Woooooooooh. Barack Obama Elected president.

As we decide who to vote for - let's all try and understand at least one
common issue - basic bar stool economics.

Econ 101

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten
comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it
would go
something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every
day
and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one! day, t h e owner
threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers, he said,
'I'm
going to reduce the cost of your daily beer b y $20. Drinks for the ten
now
cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, so
the
first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But
what
about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide
the
$20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized
that
$20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from
everybody's
share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid
to
drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to
reduce
each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out
the
amounts each should pay.
And so: The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100%
savings)
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
T he eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued
to
drink for free. But once outside the restaurant the men began to compare
their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed
to
the tenth man,' but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar,
too.
It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'

'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back
when I
got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get
anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat
down
and ! had bee rs without him. But when it came time to pay the bill,
they
discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between
all of
them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our
tax
system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit
from
a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and
they
just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking
overseas
where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

Also check these:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB122463231048556587-lMyQjAxMDI4MjI0MzYyMzMyWj.html

and

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB122455099434052597-lMyQjAxMDI4MjI0MjUyNTIwWj.html
 

Oh man. America. America.

You know I'm glad Obama beat McCain and all, but there was something that struck me (and incidently my dad). As foreigners it's quite obvious. It's even blatantly obvious by the rhetoric used in this thread (socialism, communism etc), that the US is terrirfied of anything slightly left. It's so bad that its humurous to many outside observers. You get one media outlet saying Obama has connections to some activist he knew back in college and it exlpodes into accusations of him being a communist dictator from Cuba. It really is funny. But on the other hand it's not. It reduces actual representation within the democracy because any leader realistically wanted to get into the White House has to distance themselves from that discourse as much as possible, so many policies of the traditional left, ie concern for the 'environment' (you can't have an economy without a healthy working 'environment' (I put environment in 'environment' because I see it as a part of us and us a part of it, not a separate entity)) are drastically disregarded. This all results in a party (the democrats) running a campaign at the furtherest, along centrist ideologies. So you have a centrist party and a right wing party. The left - the whole of the left- are disregarded as too close to communism to win an election. Sad. 

That's just one observation I made. And yes, I would have voted for Nader.