Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has an interesting trickle down theory. According to Giuliani, the outrageous bonuses for Wall Street figures (many paid for by public funds) are a vital part of economic recovery for average New Yorker. According to Giuliani, the relatively few super rich recipients are a major source of money for the thousands of people who serve their whims and fulfill their wishes for exotic foods, fast cars, and impeccable service. It is basically the same economic theory advanced by that pre-Friedman scholar Marie Antoinette in the eighteenth century but under Giulianiomics, we don’t let the peasants actually eat the cake . . . just serve it.
Giuliani insists: “If you somehow take that bonus out of the economy, it really will create unemployment, It means less spending in restaurants, less spending in department stores, so everything has an impact.” Indeed, these people support many New Yorkers, including some former mayors unable to find regular work.
In the meantime, even Republicans in Congress are outraged by Wall Street bankers receiving $18.4 billion in bonuses in 2008.
Giulianiomics goes something like this:
“Wall Street has $1 billion, $2 billion in bonuses, the city had a deficit. Wall Street has $15 billion to $20 billion, New York City had a $2 billion, $3 billion surplus, and it’s because that money gets spent. That money goes directly into the economy. First of all, it gets taxed as income. Secondly, it gets taxes again when somebody buys something with it.” In other words, all those Botox doctors, skin pealers, and food tasters who rely on Mr. Guiliani’s friends for employment need us to continue to fund these windfall checks. Then there is Guiliani himself, who appears equally dependent on the super rich of Wall Street.
In the meantime, New York city is facing cut to meet a $4 billion budget gap in fiscal year 2010 and the city will lose 300,000 jobs, including 46,000 from Wall Street.
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JT,
I clean up well and would even make the sacrifice of wearing my best suit to the interview. As far as Rudy’s wanting the rich to literally eat the poor in Manhattan, that’s already been done figuratively. However, in Rudy’s case I think it might be the blood, rather than the flesh he is after. Look at the guy. He might well be Dracula’s (or Nosferatu’s)son except for the sparse comb-over. Perhaps the myth of vampires not going out in the sun was intentionally spread by them as a cover?
Maybe Greenspan and Rudy own stock in “Soylent Green, Inc.”?
Mike:
that pretty much sums it up. I saw a television show that was interviewing Greenspan and he said he had no idea how all this happened. He was lying through his teeth or he too was incompetent. Either way I was amazed by his audacity.
Bogus Bonuses are a Bummer but still no worries
money can’t buy my Love!
While we might have a long wait until Mike waits at Le Cirque;
In the mean time for another taste of New York:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9soR5mwhL0
JT,
Oh to be on the waitstaff at La Cirque. Poison would be too good for this man and lower oneself to his loathsome level. However, without launching into gross descriptiveness, the possibility of him enjoying strange carbon based matter in his food, would create many hours of enjoyment serving as a metaphor for his status as a human being.
Mike:
You might want to leave that our of the initial interview with La Cirque and focus on the serving from the left thing. We really should be grateful that Guiliani has not actually suggested that the rich eat the poor as part of the circle of Manhattan life.
This just shows what a bad idea the bail out is. once you have government giving money to individual businesses they are able to dictate spending and logically so. the problem is not wall street bonuses but government giving money to firms in the first place.
RG does have a point that individual spending by rich people does give me a job. As a builder I need people with large disposable incomes to provide me with employment and I need rich people to hire other people so they too can afford to buy my product – houses/additions, etc.
the way to avoid these types of arguments is let individuals retain the money they earn. The problem I have with democrats and republicans is that they arguing over only the size of the bail out and what should and should not be included. someone should argue against a bailout at all. If you really want to stimulate the economy get rid of capital gains taxes and reduce income tax to between 10 and 15%.
I think that liberals should embrace this because it would provide enough money to pay for social programs, as James Carville said Reagan was responsible for the biggest tax increase in history and as the republicans say the biggest economic boom.
Why cant we use the economic engine of capitalism to pay for social programs? It is then a win win situation, the people that need help get it and the people that create wealth are able to do it.
JT:
“Surprising that there were no limitations on the payment of such bonuses in the first round of bailouts, isn’t it?”
Stunning really. It reminds one of the Patriot Act, when it was voted on, passed, and then the people who voted decided to read it over.
Ben Bernanke commented years ago, just prior to his appointment to Fed Chairman, that his take on the economic horizon was that soon we may need to ‘drop money from helicopters’. The housing bubble was no secret at that time, even though Bernanke’s predecessor, Alan Greenspan, suggested it was simply ‘froth’ and not a bubble.
So last fall, when Treasury Sect’y Paulson and Bernanke feigned surprise and screamed for nearly a trillion dollars with no questions asked, acting as though nobody could have seen this coming, they were flat-out lying. At least Bernanke was for sure. Paulson may have been merely incompetent (or more likely acting on behalf of his fellow banker weasels) but Bernanke certainly knew this was coming years ago, as evidenced by his comment about dropping money from helicopters.
He had years to plan as Fed Chairman, he did nothing, and then these two geniuses, Bernanke and Paulson, who are hailed as these economic gurus, were left in charge, dictating how to rescue the country from that which they could not themselves foresee. The people who could not see the problems coming have been relied upon to solve them, too.
The blind leading the blind …
Prof. Turley, you’re right. When I look back to my college and law school years, I recall that there were more government restrictions over how I spent my student loans than were imposed on Wall Street.
Mike:
Your next step in personal reconciliation with the new Guilianiomics is for you to go get a job at a swanky Manhattan restaurant and serve our Wall Street overlords. I recommend Le Cirque.
Good job Jill and CEJ. CEJ,your venting is right on. The hypocrisy of the Republicn party is amazing. Now that they took the negative and partisan position on the economic recovery bill in the House, they will truly become irrelevant. Prof. Turley, it is interesting that the first payments did not include restrictions on the bonuses. Too much trust or too much complicity. I am glad that they are now going to be watched more carefully. I have said it before that the fairest way to restore credit is for the billions to be given to the banks as payoffs or reducing balances for all mortgages. That would porovide cash to the banks and the people will have reduced or no mortgage and will have the spending power to continue to help the economy by being able to buy big ticket items.