MADDOG'S LAIR
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Daniel Henninger has a particularly good . . . 

4/7/2016

Comments

 
Panama Bernie

. . . opinion article up, you really should go read the whole thing. 

"Bernie Sanders caused the Panama Papers." Tragicomically he is correct. How? Like this: 

"After World War II, the governments of the West established tax regimes to support the reconstruction of their nations. Six decades later, that tax machinery, which runs the social-welfare states in the countries Bernie Sanders cites in every campaign stop as a model for America, has run totally amok—an unaccountable, devouring monster. Billionaires aren’t the only ones who run from it.

Most governments, including ours, overtax their citizens to feed their own insatiable need for money. Then the legal thieves running the government and their cronies, unwilling to abide the tax levels they created, move their wealth offshore to places like Panama."

Henninger makes a few salient observations about our European friends.

"Other than their national health-care systems, many of which are effectively bankrupt, most Europeans would be hard put to explain what it is their high-tax governments actually do with their money.

Suppressed for generations by high tax rates and regulatory minutiae, most Europeans survive in an economic half-life of gray and black markets, with their assets protected by cash-only transactions, bartering, and endless hours devising off-the-books deals involving family real estate, inflated art prices and anything else they can hide from the taxman. The Beatles actually wrote a song about it in 1966—“Taxman,” a grim ode to all this."

This is an odd, grim, and grubby existence. While this is most common in the south of Europe, it occurs nearly everywhere, and is driven by the shockingly low standard of living, and high tax rates. 

"One way or another, most people living in the countries run on the Obama-Sanders-Clinton model eventually go searching for their own private Panama. When private capital is under public assault, it will hide. From the wealthiest to the poorest, it creates a world of chiselers, not productive citizens."

Henninger goes on to note that in the US something has change in our political climate, something important.

"In the now-extinct Democratic Party—the party of Hubert Humphrey, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton—room existed for the private sector to breathe. Not yet unhinged completely from economics, Democrats understood the symbiosis between healthy private production and public revenues. Both Presidents Carter and Clinton deregulated economic life.

No longer. The deconstructed party of Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and forced-recruit Hillary Clinton says: Just keep squeezing them.

This week marked a historic moment in the Democratic drift toward low-growth Euro-socialism. Both California and New York raised the minimum wage to $15. California Gov. Jerry Brown, who in his career has been every Democrat that ever was, summarized the true meaning of the new party. “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense,” he said, but they make sense “morally, socially and politically.'"

I agree, the progressives, especially those on the left, seem to have gone around the bend. It used to be they simply wanted more social benefits, but now, they want that, and they want to kill the free markets, the thing which creates the wealth which allows the social benefits. Isn't there a story about a golden egg laying goose, or something? Johan Norberg recently commented on this very subject. Johan Norberg has some thoughts on Sweden, welfare, and medicine . . . 

"Sen. Sanders is getting mocked now by Hillary Clinton and her supporters for a catastrophic interview he gave this week to the New York Daily News, revealing he knows little about his own proposals."

I discussed this earlier as well. Bernie Sanders is an old Marxist carbuncle . . .

The problem is that here at the End of History, we are finding some policies which looked good decades ago don't meet the test. Socialism, progressivism, and their sibling economic models, all look great, on paper, but in the real world are mostly unworkable, but have the salubrious benefit to the politicians of offering large amounts of graft, and corruption. Remember the game is not necessarily to get all the money, just more than the people around you. Having more is winning. Without this graft, and corruption how would the Clintons have amassed over $100 million? It is simply not possible. But with it, favors can be traded, backs scratched, and funds transferred. It is not just the Clintons, nearly every Congressman, and Senator who comes to washington comes with a modest financial portfolio. When they leave, they leave multi millionaires. This is not really possible on the salary they make. Its comes from the associated blue model graft, and corruption which offers this lucre.

The solution to this is pretty simple, enact a retail sales tax on goods and services. Eliminate the income tax, the corporate tax, the gift and estate tax, and the payroll tax. But make sure the sales tax is see in every transaction, and paid above and after the product, and services are totaled. It will need a Constitutional Amendment, so also amend to require the federal government balance its budget each year, allow debt in years where there is Declared War, like they used to do in the olden days. Allow debt accumulation of 10% of GDP per year for either 3 years or up to a total debt increase of 30%. After that require a vote of the people each year, or every two years to reauthorized debt payments, but only if the US remains in an active state of Declared War. Cold Wars don't count, even if declared. 
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

    Author

    Maddog

      Blog Subscription

    Subscribe to Blog

    Archives

    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016

    Categories

    All
    1000-ways-to-die
    Abortion
    Amazon
    America
    Antisemitism
    Anti-semitism
    Bible
    Blogging
    Blue-model
    Book-links
    Booze
    Bus
    Cancer
    Children
    China
    China-ccp
    China-gdp
    China-ghost-cities
    China-ponzi
    Climate-change
    Coast-guardrescue-swimmer
    Cold-war
    Concealed-carry
    Constitution
    Cool-stuff
    Corruption
    Creative-destruction
    Crime
    Crisis-change
    Dead-guy-vote
    Dead-pool
    Death-of-the-pc
    Declaration-of-independence
    Deflation
    Democrat
    Demographic-decline
    Diet
    Earth-hour
    Ecommerce
    E-commerce
    Economic-change
    Economy
    Education
    End-of-history
    Energy
    Environmentalism
    Epa
    Eric-barker
    Europe
    Executive-outcomes
    F35
    Faith
    Family
    Fascists
    Financial-irresponsibility
    Financial-times
    Firearms
    First-world-problems
    Fitness
    Flight-to-security
    Food
    Fourth-turning
    Free-eye-exam
    French
    Funny
    Gdp
    Gdp-usa-vs-britain
    Gdp-usa-vs-germany
    Gdp-usa-vs-sweden
    Generational-theft
    Global-warming
    Government-incompetence
    Government-we-deserve
    Happiness
    Health
    Helicopter-parent
    Hell
    Holocene
    Honor
    Housing-affordability
    I-love-beaver
    Imf
    Immigration
    Independence-day
    Inefficiency
    Inflation
    Innovation
    Intelligence
    Intergenerational-conflict
    International-relations
    Investing
    Iran
    Iraq-war
    Islamic-reformation
    Italian-travel
    Japan
    Jodie-foster-effect
    Kayaking
    Keynesian-economist
    Kurdistan
    Law
    Leave-nato
    Leave-the-un
    Light-rail
    Maddog-story
    Marine
    Marriage
    Media
    Medical-insurance
    Medicine
    Middle-east
    Military
    Military-waste
    Money
    Monopoly
    Nanny-college
    News
    New-seasons
    Nirvana-is-another-name-for-hell
    North-korea
    Nukes
    Obama-doctrine
    Oil
    Oregon
    Organic
    Parenting
    Partition
    Pearl
    Pensions
    Peter-principle
    Police
    Politicians
    Portland
    Portlandia
    Portland-transit
    Predictions
    President-bush
    President-feckless-odither
    President-obama
    Psychology
    Race-huckster
    Rape
    Recession
    Recipe
    Replace-the-un
    Republican
    Research-studies-are-always-wrong
    Reviews
    Russia
    Salafism
    Sanctions
    Science
    Science-versus-faith
    Self-defense
    Self-drive-vehicle
    Sex
    Shale-oil
    Shia
    Sjw
    Sleeper
    Smart-growth
    Socialism
    Sovereignty
    Sport
    Sunni
    Supreme-court
    Syria
    Tax
    Technology
    Terrorism
    The-fed
    The-house-of-saud
    The-last-economic-superpower
    Therapy
    Trade
    Transit
    True-believer
    Tvfilm-review
    Un
    Union
    Urban-planning
    Urinals-of-note
    Venezuela
    Voter-fraud
    Wages
    Wahhabism
    War
    War-crimes
    Weird
    Weird-science
    Welfare
    Whole-foods
    Work



    RSS Feed

​Maddog's Lair is copyright 2016-2018 by Mark Sherman. Please feel free to quote from this site provided you link back to the original article.
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact