Tarriffs
Tariffs are taxes on commerce and when you tax something you get less of it.
A Political Heuristic
I went over the November ballot with some friends and applied my new heuristic to some of the measures and candidates and it gave good insight. The heuristic I’m working with is that moving the world towards prosperity is the critical issue. Here are some examples:
Eliminate the Income Tax
It is Time to Eliminate the Income Tax. The Federal Government needs lots of money and they get most of it through income taxes. Unfortunately income taxes distort behavior, are volatile and are extremely complicated. An asset tax could replace the income tax. It would be fairer, easier to enforce, less volatile and would discourage …
America’s Candidate
“All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.” Al Smith Here is an idea that might give us better candidates for President. In the last election cycle both parties had flawed selection processes for their candidates. And both ended up with flawed candidates.
IRS Unintended Consequences
A troubling result of politicizing the IRS and lying about it. The unintended consequence of the executive order that created DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in 2012 is the current surge in the number of underage arrivals from Central America. The unintended consequence of the apparent politicization of the IRS during the Obama Administration …
The Big Bubble
The sub-prime housing bubble of 2008 was a classic bubble. It almost brought down the world financial system and did cause a recession in the United States that spread to most of the developed world. But just two years earlier in 2006 almost nobody was predicting that the housing bubble would burst and how much …
Final Exam
Tomorrow is the final exam on my June prediction that Obama will not be re-elected. I’m still confident that Romney will win and I do think that he is the best choice for the country but I don’t expect any miracles to come out of the election. Our lives will be effected very little. If …
Simon Says Postcards 8/28/2102
Circa 1200 in Rothenburg they passed a compulsory tax to build city walls. This was followed by taxes to have city water, sewers and education. This explains the path we have inevitably followed to a national health system Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Bavaria Compulsory Taxes?
Early Government
In Rothenburg, Bavaria we were surrounded by evidence of the beginnings of the city state. I wrote the other day about the consequences of compulsory taxes for defense. Another early function of government was to try and make the marketplace fair. In Rothenburg we saw two evidences of attempts to have a fair market. The …
Medieval Walls and Socialized Medicine
About 1200 in Rothenburg, Bavaria (pronounced rotenberg) in order to build a city wall they levied a tax on all of the properties within the walls of the city. The tax was unusual for the time in that it was compulsory and according to the local history people who refused to pay were run out …