruption means that it's not worth supporting it in its fight against Russia.
We are in the middle of a five alarm fire, and while most of the country remains oblivious, too many in the resistance are wasting time discussing how to organize and implement a fire department. What’s needed from the general public is total non cooperation and a general Spending Strike. NOW!
Total "noncooperation and a general Spending Strike. Now! The odds of that happening are extremely low. Can you offer up a scenario where that is even a remote possibility?
After you finish defecating on this Peaceful Solution, please favor us with your own peaceful solution, that will stop and reverse the fascist takeover of America.
“It’s the economy, stupid” as James Carville famously told Bill Clinton. It was then, and still is, in politics. The reelection of His Royal Heinous is largely attributed to the misperceived state of the economy. That’s what must be attacked, not individual corporations. The overall economy must suffer before the Greedy Bastards will pay attention.
HRH will not destroy the economy on his own (TACO). He will find a way to prop it up (like lower interest rates) because the economy and stock market are his report card and key to keeping power. The key to keeping power, as it is in Russia, China, Hungary, Turkey. They give the people a somewhat decent standard of living, and in exchange, the people have no political power. Only the autocrat has that. Unlimited.
Our best chance of success lies in obtaining high profile, national leadership and spokespersons. Fragmented, unknown groups leading the charge might work but would take much longer, and time is of the essence. Since the Disney boycott there have been more “bigger” names taking up the cause.
There will have to be a great amount of grassroot support before a national “leader” will take up the cause. Most of our supposed leaders are really followers of movements. They’ll get out front after it’s shown to have popular support. So, we recruit more foot soldiers, like ourselves, and spread the word on various Substacks and other social media platforms.
After mustering much grassroots support we can then approach some Substack writers who have many subscribers and appeal to them to take up the cause and spread the word. Writers like Jen Rubin, Steve Schmidt, Robert Reich, Heather Richardson, Paul Krugman. Again, a good amount of grassroots support will have to be demonstrated.
We will need an organized effort to encourage those writers to concentrate on this method of opposition. Possibly coordinated mass emails to them promoting the idea, or coordinated posts to their Substacks.
Then, hopefully, one or more national leaders will take up the cause. Possibly a steering committee composed of left, center and right individuals, but not current office holders. It should be seen as non partisan.
This will be a tough sell. Americans are addicted to buying. We are brainwashed from the cradle by advertising, popular culture, peer pressure, to consume. If you want to be happy and fulfilled, you must have this or that product. To overcome this, our fellow citizens must be convinced that this is the only viable peaceful solution to stop and reverse the fascist takeover. And it is.
If a single dollar doubles every day for 30 days, it reaches a total of over $536 million ($536,870,912) at the end of the 30th day.
So, would it follow, that a single voice that doubled everyday would become 536 million voices after 30 days? That seems doable.
Defeating the fascists in WWII did not happen without sacrifice from the citizens of the Allied countries. We will have to sacrifice to stop and reverse the fascist takeover of our country. We can sacrifice a little now or a much greater amount later. What kind of world will our children and grandchildren live in if we allow this to continue?
Spending Strike, Spending Freeze, Spending Suspension, Spending Pause, Economic Disengagement, Economic Warfare, Stop Spending!, even Boycott. Choose your favorite but Do It, and Spread the Word!, far, wide, and quickly, before the fascists takedown our means of communication.
Please: Resist. Stop cooperating. Stop spending. Stop the fascist takeover.
Thank you for restacking, and sharing, to help Spread the Word!
Why a Spending Strike is the Best Option to Stop and Reverse the Fascist Takeover.
TINA: There Is No Alternative. There is no peaceful alternative.
Plan A
Plan A consists of phoning/writing your legislators, and street demonstrations, neither of which have worked nor give any sign of working. His Royal Heinous controls the majority party in the legislature and they are doing his bidding. As for street demonstrations:
From Professor Erica Chenoweth:
…”they often subject their participants to a higher risk of repression or communal violence from opponents. So movements that are capable of having the capacity to shift to methods of dispersion, like stay-at-homes or strikes or forms of economic noncooperation, tend to be much more effective because they have the capability of maneuver when the state begins to ramp up violence against them.”
Targeted boycotts
Why targeted boycotts are ineffective:
Boycotts often fail because they require massive, sustained participation to create meaningful financial pressure, lack clear alternatives for consumers, generate insufficient negative media attention, and are easily weathered by companies waiting for the protest to fade. Additionally, the complex nature of modern capitalism and the proliferation of corporate conglomerates can make it difficult for boycotters to effectively target and impact a company's bottom line or reputation, especially when companies have multiple revenue streams, like real estate, that aren't affected by consumer boycotts.
In 2020, Goya Foods praised President Donald Trump on social media, which caused those in opposition to Trump to boycott their products. Trump loyalists simultaneously initated a counter-boycott, where consumers bought mass quantities of their products, in response. The boycott caused Goya profits to increase dramatically because Trump supporters started an opposing campaign.
The midterm election
Will it be free and fair? It won’t be. Will it occur at all? HRH has already said that if we’re at war there’ll be no election. Guess what? If it’s looking bad for him, he’ll be at war to try to stop the election. The election is important to him because having the majority in the legislature gives the fascist regime the look of legitimacy, and stopping or stealing the election demonstrates his power. This election is going to unleash total chaos.
People are putting too much faith in what the midterms will do. They may have a beneficial psychologic effect but in reality the outcome will have little or no practical effect, unless the Dems can get 2/3 majority in the house and senate, which they won’t. They will not be able to undo anything HRH has done or pass new legislation because of his veto power, nor will they be able to get a conviction on Impeachment. We’ve seen that movie twice before, and know how it ends.
The Courts
While some lower courts have ruled against HRH, slowing his takeover, the rulings have been fast tracked to the Supreme Court. It has almost universally ruled in HRH’s favor. SCOTUS members Roberts and Barrett may have an epiphany and save the country from civil war, but it’s doubtful. It’s going to be up to us to stop this.
Time is running out for a Peaceful Solution. Please Spread the Word!, far, wide, and quickly, before the fascists takedown our means of communication.
Please: Resist. Stop cooperating. Stop spending. Stop the fascist takeover.
Thank you for restacking, and sharing, to help Spread the Word!
How much do you want to stop His Royal Heinous and the fascist takeover of the country?
Enough that you’re willing to make a small sacrifice? Like altering your spending habits for a month or two or three? That could be all it would take to get the attention of the oligarchs (formerly known as The Robber Barons in the first Gilded Age, also The Fat Cats, The Greedy Bastards).
A brief demonstration of We, the People’s, power of the purse could persuade them to quit supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
We quit spending, except on essentials, businesses lose money, stock market goes down, Greedy Bastards pay attention to our demands.
Greedy Bastards own most of the politicians of both major parties. GBs start losing money, tell politicians to change course and do what We, the People want.
We are running out of peaceful options. The legislature and Supreme Court are controlled by HRH. He controls the executive branch, including the Military, Justice Department, FBI, ICE, the IRS. He controls all levers of power.
We, the people, still have the power of the purse. No one can control our spending, or lack of spending. When all else fails we can go on a spending strike until the business community stops supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
Economic warfare is the only thing the oligarchs, the business community will understand and act on. Call it a Surreptitious General Strike (Quiet Quitting). Go to work, do as little as possible. Stop spending money except on essentials. Quit feeding the corporate beast that supports the HRH.
Stop participating. Nearly 70% of the U.S. economy is driven by consumer spending. All of us. Hobble the economy and the stock market. Mahatma Gandhi drove the British from India by peaceful civil disobedience and economic disruption. We can stop the fascist takeover in the same way.
We can keep rehashing past and present atrocities until our access to the internet is taken away by the regime, or we can DO something!
Please: Resist. Stop cooperating. Stop spending. Stop the fascist takeover.
Thank you for restacking, and sharing, to help Spread the Word!
The type of potential violence I’m talking about would be a HRH initiated “insurrection” of a much greater magnitude than J6. And yes, establishment democrats are better than the alternative but they will do little to effect meaningful change. And please, your reference to Russian trolls impacting my thoughts on this issue is far-fetched and rather offensive.
If I was running the Russian troll factory in St Petersburg, I would allocate trolls to discouraging people from voting in the midterms.
One important way to help destroy US patriotic morale in that department would be to have trolls embed themselves inside liberal Substacks and pretend to be radical - but in reality they would just be there to discourage Democrats and others from voting in the midterms. I really would do that.
But hey that's just me. Think the Cowboys or the Seahawks will win this weekend?
Meanwhile suckers like me are paying massive amounts of taxes relative to their net worth because my wife and I both have high salaries and one home. The Republicans favor business owners and those who own multiple properties and Democrats want to tax high salaries to death that the rich elite simply don’t have (they have massive amounts of unrealized gains and live off of practically free loans) but the upper-middle class does have high salaries. So, those with high salaries who worked themselves to death to get them are the ones getting raked over the coals by both sides. I literally paid 20% of my net worth in taxes in one year last. If that keeps happening I will be bankrupt in a few more years when I should be retiring and my social security will probably be taken away by the right. There’s no way out, even if the Democrats win, they just make it worse.
You should be thrilled be able to pay 20% of your net worth. For years, I paid 40% of meager disability income for health care while trying to hold onto my home. It's easy to complain without seeing how others fare.
Democrats have fixed the economy every time they have taken over from Republicans for many decades. Meanwhile perhaps you need a better tax advisor.
Very educational! It reinforces, in my mind, the fact that money in politics is intentionally destructive to democracy. Citizens United actually is the culmination of the "I am the master, you are the slave" mentality from the days of accomodating legal slavery.
The legacy of slavery might explain the uniquely non progressive nature of US politics compared to Europe. (Don’t take this as criticism, many European countries were supporting slavery, but in distant colonies).
It is very hard to persuade people that their government is worth paying for when it is the Trump government. In fact, the blue states should be withholding federal taxes in order to starve it, not sustain it.
Terence, 100%. All blue state voters need to contact their governors and state AG to hold onto their federal taxes. No taxation without representation. We are not being represented. We are no longer a representative democracy.
This. Who are these idiots advocating tax-strikes in California and other Blue States? Gavin Newsom does not see the buckos withheld by California employers. They are bundled off to DC within a statutorily determined number of days after collection determined by the volume of withholdings.
Failure to remit results in a sharp penalty levied on the business.
Further, withholding funds is self defeating and in the end will only fuel the already ballooning deficit spending spree the Trump administration is enjoying.
Thankfully, I don't think IRS is staffed well enough to to go after small fish as they ignore the big fish avoiding their tax obligations ... unless ICE can do that too ... just dont think that crew is capable of mathing.
In the past, it's worked the other way 'round. They go after the little fish because the little guys can't fight. Remember that Trump had the IRS tied up for years before he came down that escalator.
Well, just this week Trump said he's withholding FEMA etc from states that didn't vote for him. Do the states just let him do it? Do the states have a line in the sand? Most of this is unconstitutional, and there don't seem to be much push back.
That is fascinating about Thomas Paine writing in 1791 recommending a high tax on income from wealth. Obviously, the "founding fathers" who were happy for his contributions before and during the "revolution" didn't take his advice on this at all.
Since the very beginning the US has not been a true economic democracy. Daniel Shays returned from fighting in the "American Revolution" to find he was losing his farm to taxation. He and other citizens formed the Regulators and raised a rebellion in 1786 against onerous taxation, blocking the proceedings of tax courts, which raised the ire of one George Washington who urged the rebellion be put down at once. A mercenary army from Boston did that in 1787, financed by wealthy Boston merchants. The revolution was en elite coup against Britain. Despite all the talk about "We the people", we've never had real economic democracy in the USA. It's run by the rich for the rich. They see the people as a resource to be used as cheap labor, and if they can use cheaper labor elsewhere, they're happy to offshore the factory.
IIRC, the onerous austerity policies that provoked that rebellion were undone by the next state gov't, headed by John Hancock, overwhelmingly elected to do just that.
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all." G.K.Chesterson.
'We have a choice in this country,we can have either democracy or highly concemtrated private wealth, we cannot have both.' Louis Brandeis.
I submit Biden knew what he was doing when he appointed "neo-Brandeisians" like Lina Khan to restore enforcement of the antitrust laws. The media monopolists knew what he was doing, too.
Of course, his talking about billionaires paying their fair share and his support for unions didn't win him friends among the rich, either.
I'm 73, and this interview was like watching my economic life pass before my eyes, the progressive degradation I've only partly been able to protect myself from. Now we've reached the end state of the program Louis Powell laid out in 1971, reckless misrule by deranged billionaires, of whom Trump and Musk are only the most flagrant.
The rich chose Trump over Biden's temperate New Deal 2.0. They exercised their power to make sure the "vibes" were bad for low info voters, and prevented direct ongoing financial support for them.
Which brings to mind an older, white couple imterviewed after voting for Haley in the NH primary. Asked who'd they'd be voting for in November if Trump won the nomimation, they said Biden, age or no, the man adding, "I'd vote for Biden if he was dead!"
“To some degree, I think that destruction has made the value of government more evident. It has brought things like the role of the CDC, or the fact that we had people watching our nuclear silos, to the forefront of our minds. But what I have not seen is politicians on the center-to-left talk seriously about the idea that the United States government is worth being paid for by all of us.”
Another critically important conversation at this time. Vanessa Williamson lays down the gauntlet to the rest of us. Yes indeed we Americans are willing to be taxed to support the overall health and happiness of the people at large, and to reinforce our power to shape and democracy through our elected representatives! Williamson talks about the political pressure groups that politicians listen to. Maybe we need a new one pushing the idea that EVERYONE should pay his/her fair share to bring the United States back to life!
What happens if Americans don't pick up the gauntlet Vanessa has thrown down?
At some point not too long from now, Congress will have to raise taxes in order to meet debt payments:
The population is no longer growing. The national debt is growing faster than the economy. Taxes cannot be reduced to less than the interest payments are already the largest single expense in the budget. Voters have power when the governent needs their money.
I don't know what will happen, but the chickens are on their way home to roost.
On Mamdani's pied-a-terre tax, I repost a comment from "BadWolffe" on Daily Kos:
There's quite a lot of tax cheats that live in NYC. People who claim to live in a lower tax state and register their cars there, but actually live in NYC. Now the state is involved. They're looking to see who claims that yes, they actually live in their condos/homes/co-ops, but are registered as living elsewhere. Apparently, there are lots of out of state cars that park on the streets of NYC for months at a time. Almost as if their owners live there but registered their cars elsewhere.
So these tax cheats are now caught on the twin horns of a dilemma. They got sent the letter asking them to verify that they actually live there (and part of the stink is precisely because they claim they aren't), but the state is going to verify their registration. NYC doesn't tax workers who live elsewhere. They only tax residents. Have they, in fact, been cheating on their NY State and NYC taxes and thus they have to pay up all those lovely back taxes for both their cars and for the additional taxes they've dodged? Or, will they pay the yearly tax on a home they claim they don't live in?
Registering a car in another state is done, afaik, to avoid the truly extortionate insurance rates in NYC (I live in the Bronx, so I know). I was once told by an ex-insurance investigator, that a considerable part of his workload was such frauds.
All good points, Greg, but I’m not disposed to give up on the U.S. yet. I think a new realignment is coming in which we work out some of our problems and emerge a stronger democracy. We oblige MAGA by giving up so let’s not!
That is definitely true and when the US gets even further out on the limb of highest interest expense on debt / gdp such that the value of the dollar falls relative to other advanced countries we deride as socialistic that have more rational taxation arrangements, we will have to make very major adjustments. Taxing the very wealthy will only be part of the necessary solution.
Revoking South Dakota's statehood would be a very good first step in recovering some ill-gotten gains from the wealthy. The ironclad "trusts" that South Dakota offers have to go. They and similar "legal" entanglements are the primary means by which oligarchies preserve the results garnered from the intelligence of one generation over many generations of idiots.
I wonder why Professor Krugman is blind to Canada. He will mention several times the social welfare states of Europe as high-tax countries, but not the much larger, more populous, wealthier, and analogous contiguous nation to the north.
I have heard Dr. Krugman mention Canada from time to time.
In the last year, I have started reading/ listening to some American academics. Canada is usually under the radar, partly I think, because we do not speak up enough.
The tariff battle is not just about tariffs. It is about surviving as a nation.
The American national anthem is about a people becoming independent - bombs, and rockets. The Canadian national anthem is about retaining independence - “We stand on guard for thee.” I have sung that anthem from my first days in school. Never realized what it meant until now.
Hi Terence. Me again. Without looking it up to check the wording, Dr. Krugman recently referred to being in Europe. I think he said something about having to be outside the US A to find out what the rest of the world thinks. What he may not realize is that unless he was eavesdropping, polite society was not going to say what it really thinks of the USA in front of him. Dr. Krugman is a very nice man, putting hours in to protect his democracy.
Terence, what we need to do is invite Dr. Krugman to visit Canada. He might even want to work here. Canada is trying to attract American academics.
We got Tim Snyder, a wonderful coup for UofT. Krugman has been to Canada, but somehow just rarely considers it, even statistically. Like many Americans. I used to ignore that; now it irritates me after Trump's disdain.
If Canada spoke up, what would it say? Specifically, what could Canada say to a polity for whom reality is optional?
Consider the USMCA: Trump's tariffs have already done more damage to US manufacturing than any retaliatory action Canada is willing to take. Impacted US companies have spoken at legislative hearings, none spoke of a positive impact.
... also...
It's incorrect to say Canada has been silent. The province of Ontario ran an ad during the world series. Canadian politicians, business leaders, and academics have been on the US speaking circuit.
"The province of Ontario ran an ad during the world series."
Yes, put together by our occasionally Trumpish premier. It used an assemblage of excerpts from a speech by none other than Ronald Reagan, speaking out against tariffs. And Trump punished us for that with another round of tariffs specifically designed to hurt Ontario.
Funny isn't it that Trump has never imposed any tariffs on all the Canadian oil and gas that it imports from Alberta and Saskatchewan?
The US national anthem isn't about the American Revolution, it's about a battle during the War of 1812. (During that war, British troops invaded the United States and burned down the White House.)
I am Canadian. We have the tariff/sovereignty issue to consume most of our politicians’ attention these days. However, in other times, I think their dilemma was balancing Canadians’ desire for social programmes similar to Europe’s, but with a tax base influenced by the USA. If taxes are too high in Canada, capital flows out of the country.
I wake up every day grateful for a prime minister who is a former banker, and a governor general who is a former war crimes prosecutor.
Why doesn't anyone talk anymore about the falsity of contract work? The invention of the 1099 shifted tax burdens and eliminated employee protection for million of people.
Reagan's role in the current difficulties regarding taxation cannot be understated. It was his masterful use of rhetoric and memes that pushed the anti-tax forces forward. His taunting about "welfare queens" has not been forgotten. The irony is that the squeeze now for those same funds comes in red-state America when it comes down to programs for care of elderly people, the parents and grandparents who heeded to the Republican mantra then and now face lack of therapy and food supplements in their elder years.
I wish some economists would study what is done with the marginal income and cap gains that are not being taxed. Are those funds being used for charity? Are they being used for vacations? Are they being used to buy big vacation homes? Are they being used to start a business? Or, are they being used to buy a very fancy wristwatch? It comes back to the trickle down theory, also one of the mantras of the 70's and 80's to justify reducing taxes. We know that theory is invalid, but to what extent?
It was in the Reagan era that I heard the phrase "starve the beast" meaning increase our deficits, make tax increases an anathema, and put pressure on the social safety net of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. It's happened and they are being squeezed. Will they survive, maybe not if a Trumpist government is re-elected in 2026 and 2028.
Building a bunker is a fantasy, just as colonizing Mars or the Moon to escape the ravages of global warming, economic collapse, societal disintegration, etc.
What good will bunkers be if the grid crashes or is sabotaged? Ditto the water supply, etc, etc.
Colonizing othet planets id beyond absurd...given that Musk can't even fulfill his original pledge for fully functioning self-driving technology.
They have the money, but no answers, so they hide in fantasy and pretend AI will magically solve the problems.
Denial is the one thing most Americans agree upon.
By the way Paul, thank you for the 'university of Krugman', economics department, particularly I have enjoyed the video interviews that you do. Blessings. Although I am a daily reader of yours for many years.
it is so dispiriting. The economic royalists not only enrich themselves beyond our wildest nightmares, they also render it nigh impossible for a future humane government (if any) to undo the damage. They are like the barbarian hordes of the third and fourth centuries who burned what they couldn't loot.
What Williamson is describing from the tax side has a physical counterpart. When the wealthy stop paying for shared infrastructure, they don't go without, instead they build their own. Private schools replace public ones. Gated communities replace the public park. The data center replaces the public utility. Every dollar not collected (often because of the tax avoidance strategies of the elite) doesn't disappear, it gets redirected into a parallel, private geography available only to the people who can afford the membership. The result is exactly what Williamson warns about: a government too poor to act, because the money has been rerouted into private infrastructure that serves the same functions government used to, just for fewer people. Taxation builds the commons, while billionaires are building new enclosures.
It’s worth mentioning the well funded and organized (entirely fraudulent) so-called libertarian movement, with its varied “think tanks” and propaganda factories. They reject “big government” paid for with taxes. I recall the absurd arguments of a young, very smart but right-wing deluded libertarian who was against stop signs because they represented too much government control. The myth of rugged individualism can poison even sharp minds. The anti-tax, limited government argument is one of greed, myopia, nastiness, and selfishness.
Hear, hear!!
I seem to recall David Hume describing libertarianism as the needy starving in the street with the consolation of being perfectly 'free' to do so.
And a century after David Hume, Anatole France observed:
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
Or in the words of an old Portuguese proverb:
"a mesma merda de sempre, só as moscas mudaram"
Excellent!
They seem to think we all live in the Australian outback country. Yes, we could probably do without many stop signs there.
The kangaroo lobby would like a word.
I think it might be the Austrian outback country, where Mies and Hayek live.
My counter-example was abolishment of the authoritarian compulsion that we should all drive on a specified side of the road. Every morning we should toss a coin and allow it to determine whether we should drive on the left or right. We should assert our liberty by sticking to our side with grim determination, driving at full speed towards any fool who was driving towards us in the opposite direction intent on battering us out of his way.
Initially there would of course be a regrettable degree of carnage, but with the consolation that it would be the most determined drivers (always the most disruptive), along with their unfortunate passengers, who would be rapidly eliminated from the population. Their lives would be nasty, brutish and short. This would increase the safety of the rest, as there would be far less of us competing for the road space. And, of course, many chicken-hearted, weak-kneed cowardly individuals, unfit to take part in this brave new world of motoring, would refuse to drive at all: they, of course would be perfectly free to walk.
I used to speculate how long it would be before those of us remaining would begin to see the point of Thomas Hobbes assertion in his book "Leviathan": that we require some sovereign power to regulate our natural propensity to destroy each other. And how would the restoration of sanity be brought about? Perhaps wars would be fought over it: people rallying under flags signifying "Left" or "Right", and swearing eternal loyalty to their sacred cause.
My grandmother, born in 1866, did not "believe in" stop signs. They were just a new fangled annoyance that she wanted nothing to do with. In response, my mother never allowed any of us kids to go for a ride with her. I only learned why when I was a teenager in the mid 1960s.
The Midterms Will Not Solve the Problem
Those in the Resistance need to be thinking beyond the midterms.
Most Americans disapprove of His Royal Heinous, but they are looking for an easy solution. One that will not require even a small sacrifice on their part, or any disruption to their life.
They are putting too much faith in what the midterms will do. The midterms may have a beneficial psychologic effect but in reality the outcome will have little or no practical effect, unless the Dems can get 2/3 majority in the house and senate, which they won’t. They will not be able to undo anything His Royal Heinous has done, or pass new legislation, because of his veto power.
There will be investigations if the Dems take the House, but to what end. There will be no cooperation and HRH will pardon all perpetrators, and they know it.
They will impeach HRH, but we’ve seen that movie twice before. Convicted in the senate and removed from office? We can only hope, but hope is not a strategy.
He will continue to rule by “National Emergency“ and Executive Orders and almost surely the Supreme Court will allow it.
The greatest danger in all this is that it will appear that something beneficial is happening. The majority of people will believe the system is working. After about a year they will realize that nothing is changing. Then they will think, Oh well, he’ll be gone after the election next year.
Or will he? It took the Hungarians 16 years to get rid of Orban, and the Project 2025 people will certainly not make the same mistakes that Orban did.
For solutions, visit my profile page.
Please: Resist. Stop cooperating. Stop spending. Stop the fascist takeover.
Thank you for restacking, and sharing, to help Spread the Word!
Americans are in the mess they are, and it is a dangerous mess, because they are passive. They allow citizens to be enchained and murdered, corruption to run rife, rights diminished or eradicated, the courts and federal government to be hijacked, alliances and treaties abandoned, with hardly a murmur.
Sherrilyn Ifill:
“We have a very limited window to fight this. Whatever non-violent tools of resistance we have left must be deployed - boycotts, protests, litigation, general strikes, demonstrations. We must shame those who are prepared to sit on the sidelines or worse abet this madness. Corporations (who have shockingly even allowed Trump to nationalize percentages of their companies - the great fear they all claimed they had of the left) must be called out. What media we have left must be pushed to take up their proper role of informing the citizenry about the stakes of this moment. Faith institutions have begun to rouse themselves, but their actions must intensify.”
100%
Link to Ifill’s substack:
https://sherrilyn.substack.com/p/republican-senate-confirms-trump?r=1li1r&utm_medium=ios
Thanks for this info. I went to her profile page but don’t see a way to subscribe or view posts. ?
Sorry, I think I gave you her profile page instead of the newsletter. Trying again
https://sherrilyn.substack.com/?r=1li1r&utm_medium=ios
There are at least two streams of thought that I find relevant:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_exception
These two approaches are attempts to evade the Hobbesian nightmare of perfect libertarianism in which we all live in "continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Karl Popper thought deeply about the paradox of tolerance while Carl Schmitt devised his "state of exception" to justify the autocratic monarch or dictator.
Passive, low information voters who put Trump in power...twice. The GOP's Big Budget-Busting tax giveaway to the wealthy & big corporations, plus Trump's illegal tariff scheme, has effectively shifted the tax burden from the top to American small business and consumers. That's why companies like Costco are suing to get their money back,
Costco is getting their money back. But not the consumers, who paid higher prices because of the tariffs. Even the conservative readers of the WSJ were in a rage in the comments over this.
Thanks for pointing this out. Too many doomers here and other people trying to discourage Americans from taking back their country in November!
And those voters have now switched away from him! Even Fox News admits this!
https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3mt2q2ijtpk22
FOX!
Americans are passive??
Why are you trying to send Americans on a guilt trip and discourage them from activism?
Not when they're out in the streets bravely filming unbadged ICE agents who are rounding up immigrants and throwing them into unmarked vans.
Not when they're cleverly opposing those ARMED agents by dressing up in costumes like frogs to peacefully stop the kidnapping and violence.
Not when they're successfully organising the No Kings protests that have seen the biggest protests in US history - even in the Red states.
"Liberal" Europeans and Canadians should try being a bit more ... well... liberal and support Americans instead of attacking them.
First, thank you so much for introducing me to Vanessa Williamson. A fascinating discussion.
On a political level, I think the “centrest” democrats of Hillary, Biden and Harris did so poorly at convincing working class people that they cared about them was the constant reference to protecting those making $400,000 (or less). When $15 was being viewed as an outrageously high minimum wage ($30,000 at 40hrs/week for 50 weeks), declaring $400,000 as the people needing protection was insane.
I have lived a very comfortable life, but only had $400,000 in income the year I sold the house i had owned for over 40 years. When asked was I mad about having a very high tax bill, my answer was I was enormously lucky to have effectively lived for free for 40 years by the enormous gain.
Our household income is in the range of $150K. We could afford to pay more in income tax. The tax that does bother me is residential property tax, which I see as a wealth tax on the middle class.
People should consider that the payroll tax (both parts) is just under 15%, so its equivalent to the capital gains tax. But payroll taxes are extracted prior to receiving the payment. And capital gains taxes only when assets are sold. But workers also have to pay income tax on their wages--there is no income tax applied in addition to the capital gains. Thus “unearned income” is effectively not taxed as income--if you equate the capital gains and payroll taxes.
If you think of Biden as "centrist", you've allowed yourself to be fooled. The centrists pushed him out, Bernie stuck with him to the last. Why wss that? Pop over to You Tube, view "NABTU Biden endorsement", and you'll know why.
Manchin and Sinema made sure Biden couldn't put money directly in people's pockets for a reason (extension child care tax credit, child and elder care, "human infrastructure"). It turned out to be political suicide, but the checks are good.
Biden's administration did use some progressive action to get us out of the epidemic, and despite Sinema and Manchin, he had more legislative success than most since LBJ. But if you look at his political career, he was definitely centrist. He only looks more progressive because the Democratic party shifted to the right. Our most progressive administration was FDR's, but the progressiveness can be more accurately attributed to the influence of Eleanor and Francis Perkins and others he was wise enough to listen to, as opposed to his personal ideology.
Nixon was the last progressive president.
More than Carter, in some ways. The Reagan tax cut and deregulation agenda actually started under Carter.
But, in fact, the last progressive president was Joe Biden. His policies were as hard a 180 on 40+ years of neoliberal governance as the Congressional Democrats would support. His "vibe", largely a media production, obscured this, but Bernie's unwavering support testifies to it.
'NABTU Biden endorsement' on You Tube, take a look. My own union, IUOE, had record membership and man-hours under Biden. UAW, obviously, big fans, visiting your picket line and having your president as his guest at the State of the Union will do that. Biden had him stand and be recognized, congratulated him on a successful strike.
And he appointed Lina Khan, Jonathan Kanter, to undo 40 years of interpreting the antitrust laws into oblivion.
None of this was welcomed by incumbent power. We've been subjected to "aversion therapy" Biden wise,, to bury that agenda. It's not working, every Democrat catching fire is anti oligarchy.
You are right about Biden.
At least as a president.
But honestly Biden for the decades he was in Congress he was a center right legislator.
He was responsible for eliminating the right to declare bankruptcy for student loans.
There are Now 70 plus year olds still paying their student loans.
It’s also true that Biden was screwed by the major media outlets in that they did not give him the credit he deserved for helping the country recover from the Covid era.
The economy was really turning around but the
Narrative from the major media was that the economy was hurting.
It was not.
He did a really good job.
It was too little too late
However he was on the right track.
After over 30 years of Neo liberalism from democrats he was he was making an attempt to Turn it all around.
You had to pay taxes on capital gains from your primary residence? We don’t pay taxes on that in Canada. (We have lots of other taxes, though).
If Dems control the House they can stop appropriating. That is their actual (and Constitutional) power. They need to have the courage, wisdom, and fortitude to use it.
Also, if taxes can't be raised, they can opt to fund butter instead of guns. We need the CDC, NIH, FDA, and EPA. DOD, DHS not so much.
I believe you are correct. And dark-money backed democrats are not the answer. We require fundamental reforms, and I am concerned that there is insufficient flexibility in the current system to effect the needed changes. And if HRH is backed into a corner, he may very well deploy a violent response.
Fundamental reforms would start with the Democrats getting back Congress in November.
As for violence from HRH - ICE is already doing it - and yet the brave, heroic American people have not caved into it.
Saying that Democrats are not MUCH better than the alternative is like saying that Ukraine small amount of corruption means that it's not worth supporting it in its fight against Russia.
Geez Putin's done a good job on the propaganda!
We don’t have time for “fundamental reforms”.
We are in the middle of a five alarm fire, and while most of the country remains oblivious, too many in the resistance are wasting time discussing how to organize and implement a fire department. What’s needed from the general public is total non cooperation and a general Spending Strike. NOW!
Total "noncooperation and a general Spending Strike. Now! The odds of that happening are extremely low. Can you offer up a scenario where that is even a remote possibility?
To all the naysayers out there:
After you finish defecating on this Peaceful Solution, please favor us with your own peaceful solution, that will stop and reverse the fascist takeover of America.
When all else fails, as it is.
The Peaceful Solution-Part 3
How to accomplish a Spending Strike
“It’s the economy, stupid” as James Carville famously told Bill Clinton. It was then, and still is, in politics. The reelection of His Royal Heinous is largely attributed to the misperceived state of the economy. That’s what must be attacked, not individual corporations. The overall economy must suffer before the Greedy Bastards will pay attention.
HRH will not destroy the economy on his own (TACO). He will find a way to prop it up (like lower interest rates) because the economy and stock market are his report card and key to keeping power. The key to keeping power, as it is in Russia, China, Hungary, Turkey. They give the people a somewhat decent standard of living, and in exchange, the people have no political power. Only the autocrat has that. Unlimited.
Our best chance of success lies in obtaining high profile, national leadership and spokespersons. Fragmented, unknown groups leading the charge might work but would take much longer, and time is of the essence. Since the Disney boycott there have been more “bigger” names taking up the cause.
There will have to be a great amount of grassroot support before a national “leader” will take up the cause. Most of our supposed leaders are really followers of movements. They’ll get out front after it’s shown to have popular support. So, we recruit more foot soldiers, like ourselves, and spread the word on various Substacks and other social media platforms.
After mustering much grassroots support we can then approach some Substack writers who have many subscribers and appeal to them to take up the cause and spread the word. Writers like Jen Rubin, Steve Schmidt, Robert Reich, Heather Richardson, Paul Krugman. Again, a good amount of grassroots support will have to be demonstrated.
We will need an organized effort to encourage those writers to concentrate on this method of opposition. Possibly coordinated mass emails to them promoting the idea, or coordinated posts to their Substacks.
Then, hopefully, one or more national leaders will take up the cause. Possibly a steering committee composed of left, center and right individuals, but not current office holders. It should be seen as non partisan.
This will be a tough sell. Americans are addicted to buying. We are brainwashed from the cradle by advertising, popular culture, peer pressure, to consume. If you want to be happy and fulfilled, you must have this or that product. To overcome this, our fellow citizens must be convinced that this is the only viable peaceful solution to stop and reverse the fascist takeover. And it is.
If a single dollar doubles every day for 30 days, it reaches a total of over $536 million ($536,870,912) at the end of the 30th day.
So, would it follow, that a single voice that doubled everyday would become 536 million voices after 30 days? That seems doable.
Defeating the fascists in WWII did not happen without sacrifice from the citizens of the Allied countries. We will have to sacrifice to stop and reverse the fascist takeover of our country. We can sacrifice a little now or a much greater amount later. What kind of world will our children and grandchildren live in if we allow this to continue?
Spending Strike, Spending Freeze, Spending Suspension, Spending Pause, Economic Disengagement, Economic Warfare, Stop Spending!, even Boycott. Choose your favorite but Do It, and Spread the Word!, far, wide, and quickly, before the fascists takedown our means of communication.
Please: Resist. Stop cooperating. Stop spending. Stop the fascist takeover.
Thank you for restacking, and sharing, to help Spread the Word!
The Peaceful Solution-Part 2
Why a Spending Strike is the Best Option to Stop and Reverse the Fascist Takeover.
TINA: There Is No Alternative. There is no peaceful alternative.
Plan A
Plan A consists of phoning/writing your legislators, and street demonstrations, neither of which have worked nor give any sign of working. His Royal Heinous controls the majority party in the legislature and they are doing his bidding. As for street demonstrations:
From Professor Erica Chenoweth:
…”they often subject their participants to a higher risk of repression or communal violence from opponents. So movements that are capable of having the capacity to shift to methods of dispersion, like stay-at-homes or strikes or forms of economic noncooperation, tend to be much more effective because they have the capability of maneuver when the state begins to ramp up violence against them.”
Targeted boycotts
Why targeted boycotts are ineffective:
Boycotts often fail because they require massive, sustained participation to create meaningful financial pressure, lack clear alternatives for consumers, generate insufficient negative media attention, and are easily weathered by companies waiting for the protest to fade. Additionally, the complex nature of modern capitalism and the proliferation of corporate conglomerates can make it difficult for boycotters to effectively target and impact a company's bottom line or reputation, especially when companies have multiple revenue streams, like real estate, that aren't affected by consumer boycotts.
In 2020, Goya Foods praised President Donald Trump on social media, which caused those in opposition to Trump to boycott their products. Trump loyalists simultaneously initated a counter-boycott, where consumers bought mass quantities of their products, in response. The boycott caused Goya profits to increase dramatically because Trump supporters started an opposing campaign.
The midterm election
Will it be free and fair? It won’t be. Will it occur at all? HRH has already said that if we’re at war there’ll be no election. Guess what? If it’s looking bad for him, he’ll be at war to try to stop the election. The election is important to him because having the majority in the legislature gives the fascist regime the look of legitimacy, and stopping or stealing the election demonstrates his power. This election is going to unleash total chaos.
People are putting too much faith in what the midterms will do. They may have a beneficial psychologic effect but in reality the outcome will have little or no practical effect, unless the Dems can get 2/3 majority in the house and senate, which they won’t. They will not be able to undo anything HRH has done or pass new legislation because of his veto power, nor will they be able to get a conviction on Impeachment. We’ve seen that movie twice before, and know how it ends.
The Courts
While some lower courts have ruled against HRH, slowing his takeover, the rulings have been fast tracked to the Supreme Court. It has almost universally ruled in HRH’s favor. SCOTUS members Roberts and Barrett may have an epiphany and save the country from civil war, but it’s doubtful. It’s going to be up to us to stop this.
Time is running out for a Peaceful Solution. Please Spread the Word!, far, wide, and quickly, before the fascists takedown our means of communication.
Please: Resist. Stop cooperating. Stop spending. Stop the fascist takeover.
Thank you for restacking, and sharing, to help Spread the Word!
The Peaceful Solution-Part 1
How much do you want to stop His Royal Heinous and the fascist takeover of the country?
Enough that you’re willing to make a small sacrifice? Like altering your spending habits for a month or two or three? That could be all it would take to get the attention of the oligarchs (formerly known as The Robber Barons in the first Gilded Age, also The Fat Cats, The Greedy Bastards).
A brief demonstration of We, the People’s, power of the purse could persuade them to quit supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
We quit spending, except on essentials, businesses lose money, stock market goes down, Greedy Bastards pay attention to our demands.
Greedy Bastards own most of the politicians of both major parties. GBs start losing money, tell politicians to change course and do what We, the People want.
We are running out of peaceful options. The legislature and Supreme Court are controlled by HRH. He controls the executive branch, including the Military, Justice Department, FBI, ICE, the IRS. He controls all levers of power.
We, the people, still have the power of the purse. No one can control our spending, or lack of spending. When all else fails we can go on a spending strike until the business community stops supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
Economic warfare is the only thing the oligarchs, the business community will understand and act on. Call it a Surreptitious General Strike (Quiet Quitting). Go to work, do as little as possible. Stop spending money except on essentials. Quit feeding the corporate beast that supports the HRH.
Stop participating. Nearly 70% of the U.S. economy is driven by consumer spending. All of us. Hobble the economy and the stock market. Mahatma Gandhi drove the British from India by peaceful civil disobedience and economic disruption. We can stop the fascist takeover in the same way.
We can keep rehashing past and present atrocities until our access to the internet is taken away by the regime, or we can DO something!
Please: Resist. Stop cooperating. Stop spending. Stop the fascist takeover.
Thank you for restacking, and sharing, to help Spread the Word!
The type of potential violence I’m talking about would be a HRH initiated “insurrection” of a much greater magnitude than J6. And yes, establishment democrats are better than the alternative but they will do little to effect meaningful change. And please, your reference to Russian trolls impacting my thoughts on this issue is far-fetched and rather offensive.
Why are you discouraging Americans from voting by playing down the importance of the November midterm elections?
Fun fact - Russian troll farms are still a "significant" impact on US politics-
https://johnrhardingjr.substack.com/p/the-evolution-and-impact-of-russian
If I was running the Russian troll factory in St Petersburg, I would allocate trolls to discouraging people from voting in the midterms.
One important way to help destroy US patriotic morale in that department would be to have trolls embed themselves inside liberal Substacks and pretend to be radical - but in reality they would just be there to discourage Democrats and others from voting in the midterms. I really would do that.
But hey that's just me. Think the Cowboys or the Seahawks will win this weekend?
Meanwhile suckers like me are paying massive amounts of taxes relative to their net worth because my wife and I both have high salaries and one home. The Republicans favor business owners and those who own multiple properties and Democrats want to tax high salaries to death that the rich elite simply don’t have (they have massive amounts of unrealized gains and live off of practically free loans) but the upper-middle class does have high salaries. So, those with high salaries who worked themselves to death to get them are the ones getting raked over the coals by both sides. I literally paid 20% of my net worth in taxes in one year last. If that keeps happening I will be bankrupt in a few more years when I should be retiring and my social security will probably be taken away by the right. There’s no way out, even if the Democrats win, they just make it worse.
You should be thrilled be able to pay 20% of your net worth. For years, I paid 40% of meager disability income for health care while trying to hold onto my home. It's easy to complain without seeing how others fare.
Democrats have fixed the economy every time they have taken over from Republicans for many decades. Meanwhile perhaps you need a better tax advisor.
Don’t tax income
Tax wealth
Eliminate the tax theory of
“Realized gain”
Very educational! It reinforces, in my mind, the fact that money in politics is intentionally destructive to democracy. Citizens United actually is the culmination of the "I am the master, you are the slave" mentality from the days of accomodating legal slavery.
The legacy of slavery might explain the uniquely non progressive nature of US politics compared to Europe. (Don’t take this as criticism, many European countries were supporting slavery, but in distant colonies).
It is very hard to persuade people that their government is worth paying for when it is the Trump government. In fact, the blue states should be withholding federal taxes in order to starve it, not sustain it.
Terence, 100%. All blue state voters need to contact their governors and state AG to hold onto their federal taxes. No taxation without representation. We are not being represented. We are no longer a representative democracy.
They can't. Federal taxes are largely withheld via payroll deductions far outside the reach of any state official.
This. Who are these idiots advocating tax-strikes in California and other Blue States? Gavin Newsom does not see the buckos withheld by California employers. They are bundled off to DC within a statutorily determined number of days after collection determined by the volume of withholdings.
Failure to remit results in a sharp penalty levied on the business.
Further, withholding funds is self defeating and in the end will only fuel the already ballooning deficit spending spree the Trump administration is enjoying.
and shortly after I quit sending that check to the IRS, they will come and take my home.
Thankfully, I don't think IRS is staffed well enough to to go after small fish as they ignore the big fish avoiding their tax obligations ... unless ICE can do that too ... just dont think that crew is capable of mathing.
In the past, it's worked the other way 'round. They go after the little fish because the little guys can't fight. Remember that Trump had the IRS tied up for years before he came down that escalator.
We need to remember two things that might seem contradictory.
1. By democratic standards the USA has really gone downhill under the current regime.
2. By dictatorship standards the USA has not become Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. It is a lot better than those regimes.
The November elections are so important! Vote! And help organise others to vote too if you can.
Might that not be used as the sort of casus belli that Trump is salivating for?
Well, just this week Trump said he's withholding FEMA etc from states that didn't vote for him. Do the states just let him do it? Do the states have a line in the sand? Most of this is unconstitutional, and there don't seem to be much push back.
The pushback is in the courts. NYT has a running list of cases and their status at least once a week.
There seems to be a lack of correlation between "Trump said" and legally confirmed reality.
That is fascinating about Thomas Paine writing in 1791 recommending a high tax on income from wealth. Obviously, the "founding fathers" who were happy for his contributions before and during the "revolution" didn't take his advice on this at all.
Since the very beginning the US has not been a true economic democracy. Daniel Shays returned from fighting in the "American Revolution" to find he was losing his farm to taxation. He and other citizens formed the Regulators and raised a rebellion in 1786 against onerous taxation, blocking the proceedings of tax courts, which raised the ire of one George Washington who urged the rebellion be put down at once. A mercenary army from Boston did that in 1787, financed by wealthy Boston merchants. The revolution was en elite coup against Britain. Despite all the talk about "We the people", we've never had real economic democracy in the USA. It's run by the rich for the rich. They see the people as a resource to be used as cheap labor, and if they can use cheaper labor elsewhere, they're happy to offshore the factory.
IIRC, the onerous austerity policies that provoked that rebellion were undone by the next state gov't, headed by John Hancock, overwhelmingly elected to do just that.
It's a "ballots not bullets" story.
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all." G.K.Chesterson.
'We have a choice in this country,we can have either democracy or highly concemtrated private wealth, we cannot have both.' Louis Brandeis.
I submit Biden knew what he was doing when he appointed "neo-Brandeisians" like Lina Khan to restore enforcement of the antitrust laws. The media monopolists knew what he was doing, too.
Of course, his talking about billionaires paying their fair share and his support for unions didn't win him friends among the rich, either.
I'm 73, and this interview was like watching my economic life pass before my eyes, the progressive degradation I've only partly been able to protect myself from. Now we've reached the end state of the program Louis Powell laid out in 1971, reckless misrule by deranged billionaires, of whom Trump and Musk are only the most flagrant.
The rich chose Trump over Biden's temperate New Deal 2.0. They exercised their power to make sure the "vibes" were bad for low info voters, and prevented direct ongoing financial support for them.
We must make them pay for it.
Hear, hear!!
"We must make them pay for it."
Yes, we must.
You do know Powell and his memo is being implemented by Democrats too. Right?
Which brings to mind an older, white couple imterviewed after voting for Haley in the NH primary. Asked who'd they'd be voting for in November if Trump won the nomimation, they said Biden, age or no, the man adding, "I'd vote for Biden if he was dead!"
“To some degree, I think that destruction has made the value of government more evident. It has brought things like the role of the CDC, or the fact that we had people watching our nuclear silos, to the forefront of our minds. But what I have not seen is politicians on the center-to-left talk seriously about the idea that the United States government is worth being paid for by all of us.”
Another critically important conversation at this time. Vanessa Williamson lays down the gauntlet to the rest of us. Yes indeed we Americans are willing to be taxed to support the overall health and happiness of the people at large, and to reinforce our power to shape and democracy through our elected representatives! Williamson talks about the political pressure groups that politicians listen to. Maybe we need a new one pushing the idea that EVERYONE should pay his/her fair share to bring the United States back to life!
What happens if Americans don't pick up the gauntlet Vanessa has thrown down?
At some point not too long from now, Congress will have to raise taxes in order to meet debt payments:
The population is no longer growing. The national debt is growing faster than the economy. Taxes cannot be reduced to less than the interest payments are already the largest single expense in the budget. Voters have power when the governent needs their money.
I don't know what will happen, but the chickens are on their way home to roost.
On Mamdani's pied-a-terre tax, I repost a comment from "BadWolffe" on Daily Kos:
There's quite a lot of tax cheats that live in NYC. People who claim to live in a lower tax state and register their cars there, but actually live in NYC. Now the state is involved. They're looking to see who claims that yes, they actually live in their condos/homes/co-ops, but are registered as living elsewhere. Apparently, there are lots of out of state cars that park on the streets of NYC for months at a time. Almost as if their owners live there but registered their cars elsewhere.
So these tax cheats are now caught on the twin horns of a dilemma. They got sent the letter asking them to verify that they actually live there (and part of the stink is precisely because they claim they aren't), but the state is going to verify their registration. NYC doesn't tax workers who live elsewhere. They only tax residents. Have they, in fact, been cheating on their NY State and NYC taxes and thus they have to pay up all those lovely back taxes for both their cars and for the additional taxes they've dodged? Or, will they pay the yearly tax on a home they claim they don't live in?
Registering a car in another state is done, afaik, to avoid the truly extortionate insurance rates in NYC (I live in the Bronx, so I know). I was once told by an ex-insurance investigator, that a considerable part of his workload was such frauds.
All good points, Greg, but I’m not disposed to give up on the U.S. yet. I think a new realignment is coming in which we work out some of our problems and emerge a stronger democracy. We oblige MAGA by giving up so let’s not!
That is definitely true and when the US gets even further out on the limb of highest interest expense on debt / gdp such that the value of the dollar falls relative to other advanced countries we deride as socialistic that have more rational taxation arrangements, we will have to make very major adjustments. Taxing the very wealthy will only be part of the necessary solution.
Revoking South Dakota's statehood would be a very good first step in recovering some ill-gotten gains from the wealthy. The ironclad "trusts" that South Dakota offers have to go. They and similar "legal" entanglements are the primary means by which oligarchies preserve the results garnered from the intelligence of one generation over many generations of idiots.
I wonder why Professor Krugman is blind to Canada. He will mention several times the social welfare states of Europe as high-tax countries, but not the much larger, more populous, wealthier, and analogous contiguous nation to the north.
Hi Terence.
I have heard Dr. Krugman mention Canada from time to time.
In the last year, I have started reading/ listening to some American academics. Canada is usually under the radar, partly I think, because we do not speak up enough.
The tariff battle is not just about tariffs. It is about surviving as a nation.
The American national anthem is about a people becoming independent - bombs, and rockets. The Canadian national anthem is about retaining independence - “We stand on guard for thee.” I have sung that anthem from my first days in school. Never realized what it meant until now.
Hi Terence. Me again. Without looking it up to check the wording, Dr. Krugman recently referred to being in Europe. I think he said something about having to be outside the US A to find out what the rest of the world thinks. What he may not realize is that unless he was eavesdropping, polite society was not going to say what it really thinks of the USA in front of him. Dr. Krugman is a very nice man, putting hours in to protect his democracy.
Terence, what we need to do is invite Dr. Krugman to visit Canada. He might even want to work here. Canada is trying to attract American academics.
We got Tim Snyder, a wonderful coup for UofT. Krugman has been to Canada, but somehow just rarely considers it, even statistically. Like many Americans. I used to ignore that; now it irritates me after Trump's disdain.
I believe he's on vacation in New England.
If Canada spoke up, what would it say? Specifically, what could Canada say to a polity for whom reality is optional?
Consider the USMCA: Trump's tariffs have already done more damage to US manufacturing than any retaliatory action Canada is willing to take. Impacted US companies have spoken at legislative hearings, none spoke of a positive impact.
... also...
It's incorrect to say Canada has been silent. The province of Ontario ran an ad during the world series. Canadian politicians, business leaders, and academics have been on the US speaking circuit.
"The province of Ontario ran an ad during the world series."
Yes, put together by our occasionally Trumpish premier. It used an assemblage of excerpts from a speech by none other than Ronald Reagan, speaking out against tariffs. And Trump punished us for that with another round of tariffs specifically designed to hurt Ontario.
Funny isn't it that Trump has never imposed any tariffs on all the Canadian oil and gas that it imports from Alberta and Saskatchewan?
Hi Greg.
Point taken. By speaking up more, I was thinking about Canada’s history. The other academics I read/ listen to are not economists.
The US national anthem isn't about the American Revolution, it's about a battle during the War of 1812. (During that war, British troops invaded the United States and burned down the White House.)
Thanks for the correction, Doug.
Very informative. Thank you.
I am Canadian. We have the tariff/sovereignty issue to consume most of our politicians’ attention these days. However, in other times, I think their dilemma was balancing Canadians’ desire for social programmes similar to Europe’s, but with a tax base influenced by the USA. If taxes are too high in Canada, capital flows out of the country.
I wake up every day grateful for a prime minister who is a former banker, and a governor general who is a former war crimes prosecutor.
Why doesn't anyone talk anymore about the falsity of contract work? The invention of the 1099 shifted tax burdens and eliminated employee protection for million of people.
Zohran Mamdani very much is, re abuse of this by Amazon delivery drivers in NYC. There's a law before the City Council, saw ad supporting it.
Reagan's role in the current difficulties regarding taxation cannot be understated. It was his masterful use of rhetoric and memes that pushed the anti-tax forces forward. His taunting about "welfare queens" has not been forgotten. The irony is that the squeeze now for those same funds comes in red-state America when it comes down to programs for care of elderly people, the parents and grandparents who heeded to the Republican mantra then and now face lack of therapy and food supplements in their elder years.
I wish some economists would study what is done with the marginal income and cap gains that are not being taxed. Are those funds being used for charity? Are they being used for vacations? Are they being used to buy big vacation homes? Are they being used to start a business? Or, are they being used to buy a very fancy wristwatch? It comes back to the trickle down theory, also one of the mantras of the 70's and 80's to justify reducing taxes. We know that theory is invalid, but to what extent?
It was in the Reagan era that I heard the phrase "starve the beast" meaning increase our deficits, make tax increases an anathema, and put pressure on the social safety net of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. It's happened and they are being squeezed. Will they survive, maybe not if a Trumpist government is re-elected in 2026 and 2028.
The Epstein Class is building bunkers. With air conditioning. They see what's coming.
Building a bunker is a fantasy, just as colonizing Mars or the Moon to escape the ravages of global warming, economic collapse, societal disintegration, etc.
What good will bunkers be if the grid crashes or is sabotaged? Ditto the water supply, etc, etc.
Colonizing othet planets id beyond absurd...given that Musk can't even fulfill his original pledge for fully functioning self-driving technology.
They have the money, but no answers, so they hide in fantasy and pretend AI will magically solve the problems.
Denial is the one thing most Americans agree upon.
Best interview I’ve heard since Obama…..
Best freeway banner / billboard:
- The percent you pay in taxes: n%
- The percent corporations pay in taxes: n%
- The percent billionaires pay in taxes: n%
PS: For me, this is one of your most enlightening interviews yet. Thank you!
By the way Paul, thank you for the 'university of Krugman', economics department, particularly I have enjoyed the video interviews that you do. Blessings. Although I am a daily reader of yours for many years.
it is so dispiriting. The economic royalists not only enrich themselves beyond our wildest nightmares, they also render it nigh impossible for a future humane government (if any) to undo the damage. They are like the barbarian hordes of the third and fourth centuries who burned what they couldn't loot.
With the climate change burning going on, with more to come, you can drop the "like".
What Williamson is describing from the tax side has a physical counterpart. When the wealthy stop paying for shared infrastructure, they don't go without, instead they build their own. Private schools replace public ones. Gated communities replace the public park. The data center replaces the public utility. Every dollar not collected (often because of the tax avoidance strategies of the elite) doesn't disappear, it gets redirected into a parallel, private geography available only to the people who can afford the membership. The result is exactly what Williamson warns about: a government too poor to act, because the money has been rerouted into private infrastructure that serves the same functions government used to, just for fewer people. Taxation builds the commons, while billionaires are building new enclosures.
Or buying politicians.
ESPECIALLY buying politicians