millionaires

Stupid Conservative Talk Radio Host Tricks ( Ray Rice Ethics Train Wreck Division)

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

rushs-foot-in-mouth-problem

Believe it or not, many conservative radio talk show hosts can be insightful, erudite, analytical and fair. Unfortunately, even the smartest of them have an unfortunate tendency to let their deep-seated ideology lead them to undermine their credibility when an objective analysis might force them to agree that in a particular matter, their most reviled progressive foes are right. The repulsive recent effort by the conservative talkers to paint the NFL and its various woman and/or child-beating players as victims of a political correctness campaign is a  vivid example.

This kind of thing is why so many people hate you who have never listened to your show, Rush. You have nobody to blame but yourself.

I’m going to ignore Sean Hannity, who actually took off his belt and smacked it on his desk to show how he was raised to be the virtuous, patriotic, narrow-minded, low-brow pundit he is today. Both Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, however, who are capable of making coherent arguments, cannot similarly plead intellectual dysfunction like Hannity: they are capable of better. Yet they spent time on their programs defending the NFL from the “liberal media smear” that the NFL is “full of criminals … wife beaters, sexual abusers, murderers, rapists.” It’s not true! In fact, studies show that the rate of violent crime in the NFL is less than that of the general population! Continue reading →

Unethical Feature: “Top 10 People Who Don’t Deserve To Be Millionaires”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

And leave Bubbles alone.

I know: it’s a feature, it’s a gag, it’s not meant to be taken seriously. I don’t care: the underlying attitude behind The Daily Caller’s recent slideshow, “Top 10 People Who Don’t Deserve To Be Millionaires” is too common these days to be emulated, even in half or whole jest. The belief that citizens of the U.S. “don’t deserve” to have the money they do is at the root of toxic politics, bad economic policy, class resentment and self-excused jealousy, and it shouldn’t be encouraged. If there is a genuine and persuasive argument to be made that people don’t deserve the money they earn, then make it, and you have to do better than “you didn’t build that!”

Taylor Bigler, the Caller’s entertainment editor who compiled the list, doesn’t. She just appeals to jealousy, as if nobody really really does resent people who have made more money than they have so its fine to pretend they do. “Now, some people are millionaires because they are ambitious and kept their noses to the grindstone,” she says. “Those people certainly deserve their hard-earned success. But honestly, there are many other people who are millionaires that simply don’t deserve to be.” Like? Continue reading →

A Radical Suggestion to Foster Tax Fairness

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Maybe it should be more. But it is far from "unfair." That 99%, however...

The interminable and depressing negotiations over raising the debt limit have recently featured unseemly demagoguery from the President about making “millionaires and billionaires” pay their “fair share” in taxes. I have no ideological objection to raising tax rates on the richest Americans and even Americans like me; after all, as Willy Sutton pointed out when explaining why he robbed banks, “that’s where the money is,” and we have to pay our bills somehow. The fairness argument, however, is dishonest, and blatantly unfair.

It is unfair because the richest 1% of Americans pay close to 40% of the total tax revenue. Now, that 1% also have a lot of money, but they use a lot of that money to run businesses, create new products and services and hire employees. Maybe they should pay even more, and maybe they get too many tax breaks. To say that paying 40% of the total tax revenue is something to be ashamed of, however, is dishonest. Continue reading →