Thu Mar 29, 2012 at 05:26 AM PDT
I wrote this to make as clear as I possibly could the failure of the Bush tax cuts.
I also wrote this to indoctrinate your children and turn them into a little army of communists. :)
Thank you for reading and feel free to comment!
This town has 100 people living in it. Every day, 50 of the town's citizens buy your lemonade.
To be able to serve the citizens, you've hired 2 of your friends to help you run the stand.
You have a solid and loyal customer base and serve half the town lemonade everyday! You're making a lot of money! Very Good!
Of course, you have costs, which means you can't keep all the money you make. You have to spend money to keep the lemonade stand operating. You have to pay your friends, that you've you hired, for their work, you have to pay for upkeep and to update the stand itself, and you have to pay the town your lemonade stand is in. However, after this, you are still left with a lot of money and are doing great! You are making what's called a "profit" because you are charging more for the lemonade than it costs you to make it. This can sound like a dirty trick, but when reasonable, it's simply business.
Why should you have to pay the town (the government) for the money YOU made? That's a great question!
You see, without the town, there would be no homes, roads, electricity, running water, police, firemen, hospital, post office, schools, or any civilization. Therefore, you would not be able to run your business in this town nor make any money.
The town, by governing, creates the civilization that your lemonade stand runs and thrives in. So you give them a small amount of your money. These are called "taxes".
In politics, there are two basic beliefs about how much in taxes businesses like yours should pay.
One side believes that we should slightly raise taxes on businesses like yours and on people who have a lot of money, so that the town can raise more money to create even jobs, then people not as fortunate as you can work and make money to spend at your lemonade stand.
The other side believes that you should pay much lower taxes than you already do. They say that if you keep your money and don't contribute to the town you run your lemonade stand in, that you will have more money to create jobs and contribute the way you want to to the town AND not the town government's way.
Let's imagine the last way...
Let's say that you get to keep all the money you make and not have to give any to the town. It's all yours! So far so good.
Now you can use that money to expand your lemonade stand and even hire a few more of your friends! Maybe even sell different kinds of lemonade! This sounds like a great idea!
The problem is that now that you don't give the town money anymore, the citizens who have a lot less money than you do, have to pay more to make up for what you don't pay. The people that buy your lemonade everyday now have less money, so they have to cut back on their spending and aren't buying your lemonade as much, if at all.
But That's okay!
You still have a lot of money and you just hired two more friends. Now four friends work for you. You also have to pay them, but now that you don't pay the town, you can easily afford it.
However, the people of the town have less money, so you only serve 25 people a day now. With less customers buying lemonade, your new friends that you just hired aren't needed. In fact, you only need you and another friend to serve 25 people. Since it's bad for your lemonade stand to spend money on employees you don't need, you have to lay off three of your, driving up the cost of your unemployment insurance. :(
So now you have to cut back on how much you pay your remaining friend, but you are still not making as much money as you did when you had 50 customers a day. So you cut back by buying cheaper lemonade while charging a little more for it. Since you raised your prices, you dropped down to 20 customers a day. But since you need to try and keep making as much money as you always have, you keep cutting back. You cut your friend's pay again for their work. You might not feel good about this, but you don't want to lose the money you are making for yourself and you business.
Eventually, the amount of money you make everyday will stay the same or "Stagnate" and you won't be able to reach the amount of money you use to make when the citizens of the town had the money to buy your lemonade.
You will still have a lot of money for yourself, but your lemonade stand will never recover and sooner or later, a bigger lemonade stand that makes more money everyday will either buy you out or run you out of business.
You don't want that to happen, but still, you like not giving the town the money you worked for.
Then you find out that there is another town across the river that lets you pay them even less than the town you are in. Also, the citizens of this town will work for much, much less than the workers you have now. So even though this means you would have to lay off your remaining friend and move your lemonade stand to that town, it would mean you get to keep even more of your money! You would even get to sell your lemonade to your hometown even though it is being made in the other town! Wonderful!
The only problem is that now that you've closed your lemonade stand, even more people in your hometown have less money because you no longer pay them for work. You are making a lot of money for yourself, but the town you started in is very poor and your lemonade is made cheaper and is not as good as it use to be.
You have done very well for yourself and still have a lot of money, but your lemonade stand has suffered greatly and people in your hometown are very angry with you for putting your personal profit over the community you got all that money in. They are the people who bought your lemonade and made it possible for you to have all that money. They are not happy with you and will remember what you did forever.
The moral of this story is that having more money does not make you a good person. Getting too carried away with wanting more money can actually make you a horrible person. Money is not evil, it is just pieces of paper. Greed is evil.
Being a good person means doing what you feel is right and fair to others, not always what's best for you.
Now you can go outside and play. :)
| BREAKING NEWS: REPUBLICANS PASS MILLIONAIRES OVER MEDICARE BUDGET Friend --
Republicans' radical budget plans are racing through Congress left and right with the support of shady right-wing SuperPACs. The DCCC is ready to mount a nationwide response -- but we have to act fast. Contributions or gifts to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are not tax deductible.
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My Fellow American, I'll get right to it -
We need to raise $67,114 by the end of the month to fully fund our Wisconsin recall campaign.
The polls in Wisconsin are neck-and-neck. Three Democrats are running in the primary to beat right-wing Gov. Scott Walker -- and all three of them are beating Walker or polling within the margin of error in head-to-head match-ups.
We are closer than ever before to beating Scott Walker and ending his right-wing War on Working Families. This is the guy who led the fight to destroy unions and middle class families, to defund Planned Parenthood and to push through a harsh new voter ID law disenfranchising students, the elderly and the poor.
We can beat Scott Walker this summer -- but we need to be on the ground knocking on doors, making phones calls and getting out the vote. Simply put, we can't win in Wisconsin without your help.
Can you chip in $10 to the DFA Wisconsin recall campaign right now?
Not only can we beat a right-wing Governor -- we can take back the State Senate, too.
Last summer, we won two big recall elections and elected progressive Democrats in deep red State Senate districts. Thanks to those victories, we cut the Republican majority to just one seat.
Now, four more Republican State Senators are on the ballot for recall this summer. If we pick up just one of them -- we win back the Senate.
Wisconsin voters are sick and tired of the Republican War on Working Families and polls show that we can win big.
We have the momentum in Wisconsin -- Please contribute $10 to the DFA Wisconsin recall campaign right now.
Thank you for everything you do.
-Nick
Nick Passanante, Deputy Political Director
Democracy for America
P.S. Winning in Wisconsin is a huge opportunity for Democrats nationwide. It is our first chance to score a win in the War on Working Families at the ballot box this year. But we can't win in Wisconsin without your support. Please contribute $10 now.
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Tue Mar 20, 2012 at 06:22 PM PDT
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They're back at it again. Today, GOP Budget Chairman Paul Ryan launched his campaign to re-brand the Republican plan to end Medicare.
Forward this e-mail to 3 friends right now so they have the facts.
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| Friend --
They're back at it again. Today, GOP Budget Chairman Paul Ryan launched his campaign to re-brand the Republican plan to end Medicare.
Forward this e-mail to 3 friends right now so they have the facts.
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Tell Congress: Stop Verizon's Internet Shenanigans Dear Friend, Your cable and wireless companies are getting into bed together. And while it might be a cozy arrangement for them, it's bad news for the rest of us. Verizon has struck a deal with a cartel of cable companies — including Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications — to stop competing against one another. They want to divvy up the spoils of the growing mobile market for themselves so they can continue gouging consumers without the threat of competition.1 Whether you use a mobile phone or a desktop computer to access the Internet, this deal will hurt you. Verizon is already the largest wireless provider in a consolidated market. If there's no competition to keep carriers in check, prices will continue to spiral upwards and services will decline. The Senate Antitrust Committee is holding a hearing on Verizon's shenanigans on Wednesday. I will be there testifying before Congress on your behalf. But I need you to show your opposition to this deal: Tell Congress: Stop Verizon's Quest to Chop Up the Internet If this deal goes through, the cable giants will hand Verizon a giant chunk of the public airwaves, allowing the company to grow even bigger while its wireless competitors wither away. In return, Verizon will promise not to eat into the cable cartel's broadband business. Enough With Verizon's Internet Shenanigans. Tell Congress to Stop This Deal. If this deal is approved, the United States will fall even farther behind the rest of the world in broadband adoption, speed and affordability. Sky-high wireless and broadband bills will rise even higher, even if you're not a Verizon or cable-cartel customer. And even fewer people will be able to afford Internet access. These companies aren't talking about trading sports players back and forth. The product they're trading is our very ability to access information and engage in our democracy. Do you want Verizon to have this kind of power? Speak up now and tell Congress to block Verizon's deal with big cable. The future of the Internet is too important to be left to a handful of giant companies. I will go before the Senate on Wednesday to help make sure Washington hears from you. Please take action to show Congress we mean business. Thanks, Joel Kelsey P.S. Like our work? The Free Press Action Fund is powered by donations from people like you. We don't take a single cent from business, government or political parties. Please keep us going strong with a gift of $10 — or more — today. Thank you! 1. "Verizon to Buy Cox Spectrum to Remake Its Broadband Model," GigaOm, Dec. 16, 2011: http://act2.freepress.net/go/8979?akid=3379.9957493.7fj0BG&t=11  | ||
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