We have all heard it again and again. That the job creators are the backbone of the U.S. economy. That the individuals on welfare or employment insurance are the takers, the leeches of society that are the reason for our budget deficit. The horrible 47% that are just looking for a free ride.
We have also heard the term "Make your money work for you." Isn't it great that if you are fortunate enough to have money, that you can forego that whole "putting in a hard days work" and just let your electronic digits go to work, so you can go to the golf course and shoot a few holes while your money tirelessly slaves away to earn you your rightfully earned money.
How hard does a person on welfare have to work just to make at most $900 a month?
Well, they have to apply. Let's look at a welfare application to see how much paperwork is involved? http://www.dpw.state.pa.us/... . Then they have to do their monthly paperwork to keep making their paltry salary. It may not be a lot of work, but it's far more than a lot of CEO's do to make more than $900 dollars in one hour.
How about someone on employment insurance? They have to work for at least 20 weeks a year (real work....not imaginary work), they have to pay into the program, then they have to be laid off due to a shortage of work (no other reason for leaving will do), and then they have to fill out an initial application along with weekly submissions just to make 40-50% of their original earnings. And then of course if they come to the end of their allowed 26 weeks without finding work, it's either welfare or the streets. Wow....what a bunch of lazy mooches.
Now let's look at how much someone has to do to "make their money work for them?" If you want to do it online you can set up a direct investment account. Here is a site for setting one up. The process takes about 10 minutes to complete:
https://express.etrade.com/...
After that, all you need to do is put in money, read up on what stock you want to buy, and place an order. Or you can make a quick call to your investment broker and pay him a few bucks to do it for you. After that, voila.....your money is working for you. The only limitations to what you can earn is the amount you put in, and the performance of the stock.
So how hard do these "job creators" need to work to make money? A bit of mouse clicking on a computer, a few typed words, and voila!!! Just like that they are creating jobs.
So how many jobs do they create? When they buy stock in Apple when it's low, and then sell it off when it's high, does their investment lead to increased jobs at Apple? It could. Apple could use this money towards marketing, R&D, and other activities that lead to job creation. But since the stocks are usually only short term, selling them off as soon as they can make more money than they spent, realistically an individual who makes money off a trade did little more than swirl money around in a fake economy.
What really drives Apple is people buying Apple products. Who are most of those people? The real job creators. Those that work for a living, earn a real wage, and buy computers and phones. Regardless of the level or value of Apple's stocks, it can not make what people are not willing to buy.
So our job creator hasn't really done much of anything at all to contribute to jobs.
But they are paying taxes? So they contribute to society in that way right?
Yes, but considering capital gains tax is only 15%. That means that a "job creator" who let's his money work for him pays about half what a middle class person who has to actually perform labor does. And if the job creator has clever accountants who use a lot of loopholes and write offs they may find ways to pay far less than 15%.
So why are we essentially subsidizing job creators?
That supposed "mooch" who is supposedly the scourge of America is stealing from American tax payers by taking $900 dollars, that job creator who does nothing, but let's his money work for him cheats the American taxpayer out of $150,000 when he earns $1,000,000 of money by doing nothing at all.
There is a lot that needs to happen to fight inequality in America. But let's start by cutting subsidies off the real mooches of society. Those that barely do any real work, and pay far less tax. Not because of their talents, or their work ethic, or any other real traits they possess. Just because they were at some point fortunate enough, through birth or by luck to make the amount of imaginary digits to let the digits do the work so they don't have to.
If there was one very simple thing we could do to promote real jobs in the real economy, it would be to eliminate the subsidy we provide to the capital gains tax. If they at least eliminated it for investors that held the stock for less than a prescribed period of time, it would be a disincentive to invest in a stock just because the price may go up next week. It would be an incentive to invest in solid companies that make actual products and hires actual people to make things and provide services.
It would not eliminate all inequality in our society, but it would be a very solid start towards slowing the casino capitalism that is ruining the real economy.