Friday, September 19, 2008
Taxes, etc
Couple of random observations.
1. I'd been wondering why so many of the potential third-party candidates, even those with considerable popular support (eg Ron Paul and Newt) decided not to run this time. It's clear now... the insiders undoubtedly knew this crash was coming, and didn't want to be anywhere near it politically.
2. The remaining two idiots can't think of anything to argue about except taxes. MC McCain continues to follow the standard Zero Zip Nada Taxes line, and Imam Obama also focuses on decreasing taxes.
This is ridiculous in many ways.
First, polls show that the federal income tax is not a top item on most people's list of problems. Property taxes and the SS tax are bigger burdens for all but the millionaires.
Second, if you want to talk about gov't burden on real business, you should be talking mainly about litigation, inflation and health care costs.
[The Dems have been talking about health care, but they're not making the best argument for it.]
Third, the Laffer Curve rests on a basic assumption which didn't need to be examined until now. Laffer assumes that economic growth can be increased. This assumption is simply untrue now, so Laffer is not a valid rule at this point. Everyone can see that growth is unavailable now. And most people can see that the numbers we've been calling "growth" were pure fantasy. These strange derivative transactions accounted for more than all of our apparent growth. More than all? Yes. The real parts of the economy have been shrinking for a while. ¶ 1:02 PM
1. I'd been wondering why so many of the potential third-party candidates, even those with considerable popular support (eg Ron Paul and Newt) decided not to run this time. It's clear now... the insiders undoubtedly knew this crash was coming, and didn't want to be anywhere near it politically.
2. The remaining two idiots can't think of anything to argue about except taxes. MC McCain continues to follow the standard Zero Zip Nada Taxes line, and Imam Obama also focuses on decreasing taxes.
This is ridiculous in many ways.
First, polls show that the federal income tax is not a top item on most people's list of problems. Property taxes and the SS tax are bigger burdens for all but the millionaires.
Second, if you want to talk about gov't burden on real business, you should be talking mainly about litigation, inflation and health care costs.
[The Dems have been talking about health care, but they're not making the best argument for it.]
Third, the Laffer Curve rests on a basic assumption which didn't need to be examined until now. Laffer assumes that economic growth can be increased. This assumption is simply untrue now, so Laffer is not a valid rule at this point. Everyone can see that growth is unavailable now. And most people can see that the numbers we've been calling "growth" were pure fantasy. These strange derivative transactions accounted for more than all of our apparent growth. More than all? Yes. The real parts of the economy have been shrinking for a while. ¶ 1:02 PM
