- The Congressional Assault on Fed Independence
- Addicted to Easy Money?
- A Red-Ink Train Wreck: The Real Fiscal Cost of Government-Run Healthcare
- A Short-Sighted Cheer for Easy Money
- Stocks and Voters Show GOP the Way
- Is the Obama Bubble About to Burst?
- The Economics of a Three-Race GOP Sweep
- GDP Up, Dollar Down, Troubles Remain
- Supply-Side Healthcare Solutions with Sen. Mitch McConnell
- Economic Freedom Fighters, Unite
SHOW TIMES
Weeknights 7p ET
CNBC Asia:
Saturday 06:00 SIN/HK
Sunday 04:00 SIN/HK
CNBC Europe:
Monday - Friday 10:00 CET
Saturday 06:00 CET
Sunday 04:00 CET
RSS FEED
MOST SHARED
- CNBC Video: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping American Great
- Today's Market Action
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Microsoft's Bill Gates Praises Apple's Steve Jobs For 'Saving the Company'
- CNBC TRANSCRIPT: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great
- Israel Going Green
- Inside Wal-Mart's Acai Berry Juice Maker
- China's Role as Lender Alters Dynamics for United States
CONTACT US
We want To hear from you!
E-mail:
Text Size 
Are the Denver Democrats downing the stock market today? The Dow is off 230 points, starting right from the get-go. So-called market analysts are blaming financials and the credit crunch as they always do. But there’s more.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden gave us plenty of class warfare in their Springfield, Ill. get-together on Saturday. Tax the rich. Redistribute income and wealth. Go after all those corporate meanies. Trade protection. Card-check for the unions to stop secret elections. (Not even former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern agrees with that one.)
Then there’s Nancy Pelosi on TV bashing oil. And a huge New York Times Magazine article on Obamanomics by David Leonhardt tells us about tax fairness and redistribution from Obama, and shows that my good friend Robert Reich is in the driver’s seat with lots of public spending for the Obama plan. Deficit hawks like Jason Furman, the Robert Rubin protégé, seem to be in second place.
Taxing capital gains, dividends, and rich people makes me wonder who exactly is gonna supply the capital and investment to grow the economy. And while Obama’s Wall Street supporters helped put a 20 percent lid on investment tax rates, a three-house Democratic sweep could make matters much worse on the capitalism front.
Meanwhile, the Barron’s cover story called “Dueling Visions” by my friend Jim McTague says that Obama wants to repeat the mistakes of Herbert Hoover, raising individual and corporate taxes and siphoning needed investment capital out of the markets and into the hands of bureaucrats. It doesn’t seem like much of an economic recovery program.
Another problem is on the spending side for consumer demand. Hate to say it, but rich people are not only the biggest investors, they’re also the biggest spenders. According to the Tax Policy Center, Obamanomics would boost their average tax bill by $94,000, to as much as $653,000. Phew.
With the Denver Dems strutting their stuff, this could be a bumpy week for stocks. Did anyone say free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes