懂王对阵哈里斯的首场辩:减税vs加税,谁的经济政策更有远见?

时间过得挺快,一眨眼,离11月美国大选投票只剩下两个月的时间了。昨天,民主党内发生政变,拜登退选后哈里斯接棒的首场辩论举行了。上一场辩论的对手还是特朗普和拜登。结果拜登那已经明显退化的身体和思维状态可以说被特朗普吊打,可以说是灾难性的失败,这也导致了民主党内部的无声政变,逼迫拜登退选。

接棒的哈里斯却是一个充满争议的人物。之前也提到过,而且她这次成为候选人的经历更加难以服众。此次大选两党在内部正式推出总统候选人的时候,是经历过党内初选的程序的。当时,哈里斯以不到20%的支持率惨遭淘汰。如果尊重民主程序的话,要么应该重新举行党内初选,要么就由当时支持率第二的候选人接替拜登。但这次推出哈里斯几乎完全没有尊重所谓美国人标榜的民主程序,就是由党内大佬通过政治交易的方式提出的。

原因很明显。奥巴马现在也一直在实际上是退而不休,一直在政坛上活动。哈里斯并不是一个有群众基础、受人欢迎的候选人,而奥巴马的老婆米歇尔做过第一夫人有比较好的口碑,同时也是精英阶层出身,显然是更合适的候选人。那如果米歇尔当选的话,奥巴马也有可能重返政坛。

显然,拜登与奥巴马之间的关系还是很微妙的。奥巴马当总统时期,拜登就是他的副总统。按照以往的惯例,奥巴马两届任期坐满不能连任后,都会扶持自己的副手竞选总统,但是当时奥巴马却劝退拜登,让他支持希拉里来竞选美国总统。如今在拜登谋求连任的时候,奥巴马又再次逼迫拜登要求他退选,但如今两人地位已经发生了反转,拜登是现任总统,奥巴马是头衔没有的平头百姓,这个时候只能进行利益交换。奥巴马不可能趁机推出自己心仪的候选人,只能由拜登指定哈里斯继续竞选。

哈里斯此人明显只是一个对名利感兴趣的人,并没有什么思想和政治主张。所以在宣布成为竞选人之后,就被严密地保护起来,从不在公开场合接受媒体采访或者宣讲自己的政策主张,很明显这是为了不让特朗普的竞选团队抓住把柄。而昨天的竞选辩论可以说是两人的首次交锋。

这场辩论长达一个多小时。我看了一个开头,没有耐心全部看完,然后看了一些其他自媒体UP主的综述。总的来说,偏向民主党的主流媒体一致认为这场辩论哈里斯表现得非常出色,是大胜。不过从我观看的部分和其他UP主转述的部分来看,并没有觉得哈里斯表现得有多么优秀,很大程度上是因为第一场拜登出席的辩论完全是一场灾难,所以让这场正规举行的辩论看起来就像有了质的改变一样。特朗普的表现也还算中规中矩,但明显有一些中了民主党的圈套。

可以说两边的观点和表述都没有任何新意,都是陈词滥调。相比之下,特朗普表现得还是比较有风度的,他接受了哈里斯的握手,并且向她寒暄,祝她今晚玩得愉快。而这在2016年,他和希拉里辩论的时候,他甚至拒绝和希拉里握手。

双方开辩的第一个辩题就是经济问题。这也是我唯一稍微关心一点的,就把他们听完了。哈里斯攻击特朗普的政策就是减税,而且是给有钱人减税,而不顾及穷人的生活困难。她表示将推行加税的政策,并且推进福利计划,帮助穷人和中产家庭。言以蔽之,哈里斯的政策就是劫富济贫,听上去非常美好,非常公平。

但是我顺着逻辑链条稍微推导一下,很容易得出谁对谁错的结论。企业家和富人减税,其实是更好的势头。一来可以减少政府对社会财富的汲取,同时也增加了企业家手中资本的积累。资本家拥有再多的钱,他也是一个人,他的消费能力确实是有限的,但是社会进步和经济发展是由资本的积累驱动的。如果这笔钱不被政府以税收的名义征收走,而胡乱花掉,而是在资本家手里可以得到更好的利用,创造出新的生产方式和新的就业岗位。而中产阶级和普通人则会受益于这些经济上的进步。

这也是资本主义社会出现以来,尽管贫富差距的现象受人诟病,但整体上,即便是穷人也远比资本主义时代之前的封建贵族甚至国王享有更高的生活水平。在近代以前,中国人的平均寿命只有40岁上下。而如果只统计皇帝的平均寿命的话,和这个数字也没有太大的差距。而现在中国人的平均寿命已经超过70岁了,也就是说,至少半数以上的中国人可以活过70岁。这被称为"古稀之年"的标准,被轻易突破了。

劫富济贫政策看上去更倾向于普通人和底层民众。但事实上,政府并不能创造出这些财富,他只是转移这些财富。在那里征收高额税收,然后分发给穷人,看上去很美好。但是这消耗了已经积累的资本,打击了富人储蓄的意愿,从而抑制了经济的进步和新的就业岗位的产生。虽然不用辛苦工作就能拿到钱,但这个世界上从来就没有免费的午餐。之所以这样的福利政策真的能够行得通,就是因为之前的积累还有相当的存货。如果资本家不再扩大生产,民众也不愿意工作,这个社会就没有新的财富创造出来。等吃完老本之后,迎来的将是什么样的局面呢?南美的阿根廷和委内瑞拉已经给出了非常明确的答案。

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Time flies, in the blink of an eye, there are only two months left before the US elections in November. Yesterday, there was a coup in the Democratic Party, and Harris took over the first debate since Biden withdrew from the race. The last debate was between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. As a result, Biden's obviously degraded physical and mental state can be said to be beaten by Trump, which can be said to be a catastrophic failure, which also led to a silent coup within the Democratic Party, forcing Biden to withdraw from the election.

Harris, who took over, was a controversial figure. It's been mentioned before, and her experience as a candidate this time around is even harder to convince. In this presidential election, when the two parties officially nominate their presidential candidates, they have gone through the process of primaries. Harris was voted out with less than 20 percent of the vote. If the democratic process were respected, either there should be a new primary, or Biden should be replaced by the second-place candidate. But this time Harris has almost no respect for the so-called American democratic process, which is proposed by the party bosses through political deals.

The reasons are obvious. Obama has also been effectively retiring and active in politics. Harris is not a popular candidate with a mass base, and Obama's wife Michelle has a good reputation as a first lady, and is also an elite background, obviously a more suitable candidate. Then, if Michelle is elected, it is possible that Obama will return to politics.

Clearly, the relationship between Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama remains delicate. When Obama was president, Biden was his vice president. According to the past practice, after two terms in office, Obama will support his deputy to run for president, but Obama persuaded Biden to support Hillary Clinton to run for president of the United States. Now when Biden is seeking a second term, Obama again forced Biden to ask him to withdraw from the election, but now the status of the two has reversed, Biden is the current president, Obama is a common person without a title, this time can only exchange interests. Obama could not take the opportunity to put forward his favorite candidate, only by Biden appointed Harris to continue the campaign.

Harris was obviously just a man interested in fame and fortune, with no ideology or politics. Therefore, after announcing his candidacy, he was closely protected and never gave media interviews or preached his policy propositions in public, obviously in order not to let Trump's campaign team seize the handle. Yesterday's debate was arguably the first encounter between the two men.

The debate lasted more than an hour. I read an opening, didn't have the patience to read it all, and then read a roundup of some other we-media UP owners. Overall, the mainstream Democratic-leaning media agreed that the debate was an excellent performance by Harris and a great victory. But from what I watched and what the other UP hosts reported, Harris didn't do that well, in large part because the first debate with Biden was a total disaster, making it seem like a qualitatingly different debate. Trump's performance was also reasonable, but it was clear that some of the Democratic trap.

It can be said that the views and expressions on both sides have nothing new and are cliches. Mr. Trump, by contrast, was more gracious, accepting Ms. Harris's handshake and greeting her and wishing her a good night. In 2016, when he debated Hillary Clinton, he refused to even shake her hand.

The first debate between the two sides was on the economy. That was the only thing I cared about, so I heard them out. Harris attacked Trump's policy of cutting taxes, and giving tax cuts to the rich, without considering the hardship of the poor. She said she would raise taxes and promote welfare programs to help poor and middle class families. In short, Harris's policy is to take from the rich to give to the poor, which sounds very nice and very fair.

But if I follow the chain of logic a little, it's easy to come to a conclusion about who's right and who's wrong. Tax cuts for entrepreneurs and the rich are actually better momentum. On the one hand, it can reduce the government's absorption of social wealth and increase the accumulation of capital in the hands of entrepreneurs. No matter how much money the capitalist has, he is also a human being, and his spending power is indeed limited, but social progress and economic development are driven by the accumulation of capital. If this money were not collected by the government in the name of taxation and spent recklessly, it could be put to better use in the hands of capitalists, creating new modes of production and new jobs. The middle class and ordinary people will benefit from these economic advances.

This is also the emergence of capitalist society, although the phenomenon of the gap between the rich and the poor has been criticized, but on the whole, even the poor are far more than the feudal aristocrats and even Kings before the capitalist era enjoy a higher standard of living. Before modern times, the average life expectancy in China was only about 40 years old. If only the average life expectancy of the emperor is counted, there is not much difference from this figure. And now the average life expectancy of Chinese people is more than 70 years old, that is, at least half of the Chinese people can live past 70 years old. It's called the "old age" standard, and it's easily breached.

The policy of robbing the rich and giving to the poor seems to favor the common man and the lower class. But in fact, the government does not create this wealth, it merely transfers it. Collecting high taxes there and distributing them to the poor looks good. But this depletes accumulated capital and discourages the willingness of the rich to save, thereby inhibiting economic progress and the creation of new jobs. Although you don't have to work hard to get money, there is never a free lunch in this world. The reason why such a welfare policy can really work is because there is a considerable amount of inventory accumulated before. If the capitalists do not expand production and the people are not willing to work, there will be no new wealth created in the society. After eating the old capital, what kind of situation will be ushered in? Argentina and Venezuela in South America have given very clear answers.