“But the general rule doesn’t apply to gifts and inheritances, which the tax code expressly excludes from definition of what gets taxed. Thus, I could inherit a billion dollars tomorrow and the government won’t tax any of it as income. Meanwhile, the breadwinner who works his whole life to support his family gets taxed every step of the way.”

And what about the breadwinner who works his whole life and eventually finds huge success? Should he not have the right to give his hard-earned money to his own children without having the government penalize him twice for his success? Why does he have to be taxed for making the money and then taxed again for giving that income to his children?

You forgot to mention the ‘carry tax’ that ‘brilliant’ hedge fund managers/owners pay on their investment profits - 15%. This is pathetic when one considers how many of their ‘investments’ are just bets on commodities, real-estate and other such no substantive gain ideas.

Then there is cap gains tax. A smart executive gets stock options (often rigged at that) and he too pays only the 15% cap gains tax. The excuse is that these gains are taxed twice at the corporate and personal level - but that is a lie.

First, no one know what any individual corporation pays in income tax in a given year. Second, we do know that the percent of total taxation revenue that corporations pay has been going doin for over a decade.

But with Goldman Sachs lock on the Treasury it is doubtful anyone other than the ‘wee people’ will ever pay much in taxes. Gotta love this democracy don’t ya. (thanks for coining that term ‘wee people’ to the late Leona Helmsley.)

Capital Gains shouldn’t be taxed at all.  Inflation eats most of capital gains.  And then, taxes take the rest.  How do you keep up with inflation without investing?  Why should you pay taxes on just trying to preserve the value of your money.  Buy an ounce of gold for $500.  Sell it a couple years later at $800 and you owe taxes on $300 and you’ve actually lost purchasing power.  What a crock.

Wages should not be taxed at all - either for the frauds we call social insurance or as income.  Wages were considered property until WW2 - which also gave us withholding.

The problem is that the “wage earners” wanted the welfare state, and only they could pay for it.

David Cay Johnston has an entire book (or two) on this - Free Lunch and the earlier Perfectly Legal.

And the democrats are for the Wall Street Wealth machine as much if not more than the GOP.

The big difference between the liberals and conservatives who actually support “the little guy” is that liberals do out of false guilt (and brand others as guilty upon any inequality destroying the rule of law) what conservatives do out of the virtue of justice (those who benefit the most from the rule of law should pay for it, and it should be strengthened).

Power corrupts.  The only way human beings have succeeded at handling it is to split it and cause it to fight itself.  Every increase in government power was to do some good (end slavery, keep the union, prevent unsafe food and medicine, solve unemployment and retirement...).  The small good was accompanied by a large corruption, though slow and in the shadows.

“Fixing” Iraq benefits Bechtel, Haliburton, and Blackwater.

But empires collapse when they can no longer afford to do more good - the 10% that actually does good and the 90% that is the corruption tax on the do-gooding.

As someone who has worked hard all his life and little to show for it I am not looking forward to changing the inheritance laws that will force me to pay huge taxes on my inheritance or to have my son in turn pay huge taxes on his.

Excellent post on a point that is often overlooked, but forms a central premise of neoclassical and Austrian economics. Namely, that growth is attributable to capital, and capital alone. Therefore, taxing capital limits growth and the entire burden of taxation must fall on labor and labor alone. This is the impetus behind such “reforms” as the fair and flat tax proposals, which both shift taxes to labor, and of the move to abolish inheritance taxes.

The theory is fatally flawed. It springs from the Malthusian trap, which gives priority to a positive capital/labor ratio, and therefore makes people problematic in the economy. Hence the effort to limit the number of people. But in fact, 2/3rds of growth is attributable to labor, and labor itself is the source of capital. Nor can capital do anything or produce any values whatsoever unless it is activated by labor.

The tax laws also privilege pure speculative profits, which add nothing to the economy. In speculation, one is not investing but betting; one person’s gains are measured precisely by the other person’s losses and there is no net gain to society. Investing is the serious business of providing capital to expand production; speculating is merely making a bet on the direction of the markets without adding anything to those markets.

Austin buddy, Taki is going to thump you Shotokan style (or is it Gojushiho; I can’t remember) for b-i-itching about the idle rich and taxes on their inheritance.  The experiences that Taki has had makes me want to be idle enough to enjoy the same.  I’m a middle-class peasant, and I want my kids to get everything that I have earned, and not have to pay a tax on it.  And remember this: when we talk about a “tax” we’re talking about the government getting it.  What makes that fair?  May God spare us from people who want “fairness.”

Bush proved the trickle down doesnt work. He also proved the free market isnt free.

Maybe I am wrong and somebody with an accounting background can correct me but I thought the biggest sop to the rich was related to the use of “donating” their stocks and other appreciated assets to ward off taxes other stuff that they want to cash in on.

For example, I own a large amount of stock that I paid nothing for. If I cash it out I will likely lose 50% of it to taxes, state and federal. If I donate 50% to my “foundation”, I can put that in as a charitable contribution against the 50% I keep and I am net zero income. I keep control of my money through the foundation and can use it to hire worthless relatives if need be and keep the money in the family.

The bottom 50% of this country, income wise, contributes about 3% of its tax revenues.  Most of that comes from people who don’t have kids.  Those that do actually get money back for the government in the form of earned income tax.

How is that soaking the poor again?

David’s statement is simply not true, a falsehood repeated over and over again until it becomes “true,” even though it does not accord with the facts. Of individual income taxes, FICA alone comes to 43% of the total, and the bulk paid by incomes under 100,000. This is even before they pay incomes taxes.

Of course, some will say that the employer pays half of that, but that is a convenient fiction; it all comes out of the wage bill.

Parse tax rates all you want but remember that the unsupported spending of this government, particularly it’s security and military expenditure is beginning to cause it take on all the appearances of a developing country and EVERYONE suffers in that scenario.

The north is moving south as fast as a speeding bullet.
And I don’t mean Dixie, I mean Banana. .

“What Obama won’t tell you is that Democrats no more intend than Republicans to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes.”

Fair share of taxes.  Bastiat had the right of it, as was usual with him.  A bunch of thieves and robbers dividing up the spoils.  The State pits ‘rich’ vs ‘poor’, however you define the terms, and then feeds off the conflict between the two groups, as it does in so many other cases (gun owners vs prohabitionists, pro-life vs abortion supporters, young vs old).  The State isn’t a mediator - it’s an instigator.

Where do we begin? It’s impossible.
Everything this author writes is a lie. I conclude that this author is guilty of envy. Envy, because he’s not in line to inherit anything. Plus he’s probably a socialist or worse.
But I will add that 10% of the population pays 90% of the taxes, and it’s not the poor who pay.

RB, in the Peep Rep of New Jersey, 4.9% of the population (the ones making 200,000 frn or more a year), are paying over 60% of the NJS income tax.  So much for equal protection under the law. It is a State that allows 15 shot magazines for the sheeple, but deems possession of mags that hold 16 or more rounds a felony.. KGive me the free market any day.  ST

@Robert Burch. Your numbers simply are untrue; the mere prescence of the FICA tax makes those numbers a mathematical impossibility, since FICA is a flat tax on the first 100K and stops after that.

According to Wikipedia-Distribution of Wealth “In 2003, the most-earning 1% of the population in the United States, which has a system of progressive taxation, paid over 34% of the nation’s federal income tax; the most-earning 10% bore 66% of the total tax load; the top 25% of income earners paid 84% of the income taxes; and the upper half accounted for virtually the entire U.S. income tax revenue (nearly 97%).” But this talks only of income taxes, not of FICA, which is used to fund ordinary expenses of the gov’t.

But even if it were true, it would hardly be surprising. The top 10% owns fully 71% of the wealth, with the top 1% owning 38%. The bottom 40% share 1% of the wealth. So your fictional 90% figure would only be mildly progressive compared to wealth, even if it were true, which is clearly is not.

Warren Buffet says that he pays a proportionally smaller share of his income in taxes than does his secretary. So do I, and I am not Warren Buffet by any means.

But I do note that you are a true believer. When confronted with contrary opinion, you first quote phony “facts,” and then turn to personal invective concerning the motives of a person you do not know. The reduction of an argument to such ad hominem is always the sure sign of a failed intellect.

Oh, I forgot to mention. This also doesn’t account for borrowing, which is also a tax, but merely a tax shifted to the next generation, plus interest. To fund “tax cuts” by borrowing is not to cut taxes at all, but merely to shift them to our children.

JM, why must Buffet pay one cent more than his secretary in tax?  What is stopping Buffet from paying more if he wishes to fill the centgov coffers? Buffet is an interesting example of someone who uses the inheratance/death tax code to buy businesses at firesale prices (and then the peanut gallery moans about the loss of independent newspapers, for example, without the mob wondering how the consolidations took place). RB has ist right - the tax code is based on envy, (as well as theft).

As a shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, I am fairly familiar with Buffet’s investments, since they are mine as well. Can you give me one single example of a company he bought at a (non-existent) death tax fire sale?

And no, the consolidations in the media business are not attributable to the death tax. Can you name one company that had to be sold to pay them? You appear to be much longer on fantasies than on facts. 

But the more interesting question is whether a Buffet (or a Médaille) should pay more than their secretaries. Now, if taxes are theft (that is, if we should consume gov’t services without paying for them), then it doesn’t matter whether they are progressive or regressive. But if we should pay for what we get, then we should pay proportionally. One generally agreed-upon function of gov’t is the protection of property; by definition, those who have more property get more protection. Should they get it for free?

Now, to your ad hominem argument, you may be right for all I know; people may only want progressive taxation out of pure envy. I have never met any such people, but perhaps you have. Of the people that I have met that I have heard give expression on a regular basis to envious sentiments, they are almost always well-to-do people who want even more. YMMV.

JM, I will get back to you on the companies’ names, rather than generalities, shortly or I will retract my statement.

“Now, if taxes are theft (that is, if we should consume gov’t services without paying for them), then it doesn’t matter whether they are progressive or regressive. But if we should pay for what we get, then we should pay proportionally. One generally agreed-upon function of gov’t is the protection of property; by definition, those who have more property get more protection. Should they get it for free?”

When one is forced to pay for services whether one wants them or not, to a monopoly supplier, then there is no question of getting something for free or not.

“Now, to your ad hominem argument, you may be right for all I know; people may only want progressive taxation out of pure envy. I have never met any such people, but perhaps you have. Of the people that I have met that I have heard give expression on a regular basis to envious sentiments, they are almost always well-to-do people who want even more.”
When one wants control of something someone else has, without being willing to peacefully exchange for said property, but is more than willing to use the State’s fist to get that property, that is envy.
Someone wanting to keep what he has, by effort or gift, is not envious - it is the ones who believe they have a better claim to that person’s property who are the envious ones.  ST

Part of the reason that the rich pay a higher percentage of income is because the government at the behest of the rich has been gutting the middle class. Looking the other way on illegal immigration, massive increases in legal immigration, encouraging off-shoring for empire building purposes, rampant H1-B fraud, and on and on.

At every turn the government has been working against the bottom 80% of the population. Since the income tax rates are indexed for inflation and wages for those 80% are stagnant at best, more and more people are falling out of the tax roles.

If the government only works for one group of people we can surely say it must be owned by them. Why shouldn’t the owners pay the full freight for it?

MinLA, I agree with you to some extent. Wealthy anti-capitalist limousine liberals know how to play in the DC mosh-pit. A large reduction in US centgov is inevitable, since the Empire is broke and broken.More money needs to be made by economic, not political, means. One wag pointed out that if the estate tax is repealed, the ones in favor of it merely need modify their wills to leave 55% of their estates to the centgov.  Nothing stops Buffet and his ilk from giving Uncle Sugar more of their own money.  ST

As a shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, I am fairly familiar with Buffet’s investments, since they are mine as well. Can you give me one single example of a company he bought at a (non-existent) death tax fire sale?

And no, the consolidations in the media business are not attributable to the death tax. Can you name one company that had to be sold to pay them? You appear to be much longer on fantasies than on facts. 

A start to answering your question, JM, as quoted from an 2004 issue of National Review

In Buffett’s career, this opportunity has come many times. Take his acquisition of the Buffalo Evening News (now the Buffalo News) in the 1970s. His biggest acquisition up to that time, the newspaper became very profitable, and a stepping stone on Buffett’s journey from multimillionaire investor to multibillionaire titan of industry. But--according to a just-published history of the Buffalo News--the paper would likely never have gone up for sale had it not been for the estate tax. In From Butler to Buffett: The Story Behind the Buffalo News, a book that features a foreword by Buffett, the paper’s former managing editor, Murray Light, writes that the previous owner “had repeatedly rejected the advice of her attorneys that she take steps to minimize the tax consequences that would occur upon her death.” Kate Butler was the widow of the founder’s son; the paper had been in the family since 1873. According to Light, Butler had repeatedly been warned by her lawyers that if she failed to get rid of some of her assets before she died, “a ‘fire sale’ of the paper would result to satisfy the estate taxes.” But Butler “stubbornly refused this advice and when she died in August 1974, the family agreed with the estate that the News should be put up for sale.”
Buffett, referred to the impending sale by his friend, the late Washington Post owner Katherine Graham, didn’t exactly pay a “fire sale” price for the paper; he plunked down $32.5 million. But, as Buffett biographer and Wall Street Journal writer Roger Lowenstein has noted, by the late 1980s the News would be earning more than $40 million each year. In an interview, former editor Light notes that the paper likely would have been kept in the family for at least another generation had it not been for the estate tax

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_16_56/ai_n13684021/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

Try these facts, not ‘fantasies’, JM - you may learn something.  ST

It’s interesting that John M. would bring up Social Security taxes to argue that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes.

But how do the rich benefit from social security?  The rich (and much of the middle class) gets a lousy return on their social security payments, while the poor actually do very well, especially when you consider Medicare and Medicaid.  If there is any one group for whom social security should not be considered a tax, it’s the poor, because they get more than they give.

It’s pretty crazy that Mr. Bramwell even wrote this article, because he seems like an intelligent fellow.  To me, it seems quite obvious that our problem with taxes isn’t that the rich don’t pay enough of them, it’s that a large portion of the country’s lower and lower middle classes increasingly pay next to nothing in taxes, which makes them much less likely to worry about how much money the government wastes.

Mr Manley, “the poor” do quite poorly on their “return on investment” in regards to “Social Security”.

The reason?

They die at much younger ages than those with more money.

The same goes for smokers, the obese, and others that die at younger ages.  They are all net payers into the system.

A very good article, but you failed to mention the PAYROLL Tax, which accounts for a
significant proportion of all federal revenue, and is not subject to income deductions like
child care expenses, medical expenses, and home interest mortgage...in fact, most working folk
pay more in payroll taxes then they do in income taxes.

Payroll texes have been raised several times to create a significant SURPLUS which has been mixed with
the general funds so that they account for approximately 45% of all federal tax revenue. This idea originated
with Alan Greenspan, who in an effort to diminish the huge budget deficits that the Reagan tax cuts created.
The essenial element of Republican/Libertarian economic policy in the last 20 years is that TAX CUTS create
economic growth, which is supposed to create MORE revenue for the government. Yet the last 20 years have proven that tax cuts NEVER pay for themselves, they never generate enough economic growth to provide the revenue to cover their costs.

It doesn’t take a economic expert to see the simple fact that if you give John/Jane Q Public a $10 tax cut, but
then borrow it back to pay for the government debt that the tax cut created, that there will be NO money left for anyone to invest. In other words, NO economic growth. (Of course, the “libertarian” solution that Greenspan
came up with was to have foreigners finance the budget deficits---of course, by selling out American economic
soverignty---but that’s another story.)

Borrowing from working folk’s Social Security funds to pay for the tax cuts for the rich is perhaps the biggest
tax fraud of the modern era.

“The essenial element of Republican/Libertarian economic policy in the last 20 years is that TAX CUTS create
economic growth, which is supposed to create MORE revenue for the government. Yet the last 20 years have proven that tax cuts NEVER pay for themselves, they never generate enough economic growth to provide the revenue to cover their costs”

Perhaps Laffer libertarians hoped for increased revenue through tax cuts, but not Rothbardians.  Tax cuts are not supposed to ‘pay for themselves’ - to assume so is to assume the State has first right to one’s money.  Tax cuts are supposed to return stolen money to the rightful owners and to shrink the State.  The US centgov’s greed and spending addiction have a large role in the present economic mess, so spending cuts are always unthinkable by the Beltway crowd.  ST

@ST, the article is not “facts,” but assertions, along the the ascription of motives to Buffet (the ad hominem argument--how frequently it seems to pop up). Family businesses are frequently sold because the heirs have no interest in the business; they prefer the cash.

@DM I am amused by the proposition that the rich should pay taxes only if they profit from it.

@JP, right on. The middle class and the next generation subsidize the rich because their FICA taxes and debt are used to finance tax cuts for the rich. And that, DM, is why the rich should pay; they do indeed profit.

Well, I see that Mr. Bramwell continues his swift march to the Left, now chasing the perennial liberal fetish of ‘fairness’.

I believe he is a fith generation denizen of Fifth Avenue who stands to inherit a fortune from his hedge fund manager parents.
He must have a guilty conscience.

Of course, in the real world, we realize that it is important for society that the rich can keep their property. Unlike Mr. Bramwell I am not going to inherit a fortune, but I don’t begrudge him from doing so!

While it may be true that the poor die younger on average and thus have less opportunity to use their social security benefits, studies have still shown that the lower the income, the better the return on their compulsory investment. 

http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj14n1-4.html

Of course you also need to take into account that a large share of the poor rely on Medicaid for their health insurance.  A family paying for private health insurance might pay a $800 a month (or much more) for good private health insurance.  So right there you have a decent return on investment.

With respect to John M., I do think people, including the rich, should benefit from their taxes.  After all, taxes aren’t supposed to be a form of charity, they are supposed to pay for services the government provides.  The rich get nothing meaningful whatsoever from social security taxes.  And as any quick Google search will tell you, the rich shoulder most of the cost of other government spending (although admittedly there is plenty of borrowing from the social security “lock-box").

The poor, in comparison, get a much better return on their taxes.  If they have kids, they usually make money off their income taxes through the earned income tax credit, and they get a much better return on their social security taxes as already discussed.

If there is anybody getting really screwed by the current system, it is the middle class.  Their health insurance costs, and (if they have kids who go to college) their education costs are driven sky high by government subsidy of these services.  I hope that on this site at least I don’t need to convince anyone that when the government agrees to pay for a service that the price for that service is automatically driven sky high.

And now we’re increasingly adding housing to the list of things the government will guarantee we have a right to.  In fact, the government is doing the best it can to keep housing prices in places like Southern California propped up as high as possible, well out of affordable ranges for the middle class.

The end result is going to be a society where the wealthy subsidize the poor and yet still have enough left over to take care of themselves, while the middle class are increasingly squeezed as they can’t afford the cost of the services that have been subsidized.  Facing this squeeze, they demand lower taxes and greater subsidies for themselves, driving prices ever higher and pushing the effect further and further up the income chain, until we eventually end up with only an upper class and a lower class. 

Hopefully that will still be a while though.

David, I don’t see how you can say that the rich get very little from the SS system and then admit that they are used to finance tax cuts. Furthermore, there is some ambiguity in your definition of what one gets from the commonweal. If by a “benefit,” you mean a monetary increase in their incomes, than that is not taxation. If you mean social order which precedes anybody making a profit, then the rich get a great deal, in fact more than most. There is nothing wrong with that, except when one says, “I shouldn’t have to pay for such things.” That is not so much “libertarianism” as it it “infantilism.”

The implicit assumption in your argument is that the rich are given their wealth by the government.  Without social order it is true they would be unlikely to get rich, but without talent and hard work (and often luck), they would be even less likely to get rich.

The government doesn’t give them a better deal than the average Joe, they make more out of it.  It may be that that is inherently unfair, but that is simply human nature and the Right hasn’t traditionally been the side that felt this could or should somehow be remedied through government action.

Of course there are those in the inner cities, for instance, who don’t enjoy what we would call social order, but that’s not from a lack of government spending, so raising taxes on the rich isn’t going to help matters.

JM, for your comments on borrowing from social security please see my comment on Jim Kalb’s tax post.  Thanks.

“In any case, the IRS is routinely outgunned in the estate and gift tax area. Congress hasn’t given the IRS the personnel or the reporting and enforcement mechanisms to actually make the rich pay their estate and gift tax obligations.”

Yeah, the IRS is “outgunned” for sure.  That is truly classic.  Here we see a call for increasing the power of the federal tax gestapo coupled with obvious approval for the ghoulish estate tax - all from an NR “conservative”.  Beat it, Bramwell.

“(Disclosure—I practice in the estate planning area.)”

Really?  We could never have guessed.

“Taxpayer compliance in the area is low.”

Low compliance?  Simply outrageous.  I know that I, for one, shall never rest until estate tax compliance drops from “low” to “nonexistent”.

IJ Reilly, good comment.

“@ST, the article is not “facts,” but assertions, along the the ascription of motives to Buffet (the ad hominem argument--how frequently it seems to pop up). Family businesses are frequently sold because the heirs have no interest in the business; they prefer the cash.”

The article in question is linked below:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_16_56/ai_n13684021/pg_1?tag=artBodycol1

JM frequently calls counter-arguments ‘ad hominem’, as if smearing is sufficient to debunk criticism.  The article points out that Buffet fights against the repeal of the estate tax structure that would probably take money away from Berk-Hath as it now does business and would also decrease revenue for a B-H holding, Safeco, that sell estate insurance for a pretty penny to the potential victims of current estate tax laws. In searching on the Web there seems to be common knowledge that Buffet uses the tax laws to gain advantage over people who would not normally sell to him or anyone else, so JM is being disingenuous here.  The distress of the Pittsburgh Steelers Rooney f is a current case in point of a family that does not want cash, but their business.  JM’s claim to be in estate planning of course has nothing to do with his opposition to the repeal, and to wonder if he argues so is out of self-interest is ad hominem, of course.

JM has no problem in arguing from authority. He claims to own B-H shares (unprovable and irrelevant) and that such ownership gives him understanding of B-H (if that claim is logical, then I am a computer expert by right of owning this PC with which I type).  Forget the beam - he should take the framework out of his eye.

Correction to my prior post:  JM does not claim to be in the estate planning business.  I confused him with the article’s author, and apologise for my mistake.  ST

Simon, When you attribute motives to a person rather than answer their arguments, that is an ad hominem argument; this is a technical matter, not subject to dispute. When you say that a person holds a position because of envy, it is a clear case of AH. It is also the sign of a failed intellect. It is also nonsense, because you attribute motives to people you do not know, which is quite a trick, unless you happen to be a psychic.

As an investor in BH, I get an annual report of the firm’s investments, letters which are famous for their clarity and candor (unlike most annual reports). He is the only executive I know that is quick to admit his mistakes. How refreshing!

And I wonder that your standard of truth for a thing is that it is “common knowledge” on the internet. One, it is not, but two, if that is your standard, then it must also be true that (for example) the Jews are responsible for all the world’s problems, because that is also all over the internet.

National Review is not an unbiased source, and Buffet is an embarrassment to their narrow ideological treatments of the world. Their article contained nothing but assertions. Anybody can assert what they like, but I suppose (using your standards) if it is on the internet, it must be true.

“Simon, When you attribute motives to a person rather than answer their arguments, that is an ad hominem argument; this is a technical matter, not subject to dispute. When you say that a person holds a position because of envy, it is a clear case of AH. It is also the sign of a failed intellect. It is also nonsense, because you attribute motives to people you do not know, which is quite a trick, unless you happen to be a psychic.”

I did not claim that Buffet held his position because of envy.  I did state that the tax laws in the US are in part based on envy.  To deny that is to not open a newspaper, listen to (however briefly one can stomach the experience)our masters and their sycophants regularly denounce ‘the rich’, or note that the popular culture since at least the ‘30’s has depicted the businessman and the wealty as villains. I also noted that some benefit from the tax laws, and would suffer losses if the estate tax were to be eliminated.

“And I wonder that your standard of truth for a thing is that it is “common knowledge” on the internet. One, it is not, but two, if that is your standard, then it must also be true that (for example) the Jews are responsible for all the world’s problems, because that is also all over the internet.

National Review is not an unbiased source, and Buffet is an embarrassment to their narrow ideological treatments of the world. Their article contained nothing but assertions. Anybody can assert what they like, but I suppose (using your standards) if it is on the internet, it must be true.”

In the book about Buffet’s purchase of the Buffalo Times, Buffet wrote a foreward, so it would seem he is not hostile to the book’s information. Yes, it is common knowledge that Buffet, as well as many others, uses the tax laws to purchase companies from people who would not normally have sold, as the article quotes actual people involved in the sales who are now employees of B-H. You offer no refutation of their statements or the author’s theme, but do find time to compare my reasoning to that of a Shoah-denier.

Simon, you claim to know the motives of the tax laws by reading the papers. I am not convinced that that is a convincing methodology. But even if it was, so what? That’s the problem with the ad hominem argument: it is pointless, even when it is true. Cannot an envious person make a good argument? What would you prefer for yourself: That people evaluate your arguments on their merits or on your purity of motives? Should you fill out a moral questionnaire before anybody reads your brief? Since you are angry, should I discount your syllogism?

Are the rich never to be denounced? Than how can you be a libertarian, since the rich write all the laws, they very laws you descry? What do you think: Did the modern state grow in opposition to, or in cooperation with, the modern corporation? History answers the question: the state and the corporation grow together, one feeding the other. This is the history of the world, or at least, the history of Liberalism (or, if you prefer the Marxist term for it, capitalism). This is not something to debate; you can just look it up, and see how one grows on the back of the other.

JM, I draw my conclusions about envy and the tax laws based on more than the papers, as I pointed out previously.  Nor did I say that the wealthy are never to be criticised - the wealthy should not be condemned merely for being wealthy, but when, for example, anyone, wealthy or not, uses political means to obtain wealth, and not economic means. What do you not understand about envy being ones’ desire for something that is not his in order to reach some goal he could not without the theft of the other person’s possessions?

The wealthy arise and are co-opted, willingly or not, by the State. An incestuous relationship develops, such as the UScentgov and the nominally private FED.  No controversy there.  Some rich people are demogogues to the core, such as the Clintons, John Edwards, and Ted Kennedy.  To recognize these facts does not negate my belief in non-aggression or private property, my basic libertarian principles.

Envious people can make good arguments, except when they make claim to others’ property using the force of the State, no matter what the ends the statists wish to accomplish with the mulcted swag.

I judge my arguments on whether or not they violate the Decalogue, the Golden Rule, and my understanding of the Bilble.  The State and its supporters constantly flaunt the injunctions against parental respect, covetuousness, killing, theft, and idol worship.  The State thus stands condemned, and the coming fall of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are but two more body blows to the rotten edifice.

Simon, I don’t what else you pointed out, other than the papers, or why it should matter. It remains an ad hominem whether there is one source or a hundred. And it remains such even if it happens to be true. So why bother with such logical fallacies?

You say the wealthy are co-opted by the state. Maybe. Or the other way around. The effect is the same. As I explained on another thread, your arguments never really get to private property apart from the state. And apparently, it is okay to criticize the rich, if they are politically incorrect. I am getting confused about which rules to follow when.

You say you follow the Bible in this, but land in that book is communal, not private, or at least it is in Deuteronomy. “Your shall not sell the land, for The land is mine, says the Lord. With me you are but aliens and tenants.” Land could not be sold in perpetuity, but only leased for seven years, after which it reverted to the tribe. Nabooth could not sell his garden to Ahab because it was not his to sell, only to use. Ahab was powerless, and could only weep. It was Jezebel who had to teach Ahab about private property, and the methods the state uses to create it, methods which meant killing Nabooth. And the prophets continually warn against wealth and the accumulation of property to the detriment of the commonweal. “Woe to you,” says Isaiah, “who join house to house and field to field until you are left to dwell alone in the midst of the land.” see http://www.medaille.com/sabbath%20land%20and%20royal%20land.pdf

I am sorry, but I can’t see anything coherent here: you want private property but no state, when the former clearly depends on the latter. Can you show me a single counter-example? The question is not whether a state of some kind, a communal authority that transcends any individual, will guarantee property, but what kind of state will give the guarantee and what kind of property it will guarantee. Shall it be a totalizing state granting and guaranteeing total and absolute property, or a village authority granting relative rights, or something in between?

Libertarianism corrupts the argument by presenting a false choice; “all or nothing” arguments always favor the all, because few will opt for nothing; there just aren’t that many nihilists.

Fannie Mae is nothing new; it is the history of absolute property guaranteed by the absolute state. The situation repeats itself over and over again. The rich (Kennedy’s or otherwise) use libertarian arguments to privatize property and communal arguments to socialize the losses. It’s a neat system, and the libertarians and socialists alike serve as their useful idiots. Thank you, but I think I will opt out of that game.

JM, we are talking past one another. I speak only for myself.  Libertarianism is a big tent, with liberventionists, libertines, and anarchists (such as myself) along with many other beliefs.  Note that I stated my principles rest on more than the Old Testament. You are unable to envision a Stateless society, or do not like what you see in such a commonwealth.  A return to a Constitutional State would be a vast improvement on our current condition, with further liberty to follow.  ST

Simple Simon SEZ: “Perhaps Laffer libertarians hoped for increased revenue through tax cuts, but not Rothbardians.  Tax cuts are not supposed to ‘pay for themselves’ - to assume so is to assume the State has first right to one’s money.  Tax cuts are supposed to return stolen money to the rightful owners and to shrink the State.  The US centgov’s greed and spending addiction have a large role in the present economic mess, so spending cuts are always unthinkable by the Beltway crowd.”

Well first of all, the argument for the Reagan tax cuts---and all subsequent tax cuts is that they create
economic growth...not some ROTHBARDIAN/Ayn Rand drivel that you spite.

Secondly, taxes are NOT theft, they are the price you pay to live in a stable and safe--and thus “free"--society.
If think MEXICO or some third world economy is so “free” and “just” then you are welcome to get the hell out of this “repressive” country, and move there. Love it or leave, in other words. If you don’t appreciate the benefits’
of living in America, then you “free traitors” are welcome to move down to El Salvador or Mexico, or some other
economy more to your liking. (Of course, you wont’ because you are---well, a hyprocrite).

The “spending” of the government that is supposed to be a drag on economic growth, is in fact, the REASON that our economy is so prosperous and stable, as approximately 3/5 of all government spending is for the MILITARY--which enforces the system of “free trade” via international finance capitalism---Wall Street/FED/World Bank/IMF and so on.

Military spending is of course, one of the most active sources of new technology and a driver of economic growth in the USA, a fact you keep denying despite the fact that all of the elements of the so-called “new economy” that the US is supposed to enjoy a competitive advantage---computers, telecommunications, space exploration, medical science---and so on---exist because the state---through the military contractors--subsidize.

“Well first of all, the argument for the Reagan tax cuts---and all subsequent tax cuts is that they create
economic growth...not some ROTHBARDIAN/Ayn Rand drivel that you spite.”

Taxes rose overall during the Reagan years, but still fell far short of the massive spending increases that Reagan and the Congress foisted off on the US.  Both Reagan and the Congress were wrong. 

“Secondly, taxes are NOT theft, they are the price you pay to live in a stable and safe--and thus “free"--society.
If think MEXICO or some third world economy is so “free” and “just” then you are welcome to get the hell out of this “repressive” country, and move there. Love it or leave, in other words. If you don’t appreciate the benefits’
of living in America, then you “free traitors” are welcome to move down to El Salvador or Mexico, or some other
economy more to your liking. (Of course, you wont’ because you are---well, a hyprocrite).”

Spooners states it better than I can:
“Not knowing who the particular individuals are, who call themselves ‘the government,’ the taxpayer does not know whom he pays his taxes to. All he knows is that a man comes to him, representing himself to be the agent of ‘the government’ – that is, the agent of a secret band of robbers and murderers, who have taken to themselves the title of ‘the government,’ and have determined to kill everybody who refuses to give to them whatever money they demand. To save his life, he gives up his money to this agent. But as the agent does not make his principles individually known to the taxpayer, the latter, after he gives up his money, knows no more who ‘the government’ – that is, who were the robbers – than he did before. To say, therefore, that by giving up his money to the agent, he entered into a voluntary contract with them, that he pledges himself to obey them, to support them, and to give them whatever money they should demand of him in the future, is simply ridiculous.” When your argument has no substance, employ more name-calling and anonymously deploy the tolerate ‘love it my way or leave it’ tactic, worthy of a tyrant screamer looked in his highchair, spewing pablum as he beats at his child’s keyboard. As for stable and safe, US electorate has a choice between a white-hating Marxist tool and a meglomanical war-monger, a frn at less than 95% of its pre-Fed value, and an Empire at home and abroad that is increasingly despised as it enters its death throws.  As for safe, a race war looms if the Marxist and his equally bigoted wife lose their bid for the Presidency.  The environment of the centgov is like every other major city, not safe after dark and problematic during the day.

“The “spending” of the government that is supposed to be a drag on economic growth, is in fact, the REASON that our economy is so prosperous and stable, as approximately 3/5 of all government spending is for the MILITARY--which enforces the system of “free trade” via international finance capitalism---Wall Street/FED/World Bank/IMF and so on.”

The centgov takes 3.2 trillion frns, with est. mil spending (Robert Higgs) of over 1 trillion frn.  It’s the government that makes the economy prosper, so why not give all the money to the centgov?  Let it run matters as effectively as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Pentagon is a model of efficiency, what with serial years of failed audits and its marvelous protection of the WTC on 9/11.

“Military spending is of course, one of the most active sources of new technology and a driver of economic growth in the USA, a fact you keep denying despite the fact that all of the elements of the so-called “new economy” that the US is supposed to enjoy a competitive advantage---computers, telecommunications, space exploration, medical science---and so on---exist because the state---through the military contractors--subsidize.”

People are too stupid and greedy to properly use their money, so the Empire must take it to develop needed items the free market cannot develop and market, such as the hellbomb, biological and chemical agents, and other State trappings, along with over 800 posts abroad in over 140 countries.  But aren’t the evil libertarians responsible for all of the military spending that Joe Jacobin denounced in previous posts?

“The “spending” of the government that is supposed to be a drag on economic growth, is in fact, the REASON that our economy is so prosperous and stable, as approximately 3/5 of all government spending is for the MILITARY--which enforces the system of “free trade” via international finance capitalism---Wall Street/FED/World Bank/IMF and so on

Quote from DM: “ The implicit assumption in your argument is that the rich are given their wealth by the government. “

That’s not an assumption that is the reality of the capitalist system in the real world. Have you never heard of the “game laws” ,the Enclosure Acts”, and the “War on Idleness” (the model for the modern war on drugs)? Let me quote “Laissez-faire” advocate Josiah Tucker this subject:

“The only possible Means of prevent a Rival Nation from running away from with your Trade, is prevent your own People from being more idle and vicious than they are....So the only War, which can be attended with Success in that Respect, is a War against Vice and Idleness, a War, whose Forces consist of- not Fleets and Armies, but judicious Taxes, and Wise regulation, as will turn Passion of private Self-Love into the Channel of Public Good.”

Have you never read “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill” by David Cay Johnston or “Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses” by Stacy Mitchell? These books document but minor crimes of the Capitalist Class in the long history of what is called “primitive accumulation.” The simple fact is the entire capitalist system is design by law protect the “property rights” of those stole property of the first and traditional “owners” and force the dispossessed into an involuntary wage system thus causing the 19th century anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and say to “"property is theft.”

Quote: “The government doesn’t give them a better deal than the average Joe, they make more out of it.”

That is a moronic statement. Does the government protect you with corporate shield laws? Do you has limited liability for any of your actions?  Do I need to discuss patents? Copyrights? And other inventions of fake property rights used to steal from the poor?  Do know how much money is in the enforcement those fictions against new producers?

What do the poor get from Taxes? Police to beat them? Prisons to confine them.? A War on Drugs that treats addicts like criminals? A War Poverty which destroys their families and notions of charity? An “Ownership Society” that entraps them in debt? A War on Terror than removes all Constitutional protections?  Schools to teach them statism and corporatism?  Sex education programs to degrade and teach to kill their own children?

Serfdom was a better deal now that the masses of property-less are forced to care for themselves through their own taxation creating bureaucratic nightmares and poverty pimps like Obama or other “Community Organizers”. This the reality of corporate-Capitalism, this the history of defended and distorted by so-called Laissez-faire economists.

Now there is another way outside British system of liberal capitalism. It called the American or National system of economics and it is called for by the Constitution itself when it says the Government should promote the general welfare and “REGULATE COMMERCE” (something libertarians being anti-constitutionalists ignore).

Now how do you make taxes just? How do you avoid burdening the poor and stealing from the Rich? Simple, you make taxes voluntary.

How? It is called a Tariff. No one more makes business owners buy foreign goods that are taxed. They pay for such goods voluntary. If the Capitalist wishes to avoid such taxes then he merely must employ his poor neighbors and create a domestic industry to produce the same product. Thus a “Harmony of Interest” is created between the poor man who wants higher wages and who’s wage would be reduce if the owner was not taxed for relying on foreign and slave labor for the cheapest materials and with the owner wishes to avoid taxes. In order to avoid the Tariff, the owners of capital are forced to invest domestically and to innovate more efficient means of production thus avoiding the need to tax the domestic productive capacity because workers are valued by their employers as a means of avoiding taxes. 

Not only does a system of Tariffs lower taxes its creates opportunity for new ownership by protecting new means of production and business models which has various barriers such as learning curves, lack of distribution networks, etc… whereas as the free-trade system protects old less efficient forms of production because the natural advantage of lower initial costs. The result is more capitalized means of production comes to support established industry and then replace those industry in prominence in what Kaname Akamatsu’s called the The Flying Geese Paradigm.

Notice that America produced its best inventors and scientific discoveries when Tariffs where the highest. Business under a systems of tariffs is force to innovate instead of outsource. 

Libertarians like to say that liberalism has proven itself by lifting more people out of poverty than faster than any other system of economics by pointing to the development of China. But that is a lie. The great economic reformer of China Deng Xiaoping ignored the reforms of the libertarians and follow the protectionist development model of Friedrich List as did Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Germany (under our great ally Otto von Bismark), France, Italy, and every single developed country on the planet unless you count Singapore (hardly a model of liberty in my opinion).

Now the I suggest that what American needs to is stop listening to European aristocratic royalist economists like Hayek, Mises, Schacht ("free-market" faction of Nazi movement) and Keynes and start reading our own economists such as Friedrick List and Henry C. Carey.

It is time to get back to tradition and what’s more conservative than that?

Simple Simon sez: “Spooners states it better than I can: “Not knowing who the particular individuals are, who call themselves ‘the government,’ the taxpayer does not know whom he pays his taxes to.”

Look, Lysander Spooner was an idiot and a failure...first he was a failed land speculator---in one of the a series of endless bank failures that characterized the 19th Century economy, and then was embittered beause his post office business failed. So he spent the rest of his miserable unhappy life blaming the government for his own stupidity.

It’s appropriate that YOU would hold him up as a hero Simon. <snicker>

“Look, Lysander Spooner was an idiot and a failure...first he was a failed land speculator---in one of the a series of endless bank failures that characterized the 19th Century economy, and then was embittered beause his post office business failed. So he spent the rest of his miserable unhappy life blaming the government for his own stupidity”

Joe Jacobin, do you know how to refute Spooner’s ideas, or do you just attack by ad hominem out of reflex? Spooner is such a ‘failure’ that the state of New Jersey lists him as an authority on the back of every jury instruction booklet the State gives to prospective petit jurors.  If one is to judge a man’s ‘worth and ideas’ merely by his financial worth than Tesla was surely a failure by the time of his death.

Septeus7 has, I think, identified the problem. “Property” as we understand it is a creation of the gov’t. This is the great paradox of “private” property: it always depends on state power. The more complex and absolute the form of property, the more complex and absolute the gov’t that defends it.

On the other hand, our notions of property are of rather recent vintage. There are other notions and forms that exist even today, and show great success, both from an economic and a social standpoint.