We live in a divided nation

America is seriously split in half - and in so many ways. The knowledgeable and the stupid. The haves and the have-nots. The religious and the not-so-religious. But nothing is more damaging to our society than the incredible diversity between the wealthy and the poor.


Rana Foroohar
Time Magazine, 1/24/2013

Many of the companies arguing for this (tax holiday to repatriate income stored overseas), by the way, already pay the lowest average tax rates globally. These include Big Tech, Big Pharma and financial firms, all of whose wealth is based largely in intangible and easily movable assets like intellectual property. And most of these companies haven't created any new jobs on net in the U.S. since the 1983, according to a report by Nobel laureate Michael Spence for the Council on Foreign Relations. Bottom line: job creation in the U.S. isn't about tax rates. It's about strengthening the underlying growth environment, which could be done in a variety of ways, from improving infrastructure and education to launching a more cohesive national strategy to support strategically important industries like high-end manufacturing, a la China and Germany.