A post at TJICistan ("
notes on morlocks") had a comment thread going that quickly veered, by way of Golgafrincham Ark B, into Galt's Gulch.
Brian Dunbar wrote:
The harder the government squeezes, the more wealth the productive class will hide. If really wealthy will offshore first their wealth, then themselves.
From the government’s point of view the money disappears into the 4th dimension – can’t track it, can’t benefit from it. From the Man’s perspective ‘going galt’ and ‘playing hide the money’ have the same affect.
Which caused me to reply:
I will point out that we have an “income tax” and not a “wealth tax”.
Also that “the productive class” and “the wealthy class” are not synonymous. The Kennedys, for example, are very wealthy, and yet produce little except red tape and dead drunks, neither of which trade very well in a free market.
Inheritance and capitol gains taxes?
ReplyDeleteGerry
Allow me a yeabut.....
ReplyDeleteWealth in the form of 'Money' is usually not left laying around. In fact, except for it's hard currency form, by definition money circulates.
Wealthy people don't generally let their money aculumulate as MS60 St. Gaudens under the matress. It makes sleeping in after a good cocain party pretty tough. The 'money' is invested here and there and takes on a life of it's own. Income tax is only one of dozens of ways the Gubermint has of siphening wealth out of our economy and into their corruption ridden payola coffers.
No.... the idea of wealthy people moving their 'money' offshore, and maybe themselves, as a 'going Galt' scenario is valid. The same with 'hiding' wealth. Hidden wealth is quiet, stealthy, sluggish wealth.... hard to tax simply because it doesn't surface in the economy. Again, a Galt scenario.
The investor class can be productive (funding businesses, crazy new ideas, buying property, inter alia).
ReplyDeleteIt is the trust fund class that is living in San Fransico, wearing sandlas, protesting that see being unproductive as some such of guilt cleanse.
Shootin' Buddy
I said they are not synonymous. Yes, there is overlap on the Venn diagram.
ReplyDelete"The Kennedys, for example, are very wealthy, and yet produce little except red tape and dead drunks, neither of which trade very well in a free market."
ReplyDeleteYes, but since a truly free market is only a model, both red tape and dead drunks have value. Red tape begets patronage schemes, and dead drunks are used to justify warrantless searches and asset seizure. Both are examples of profiteering that disproportionately benefit the recipients--who are already receiving compenstation--and neither are particularly useful to anyone else.
Actually Kennedy-trust-owned companies produce a great deal of useful material such as oil. That production just happens to take place very low-tax locations such as Fiji.
ReplyDeleteThe Kennedy's have never been opposed to production - they have always been opposed to sharing the income with government - even if they wrote the tax laws.
You have to remember on income taxes, if you have an income, the libs consider you wealthy and they're determined to fix that situation.
ReplyDeleteJust to inject some drift to this thread, pls check your email.
ReplyDeleteFrom comments on a semi-Uberpost at Kevin's someone made a point about what Whittaker Chambers and a European once discussed:
ReplyDelete"You don’t understand the class structure of American society," said Smetana, "or you would not ask such a question. In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists."
— Whittaker Chambers, pg. 616
Oh yeh and there's sparrowhawk/macon eamil at aol.
ReplyDeleteTrue that the Kennedys, et al, often produce very little themselves but their money is invested to make more money, which enterprises produce jobs for the average American.
ReplyDeleteIf that money and/or the profit from those investments goes offshore it not only hurts the tax base, it hurts the productivity of our economy and creates fewer jobs.
DirtCrashr:
ReplyDeletePurely a random note. "Smetana" is Russian for sour cream.
Interesting just how sour the cream an get, especially hear in California...
ReplyDelete"The Kennedys, for example, are very wealthy, and yet produce little except red tape and dead drunks, neither of which trade very well in a free market."
ReplyDeleteQotD!!! Albeit a day late...
tweaker
Lewis,
ReplyDeleteDrifting along, Frederic Smetana's "Three Revolutionary Marches" was a rabble rousing tune in Czechoslovakia, to the point it became a capital offense to play it there. I was first exposed to the delightful ditties in the approved arrangement by Vaclav Nelhybel, in high school concert band.
I still play the melody on recorder, waiting on red lights or the kid at Burger King - or whistling.