Category Archives

Archive of posts published in the category: Taxes

Consumers are Forgotten in the Class War

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sergi Brin of Google both became very young billionaires from the companies they created. Yet hundreds of millions of consumers benefitted by getting incredible products for free. When we participate in the class warfare we

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The Non-Problem of Fairness

The Editors of National Review responds to the President’s call for fairness in Buffetted by Taxes, 4/11/12 Excerpt: The Buffett Rule would function as a secondary alternative-minimum tax, putatively to accomplish what the primary alternative-minimum tax has failed to do: sock

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Will the Fairness Ruse Backfire?

I confess that the incomes of the super rich is astounding.  By super rich I mean those with consistent salaries and incomes above $5,000,000 per year and liquid assets of at least $50,000,000.  My blog- my definition. It is easy

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The King Solomon of Fairness

Brian Gaines and Douglas Rivers write in the Wall Street Journal 4/10/12, What’s a ‘Fair’ Tax for the Mega Millionaires? Excerpt: It turns out that most Americans do not think that 35% or anything close is a fair tax rate,

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Competition vs Fairness

Amity Shlaes writes in the 4/9/12 Wall Street Journal, Tax Policy is About Competition, Not Fairness, What John F. Kennedy understood that today’s politicians forget. Excerpt: Heller’s successful plan to combat the recession of the early 1960s was the Kennedy-Johnson tax

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A Tax on Virtue

I recall the response of Richard Timberlake, the noted PhD economist, when someone asked him if he was an Austrian economist, a monetary economist or a Keynesian economist.  He responded that there is bad economics and good economics. Good economics

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The Whole Picture on Tax Rates

Scott Grannis writes in his blog Calafia Beach Pundit, Effective Tax rates are Highly Progressive, 1/19/12.

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Bad Economics is Also Bad Politics

John Taylor and John Cogan write in the Wall Street Journal   Stimulus has Been a Washington Job Killer 10/3/11 Excerpts: Temporary, targeted tax reductions and increases in government spending are not good economics. They have repeatedly failed to increase

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A Part of the Truth Can Be More Misleading than All of a Lie

From The Atlantic by Derek Thomson, The Most Important Graphs from 2011, 12/21/11 This graph shows how the richest 1% have take a larger share of the economy in the last 35 years: … or does it? This graph does

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Collateral Damage to the Poor

Steve Landsberg, author of The Armchair Economist (a worthy read) writes in The Wall Street Journal How the Death Tax Hurts the Poor – It encourages the rich to pick extra fruit, leaving the trees a little barer for the rest

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A Foundation of Leeches

… the elite have responsibility to use their largess wisely and not turn into the Kardashians. But that a fifth of one percent of the taxpayers are finding ways not to pay at the income tax rate on their large incomes

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I Would Prefer to Pay More Taxes

In 2008 General Steel, Inc, the company I run, had a good year. We generated record sales, profits and taxes. In 2009 volume fell sharply as a result of the credit collapse,  the collapse of the prices of the commodities

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Civilized Taxes are Low Taxes

I’m proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is – I could be just as proud for half the money. – Arthur Godfrey.. Taxes are often defended as the price we pay for a civilized

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Random Thoughts 10.09.2011

Preaching that this is not class warfare generally precedes a volley in the self destructive attacks on the wealthy.  It is like the shyster who precedes a dishonest act with “trust me.” There was some news of some of the

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The Other Side of the Social Contract

While our political conversation should be focused on the deficit and unemployment, or the size and role of the government in our lives, we have been distracted by rhetoric on fairness and the wealthy. We are mislead by extreme examples

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A Liquid State of Inaction

More than  few from the opposition have criticized corporations for sitting on too much cash.  Companies are not in the cash holding or cash management business.  Especially in today’s environment of near zero return on short term holdings, one should

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There are Two Sides to the ‘Social Contract’

Elizabeth Warren is running against Scott Brown in Massachusetts.  She has elicited praises from liberals for her comment that “no body got rich on their own.”  She added “part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of

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An Obsession with Fairness

Suppose you had no job and no investments.   All of your assets existed in your checking account.  The only tax you paid was a six per cent sales tax.  A friend of yours has a job and pays 25% income

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In Search of Stability

Charles Schwab makes a critical point in Every Job Requires an Entrepreneur in the 9/29/11 Wall Street Journal. Excerpts: We cannot tax our way out of this. We cannot artificially stimulate our way out of this. We cannot regulate our

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Crony Socialism and Jobs

The Obama Jobs Bill is just so awful that I predict many Democrats will not support it.  After the losses they faced in 2010 and the particular losses in the recent interim elections- especially Anthony Weiner’s seat in New York- support for

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