A New Idea In Republican Theft

Here, courtesy of a post at Crooks and Liars, is the worst idea to combat unemployment in recorded human history:

"With 9.5 percent unemployment and millions more underemployed, it seems like a daunting, almost impossible, task to find jobs for everyone. But Ken Maryland, president of ClearView Economics, has an idea: Cut everyone's pay by 10 percent.

"EVERYBODY -- from the president down to the chambermaid -- takes a 10% cut in compensation," writes Maryland for Marketwatch. "This freed-up compensation expense is then used to re-employ the 8% (12.3 million) of the unemployed. Net-net, the nation's compensation bill has remained unchanged, and the unemployment rate is now 4.5%! Voila!"

And of course, the "freed up compensation" would be used to create more jobs, just the way that increasing corporate profits are being used for the same purpose now, right?

This may very well be the most preposterous new idea in Republican theft for the rich, since Milton Friedman came along. Is there anyone on earth who thinks that these people wouldn't take all of this money and keep it for themselves? When have they done anything else? And with the American people further impoverished by their pay cuts, who is going to buy the products produced by all of this extra labor? Or is this just a gigantic welfare scheme the scale and futility of which dwarfs the most absurd right wing claims about the stimulus?

Well, don't worry about that last idea. This proposal, if enacted, would just transfer an incomprehensible amount of money from working Americans to corporations and the rich, and everyone knows that perfectly well. But with large numbers of Americans trained to believe anything, no matter how stupid, as long as it's accompanied by large doses of hate and greed, who knows? A few months, and I expect to see Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews discussing this "idea" as though it is a perfectly reasonable proposal.