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I Wouldn't Put It Past Him

With all this talk of unfair tax rates, might President Obama propose a flat tax? Of course his version would be loaded with exemptions and cut-outs for his base, but it will force Republican cooperation and, incidentally, likely win him reelection.
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Obama is too "conservative"/cautious to propose a flat tax. That is way too gimmicky in a Steve Forbes way. He is also too "progressive" to give up on the idea that the rich are those who have benefited the most from Capitalism's regulatory structure, and thus should be made to pay more. The Audacity of Hope in part lays out the pervasiveness of agency capture. The rich, are better educated, more sophisticated and can take advantage of this system. That is basically what Buffet is saying. I am richer than you. I am smarter than you, and I understood the system better than you did. I pushed the edge that big capital gave me, and I can use a lot more of my barganning power to secure sweet heart deals with BAC, or Goldman Sachs. While these corporations have you over the barrel, I am the one making them hold their ankles. Do you think you can take your 100k in savings and negotiate with BAC? Do you realize how foolish you are to buy BAC when the press reports I bought it? Do you understand our terms are quite different? When progressives abandon all hope, the only real recourse is simply to construe the law/contract against the sophisticated party (a move made in the law of contracts, when we moved from strict caveat emptor striking some contracts as being contracts of adhesion.) So you have a progressive tax code in part to construe the distribution of wealth away from the sophisticated party. We can't really stop Capital from abusing the system. Wealth is barganing power, and everyone at the bottom just takes what they can get.

Are you middle class? Try to negotiate a contract! They are all going to laugh at you... or cry because they don't even have the authority to negotiate with you. The manager is no less middle class than you are, he is there to puff, and maybe appease with a small token act of customer service/PR. So you have a progressive tax code to rake back some of the excess utility accumulated by disparities in barganning power.

The Labor movement understood this, they even said, look we don't have to strike, quit thinking you know "what a union is." Instead we are going to attempt to negotiate, if we can't get fair terms we are going to press for a progressive tax rate. No collective barganing? No problem. We will work in politics.

What if there was a Capital movement, or a Labor movement in Capital markets, that wanted collective barganning so they could negotiate a deal with BAC on the same terms as Buffet?

If Obama who is supposed to represent the interests of Labor proposes a flat tax, conceding the just reason for the progressive income tax there will likely be a god-dammed riot.

Or at least there will be a pervasive sense that we are not represented, that somehow functionally the system, rewards Romney because Santorum made the best argument against RomneyCare and this stole votes/weakened Newt. Generally speaking it is all a manifestation of "deep capture".

So you think you can elect a candidate against the forces of Capital? Don't you realize that under Capitalism only the proffesionals get rich? Do eight graders bully, NFL linebackers?

From the cries of Cindy Sheehan who lost a son, to the small business owner in the tea party hounded by the EPA, or the small business owner in the coffee party crowded out by Wal-mart. All proclaim: I have no real barganing power!

Obama propose a flat-tax. Maybe, but in order to make it work he would have to lie, lie, lie about.

Oh wait. That is what he does best.

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