The fantasy of American democracy is that the election process weeds out the dopes, jackasses and frauds. A single visit to the Capitol when Congress is in session is enough to dispel that myth.
Tax wealth? Better if our governments -- local, state and especially Federal -- removed impediments frustrating the entrepreneurs who make wealth!
After all, more wealth means more tax revenue for the wealth-takers to grab and give to those individuals and projects whom they believe deserve it more than those who took the risks to produce it
Remove impediments . . . no kidding! The other thing that Bill misses is that tax cuts have increased revenue to the Treasury every time they been implemented. So his premise that they increase deficits and debt if there aren't spending reductions is false. This has been the case going back to Coolidge.
Nice slight of hand but I think it is lacking the rest of the story. All increased revenue has ever done for the U.S. is to allow Congress to increase spending further. If you increase taxes say by a Trillion a year and spending increases by 2 Trillion a year (pick your own numbers) - it would seem to this non-Ive League prole to be overall a deficit increase. It takes fiscal constraint to tame the deficit and all raising taxes does is allow those jackasses in Congress to continue to spend like drunken soldiers (oops my apology to all soldiers). We can rant and rave but until the death of the US$ arrives there will be no spending cuts.
Woodrow Wilson and his stooge Roosevelt ended the Republic and there is no going back. The first public dollar handed to the first private person has created the system that will soon blow up the entire world's economy. Both men should have been hanged. Wilson created the source to fund the private sector bribes given out by Roosevelt. Roosevelt divorced the monetary system from gold foundation, allowing massive printing of cash bribes within the nation. Nixon faced with the end result of fake dollars filling the coffers of European banks as they moved to trade the IOU dollar for real money. A sleight of hand a few lies, while defaulting on our debt set our course to oblivion. It's a matter of time, people will come to learn the hard way, wealth is an accumulation of real property, not debt and digital smoke and mirrors. An asset makes money, everything else is a liability. Every balance sheet has two sides, when liabilities grow over assets, eventually something is going to correct the balance sheet and there might be blood.
William F Buckley Jr. famously quipped that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than the elected ranks of Washington DC. Today the result would most certainly be a vast improvement. I have said for years that the top management echelon of any Fortune 500 company could be greatly improved by replacing it randomly with the ignorant and lowly, an idea very similar to Buckley’s. Sounds preposterous, but my rationale was always that humble folk who do not have the answers can only ask and listen. Because they ‘don’t have the answers’ they seek out those who do, and if only the top ranks are replaced there are still plenty of people around who know how things are done and can point out better paths. Of course the Machiavellians will deride this as well, but I saw some really horrible leadership and top management at the Fortune 500 company I worked for for decades, and I was sure that Buckley’s Boston phone book solution would be a big improvement.
Buckley actually said he’d rather be governed by those folks in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nf_bu-kBr4
Were Buckley still with us he’d almost surely change nothing in that statement except the number of people on the Harvard faculty. 😊
I would hope we wouldn't need to "raise needed revenue". But given past results the law will contain 2000 pages and be passed at 3am on Sunday morning, with no Congressman or woman having read it. It just seems like a little too much law and not enough jurisprudence.
And add this as a raison d’etre as for such agreement; with almost $16 trillion in personal consumption expenditures, the United States is the world's largest consumer market.
Sounds wonderful but the problem facing the middle class today isn't "fair". The essence is if you pay a little tax the Government will use the revenue from this "fair" tax to support the citizens and maintain our lifestyle. Today - that ain't happening. The U.S. doesn't even have borders anymore and borders are part of the definition of a country. Any taxes paid today are "NOT fair" since they aren't use for us but to create wealth and more power inside the Beltway. Nice thought though.
A wealth tax on unrealized gains is so ridiculous it defies belief. Do they actually believe these rich people are going to pay a real 25% tax on their imaginary gains? Every year??
For fun, let’s say there’s 30,000 people in the US with $100M or more. I’ll guess that totals between $2 and $5 trillion. Assuming a good chunk of that is in the stock market, what happens when they sell the stock to avoid the tax? (Or pay the tax?) Those are market-moving numbers. The price falls, so not only does the government not get the revenue they planned on getting, but all of us little people with some retirement investments get hosed as well. And then the government doesn’t get the gains tax from us, either.
And that’s just one problem. Imagine trying to raise capital in that environment!
It’s not even the tax that scares me at this point. It’s the breathtaking stupidity of those who propose it.
WHAT IS THIS TAX UNREALIZED CAPITAL GAINS STUFF? SO, I PAY THE CAP GAINS TAX AND THEN THE MARKET CRASHES 50%, SO, I WINDNUP SELLING AT A LOSS. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE SPLAIN THIS TO ME?
DEAR BILL, THANKS FOR FOR ANOTHER EXCELLENT THOUGHT PPROVOKING ESSAY. I HAVE JUST POSTED A COMMENT TO DAN'S RECENT PRIVATE BRIEFING. I SHALL GIVE THE CRUX OF IT HERE. OUR GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN HIJACKED ---STO9LEN, CORRUPTED TO THE CORE. IT BEARS NO RESEMBLANCE TO REAKL
REALITY NOR TO THE WILL OF WE, THE PEOPLE. IT IS A SHAM. A MOCKERY. STOLEN BY BUYING OURR ELECTED OFFICIALS.
FORGET ABOUT. THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM---BOTH SIDES ARE BOUGHT
LOCK, STOCK, AND BARREL BY THE RICH POWER ELITE. FORGET ALL YOU EVER THOUGHT YOU KNEW ABOUT POLTICS AS USUAL. AND WITH LAZER FOCUS FIND AND ELECT A SAINT WHO WILL GIVE FOUR YEARS OF HIS LIFE TO HIS COUNTRY AND TO HIS COUNTRYMEN TO SAVE ANERICA FROM DESTRUCTION---PLANNED DEMOLITION BY THE RICH POWER ELITE. HOW WERE THEY ABLE TO COME SO CLOSE. BRIBER--.-ON A GIGANTIC SCALE. LEGALIZED BRIBER--- RIBERY ALL THE SAME. WHO MADE IT LRGAL. THE VERY SAME GUYS WHO GET THE BRIBES. ELECT SOMEONE WHO WILL LIKE MELEI TAKE A CHAIN SAW TO THE ROTTEV TIMBERS IN DC. I HAVE N.OW SEVERAL TIMES SUGGESTED RICK AS A MAN WHO HAS ALL THE RIGHT STUFF.
Rome added the story of the early Christian church in its entirety, the proof is overwhelming.
Judas was a Romes attempt to characterize God's chosen as greedy devils doing the work of the devil. Even Charles Dickens employed the ruse with Fagin in Oliver Twist. We see Shylock in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare was the pen name of Sir Francis Bacon the author of the KJ bible.
The problem with the Jews and the reason they are historically hated by Christianity and Islam is simply measuring the Towrah, Prophets, and Psalms to their religions leaves no doubt both are utterly ridiculously false. I might add comparing the teachings or Rabbical Judaism to the Towrah, Prophets, and Psalms it is easy to come to the same condemnation. God actually hates all religions, due to their tendency to draw souls away from His witness. Christianity teaches the old has pass away the OT is history but should be ignored, God changed His mind and switched from Jews to Gentiles. islam has its Quran, claiming the later is the fulfillment of the Towrah. This while everything it teaches is the opposite. Finally the Rabbis are not interested in what God has to say, their Babylonia Talmud written by rabbis takes precedence over anything God might have said.
Politicians and clerics have a lot in common both are whores, the later absolves the sins of the former, but only for a good fee or tax free status.
Bill, interesting essay, but just more of the same. When the news reports a march on Washington D.C. by the working middle class and retired class, things will change. Until than its all bullshit. As far as Robert Kennedy Junior, may be well intentioned but he is not in Pres. Milei's class , none of them could hold a candle to him (it would take an act of Congress to light the candle first)
The 12th Apostle was chosen to replace Judas, not Jesus.
A very obvious and odd mistake to make on accident. Perhaps Bill is checking if we're paying attention.
Thanks Zoltan. You beat me to it!! Replace Jesus?? Hmmmmm.
Tax wealth? Better if our governments -- local, state and especially Federal -- removed impediments frustrating the entrepreneurs who make wealth!
After all, more wealth means more tax revenue for the wealth-takers to grab and give to those individuals and projects whom they believe deserve it more than those who took the risks to produce it
Remove impediments . . . no kidding! The other thing that Bill misses is that tax cuts have increased revenue to the Treasury every time they been implemented. So his premise that they increase deficits and debt if there aren't spending reductions is false. This has been the case going back to Coolidge.
Nice slight of hand but I think it is lacking the rest of the story. All increased revenue has ever done for the U.S. is to allow Congress to increase spending further. If you increase taxes say by a Trillion a year and spending increases by 2 Trillion a year (pick your own numbers) - it would seem to this non-Ive League prole to be overall a deficit increase. It takes fiscal constraint to tame the deficit and all raising taxes does is allow those jackasses in Congress to continue to spend like drunken soldiers (oops my apology to all soldiers). We can rant and rave but until the death of the US$ arrives there will be no spending cuts.
Woodrow Wilson and his stooge Roosevelt ended the Republic and there is no going back. The first public dollar handed to the first private person has created the system that will soon blow up the entire world's economy. Both men should have been hanged. Wilson created the source to fund the private sector bribes given out by Roosevelt. Roosevelt divorced the monetary system from gold foundation, allowing massive printing of cash bribes within the nation. Nixon faced with the end result of fake dollars filling the coffers of European banks as they moved to trade the IOU dollar for real money. A sleight of hand a few lies, while defaulting on our debt set our course to oblivion. It's a matter of time, people will come to learn the hard way, wealth is an accumulation of real property, not debt and digital smoke and mirrors. An asset makes money, everything else is a liability. Every balance sheet has two sides, when liabilities grow over assets, eventually something is going to correct the balance sheet and there might be blood.
William F Buckley Jr. famously quipped that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than the elected ranks of Washington DC. Today the result would most certainly be a vast improvement. I have said for years that the top management echelon of any Fortune 500 company could be greatly improved by replacing it randomly with the ignorant and lowly, an idea very similar to Buckley’s. Sounds preposterous, but my rationale was always that humble folk who do not have the answers can only ask and listen. Because they ‘don’t have the answers’ they seek out those who do, and if only the top ranks are replaced there are still plenty of people around who know how things are done and can point out better paths. Of course the Machiavellians will deride this as well, but I saw some really horrible leadership and top management at the Fortune 500 company I worked for for decades, and I was sure that Buckley’s Boston phone book solution would be a big improvement.
Buckley actually said he’d rather be governed by those folks in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nf_bu-kBr4
Were Buckley still with us he’d almost surely change nothing in that statement except the number of people on the Harvard faculty. 😊
Bill and Dan.
A fellow Substacker, Chris at QTR Fringe Finance did an hour long interview with RFK Jr. it aired yesterday.
I found it truly revealing and endearingly revolutionary.
Please have a listen as it might be the best hour that you and your subscribers spend this week!
And if you like what Chris does, please do follow him.
He is brilliantly irreverent, tenacious when pursuing new ways to look at
‘what is” and say “no f—-ing way!!!” And then build a plan to unwind the BS.
And he’s also got a great and inquisitive business brain!!
( And no…I am not on his payroll 🙈. Just a Big Fan)
https://open.substack.com/pub/quoththeraven/p/rfk-jr-exclusive-israel-inflation?r=156wv0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Very Best Regards.
Brian
I would hope we wouldn't need to "raise needed revenue". But given past results the law will contain 2000 pages and be passed at 3am on Sunday morning, with no Congressman or woman having read it. It just seems like a little too much law and not enough jurisprudence.
Note: Matthias was chosen to replace Judas - not Jesus.
Sales tax is a fair tax. Buy a lot; pay tax a lot. Buy a little; pay tax a little.
I agree with you Sallie. All 3 sentences.
And add this as a raison d’etre as for such agreement; with almost $16 trillion in personal consumption expenditures, the United States is the world's largest consumer market.
A tax is a tax . In My opinion it adds to inflation. Another symptom of Monetary Malfunction.
Sounds wonderful but the problem facing the middle class today isn't "fair". The essence is if you pay a little tax the Government will use the revenue from this "fair" tax to support the citizens and maintain our lifestyle. Today - that ain't happening. The U.S. doesn't even have borders anymore and borders are part of the definition of a country. Any taxes paid today are "NOT fair" since they aren't use for us but to create wealth and more power inside the Beltway. Nice thought though.
Gotcha!
The Apostles replaced Jesus?? Really, Mr. Bonner? They chose, by lot Mattihas to replace JUDAS - the antithesis of Jesus.
A wealth tax on unrealized gains is so ridiculous it defies belief. Do they actually believe these rich people are going to pay a real 25% tax on their imaginary gains? Every year??
For fun, let’s say there’s 30,000 people in the US with $100M or more. I’ll guess that totals between $2 and $5 trillion. Assuming a good chunk of that is in the stock market, what happens when they sell the stock to avoid the tax? (Or pay the tax?) Those are market-moving numbers. The price falls, so not only does the government not get the revenue they planned on getting, but all of us little people with some retirement investments get hosed as well. And then the government doesn’t get the gains tax from us, either.
And that’s just one problem. Imagine trying to raise capital in that environment!
It’s not even the tax that scares me at this point. It’s the breathtaking stupidity of those who propose it.
PLEASE FORGIVE CAPS ALMOST BLIND
WHAT IS THIS TAX UNREALIZED CAPITAL GAINS STUFF? SO, I PAY THE CAP GAINS TAX AND THEN THE MARKET CRASHES 50%, SO, I WINDNUP SELLING AT A LOSS. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE SPLAIN THIS TO ME?
True! And all of them were elected by dopes, jackasses and frauds.
DEAR BILL, THANKS FOR FOR ANOTHER EXCELLENT THOUGHT PPROVOKING ESSAY. I HAVE JUST POSTED A COMMENT TO DAN'S RECENT PRIVATE BRIEFING. I SHALL GIVE THE CRUX OF IT HERE. OUR GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN HIJACKED ---STO9LEN, CORRUPTED TO THE CORE. IT BEARS NO RESEMBLANCE TO REAKL
REALITY NOR TO THE WILL OF WE, THE PEOPLE. IT IS A SHAM. A MOCKERY. STOLEN BY BUYING OURR ELECTED OFFICIALS.
FORGET ABOUT. THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM---BOTH SIDES ARE BOUGHT
LOCK, STOCK, AND BARREL BY THE RICH POWER ELITE. FORGET ALL YOU EVER THOUGHT YOU KNEW ABOUT POLTICS AS USUAL. AND WITH LAZER FOCUS FIND AND ELECT A SAINT WHO WILL GIVE FOUR YEARS OF HIS LIFE TO HIS COUNTRY AND TO HIS COUNTRYMEN TO SAVE ANERICA FROM DESTRUCTION---PLANNED DEMOLITION BY THE RICH POWER ELITE. HOW WERE THEY ABLE TO COME SO CLOSE. BRIBER--.-ON A GIGANTIC SCALE. LEGALIZED BRIBER--- RIBERY ALL THE SAME. WHO MADE IT LRGAL. THE VERY SAME GUYS WHO GET THE BRIBES. ELECT SOMEONE WHO WILL LIKE MELEI TAKE A CHAIN SAW TO THE ROTTEV TIMBERS IN DC. I HAVE N.OW SEVERAL TIMES SUGGESTED RICK AS A MAN WHO HAS ALL THE RIGHT STUFF.
SINCERELY,
LIAM
THE RICK I AM REFERRING IS RIBK RULE. PLEASE PARDON MY MISTAKES. ALMOST BLIND. LIAM
Well, that might be the cause of all the world’s problems, when churches replaced Jesus.
“The Kingdom of God is all around” and the only way into it is through Jesus. It has its benefits, “The peace that the world cannot give.”
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul.”
We spend so little time, “Seeking the Kingdom of God first so that we might have everything besides”
Rome added the story of the early Christian church in its entirety, the proof is overwhelming.
Judas was a Romes attempt to characterize God's chosen as greedy devils doing the work of the devil. Even Charles Dickens employed the ruse with Fagin in Oliver Twist. We see Shylock in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare was the pen name of Sir Francis Bacon the author of the KJ bible.
The problem with the Jews and the reason they are historically hated by Christianity and Islam is simply measuring the Towrah, Prophets, and Psalms to their religions leaves no doubt both are utterly ridiculously false. I might add comparing the teachings or Rabbical Judaism to the Towrah, Prophets, and Psalms it is easy to come to the same condemnation. God actually hates all religions, due to their tendency to draw souls away from His witness. Christianity teaches the old has pass away the OT is history but should be ignored, God changed His mind and switched from Jews to Gentiles. islam has its Quran, claiming the later is the fulfillment of the Towrah. This while everything it teaches is the opposite. Finally the Rabbis are not interested in what God has to say, their Babylonia Talmud written by rabbis takes precedence over anything God might have said.
Politicians and clerics have a lot in common both are whores, the later absolves the sins of the former, but only for a good fee or tax free status.
Bill, interesting essay, but just more of the same. When the news reports a march on Washington D.C. by the working middle class and retired class, things will change. Until than its all bullshit. As far as Robert Kennedy Junior, may be well intentioned but he is not in Pres. Milei's class , none of them could hold a candle to him (it would take an act of Congress to light the candle first)
Does anybody know how a reasonable person should deal with an unreasonable person?
Don't forget to vote!