It's unfortunate but most people's minds are not changed by intellectual analysis. Most people's opinions are more often changed by metaphor, images, and slogans.My previous posts have used logical analysis and economic theory to explain my antipathy to Obama's unprecedented trillion-dollar spending package. In this post, I will use metaphor, an image (see right,) and a slogan:
We'd ridicule a farmer who'd eat his seed corn (the corn he uses to plant his crops.) Yet Obama's "stimulus" plan of bailouts for bad companies, overreaching credit card and mortgage holders, and tax increases (Yes, he WILL increase net taxation) would eat America's seed corn: the money that successful businesses use to hire new workers and develop new products, and the money that individuals use to buy things from good companies and to save/invest for their future.
Sure, short-term, Obama's stimulus package will create some jobs but when the seed corn of our tax dollars runs out, the jobs created by our tax dollars will wither away and our economy won't grow--Rather, America will become an ever less arable land.
So, the slogan? Don't Let Obama Eat Our Seed Corn!
The maggots inside the corn kernel is undoubtedly a jarring and memorable image, but I think you'd need a better slogan. How many people can relate to "seed corn"? The closest most of us get to corn nowadays is the high fructose corn syrup in our favorite soda.
ReplyDeleteBesides, if you're going to start something like this, I recommend to beef up your number of followers first. Then you'll have a ready made audience who'll go along with almost anything you say. Not unlike our current president.
I saw this happen most recently this morning. I looked at two different blogs. On one, Robert Reich was responding to the brouhaha that's started over what he said recently about construction workers, and he wrote an open letter to some of his conservative retractors. Most of his readers' comments agreed with him.
Then I checked out the blog of one of the specifically named detractors, Michelle Malkin. She had written a response to Reich's letter. Most of her readers' comments agreed with her.
It's almost as if the issue at hand really didn't matter to the readers. What mattered more is what their favorite bloggers thought. Sad but true.
I'm glad you welcome disagreement at your blog, Mr. Nemko. In a good discussion, there can be room for respectful disagreement. But that's one of the reasons why I don't think the "seed corn" movement will get off the ground.
Marty,
ReplyDeleteI grew up on a farm in Nebraska, and we raised many crops including seed corn. I give you credit because most people do not know the difference between seed corn and sweet corn.....including my co-workers at USDA in DC! Thank heaven we used insecticides at planting time.
Without the stimulus package will small businesses have *any* profit on which to pay taxes?
ReplyDeleteRemember when a business loses money or closes shop completely there is dramatically less tax revenue.
Which is worse, the most profitable businesses keep a little less or everybody drags down without government helping demand during an economic crisis? A negative spiral is a risk you need to keep close in mind and not ignore.
You think a TRILLION dollars (and many are predicting the number will end up much higher still) is "a LITTLE less" money left in the hands of individuals and businesses.
ReplyDeletethe TRILLION dollars in money spent by the government is to increase market demand. That is $$ placed directly INTO the economy not taken from it, that is the whole point.
ReplyDeleteThe little bit less money for these profitable businesses refers to the difference in tax rates on their profits which would go up slightly for the highest earners.
Unfortunately his spending will go into parts of the economy MINIMALLY likely to produce enduring ripple effects:
ReplyDelete-- Government-run and mandated regulation
-- Alternative energy schemes that are sloppy thousandths--the schemes all the private companies rejected as unworthy.
-- Redistribution from successful businesses and people to badly run businesses and people who borrowed more than they could comfortably afford to.
The money would be better kept in the economy by letting people businesses keep and spend/invest it as they see fit.
Yes, definitely keep reminding your readers of the unprecedented nature of the stimulus.
ReplyDeleteWould you please go back and just delete that mention of 7 trillion committed with no Congressional oversight to one economic sector over and above the September bailout bill?
It makes the unprecedented nature of this broader spending package much clearer. If plebes remember (granted, highly unlikely) that earlier set of executive policies, focused on socializing loss so that the financial markets could resume their normal practice of privatizing profits, they may be confused about the new level of national hazard represented by Barak Hussein Obama.
After all, at the end of the day, in an egalitarian society the visionaries who take great risks must be protected at any cost. The plebes must never be allowed to think they merit more than words, and neither too many nor the inflammatory sorts of those.
Thanks kindly,
Alan G
Alan, I don't mind inflammatory comments that are on-point. But using President Obama's middle name is unnecessarily inflammatory. I am no Obama fan but I want to debate his policies--the fact that he has a Muslim background is irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteJust as I believe that reverse discrimination is a net negative to society, so do I believe is focusing at all on people's race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. That is an aspect of libertarians that is too often not realized by the public.