BBC Article on Social Darwinism, Katrina's Impact, and my take on Taxation.

Good Article on the BBC web site today - "Survival of the fittest?" about the impact of Katrina on the forces of social darwinism in the US.

"Hurricane Katrina is one of those rare interludes which has upset the national
equilibrium. While 9/11 made Americans angry, the fate of New Orleans has gone
beyond that. In varying degrees the whole population is angry, ashamed, and
fearful. "

That's a quote from the article. It goes on to talk about how this disaster might galvanize people into more action, more expectations that government be run for the people. You know, you may have heard that once before, about Government for, of and by the people. That's not been true for generations, but maybe, maybe if we're lucky, some of that may resurface.

Anyway, I liked the article, but in respect to full disclosure, I am not necessarily pro-big-government, I mean, I am against waste, and think that layers of beauracracy and red tape are not the answer, I want efficient government and rational stewards as our leaders and implementers of public policy, but I definately want a more involved government, socially. I am all for higher taxes. Especially on the uber rich. Look at the history, 50, 60 years ago, the taxes that one would have to pay on incomes over a few million dollars a year were puntative, 90% or so taxes if you were earning 5 mil a year or more. (that was at a time when 5 million was worth a lot more than now.
Today people argue against that, people argue against raising taxes on the super rich, the totally swallowed that bullshit "trickle down" economic theory. The thing that makes me laugh is that the people who I speak to, who are opposed to my theories on economics WILL NEVER EVER BE AS RICH AS THEY THINK, they are brainwashed but the super small minority of rich people who would be negatively affected by tax hikes of the nature I propose. The uber rich, I admire them, not for achieving their wealth, but for brainwashing all the little people into acting like human sheilds to reasonable taxation.
Here's my argument - no matter how rich you are and how you got there, you did it because of the benefits afforded to you by this country, by the people around you. Even if your idea was totally original and you financed bringing it to market yourself and you did it all yourself, then you still owe the country for becoming rich off of it.
Why?
Simple - you have the benefit of having a market to sell your idea/product to. And that market exists because of our high standard of living.
And that high standard of living comes at a price. We MUST have viable infrastructure. People must have jobs, homes, health care, clothing, food, and education. And - don't forget, if the earth cannot sustain life, then it cannot sustain the life of your customers. So - for you, no matter how rich you are, to make your money, you need living customers.
What does that mean?
That means that every dime you make, the more you make, the MORE you owe this country for allowing you to make it. Period, end of story.
So - 90% tax on all earnings above - what, say 10 million dollars a year (for the individual), SURE, go for it. And 80% tax on all earnings between 5mil and 10mil. Hell yeah.
And so on and so forth.
Plus for the middle class - they can pay more taxes too, let's compare ourselves to our peers, the Canadians, the Brits, the Australians, the French - they all pay more taxes. And you know what, I have been to these countries. These people live better than we do. I have lived in the UK, and yes, they made less numerical than we do here, due to the massive taxes (over 40% for little guys like me (and probably you)), but still, they travelled more, had better access to health care, and - here's one people don't think about much - they had much less stress. They don't fear being homeless, or worry that if they lose their job they won't be able to see a doctor. they don't worry about being able to get schooling if they want to educate themselves.
I'm not a socialist, and I'm all for a free market, (where appropriate) but not everything should be a free market. It's very easy to construct a logical model that demonstrates how some segments of a civilization's economy should not be free-market driven. Just as it's easy to construct logical models that demonstrate how some legislation is required to ensure safe and effective long term commerce.
Anything infrastructure related - anything having to do with roads, bridges, lights, energy production and distribution, transportation, shipping, medicine, education - these things should not be free market - I'd socialize all of them. The why is simple - if you ensure that your customers are alive, and healthy, and have the means to be customers, to be consumers, then that's good for a free market. And all those big boys who play in the free market - they should pay the ante. THATS RIGHT - we need to start taxing corporations. You know most corporations don't pay any taxes, they get all kinds of breaks and considerations, breaks and considerations you and I don't get... yet a corporation, legally speaking, is an entity, just like you and me, so as an entity, they should pay taxes.
They get out of it because of our republic. Our nation isn't one single nation, it's a republic of city-states that have elected a federal govt to manage things like intrastate commerce, protect our borders, and foreign affairs. That's what the fed is supposed to do. But - that was 200 years ago. Things have changed now, but we still have these loopholes, and the worst is that as a republic, each state has it's own laws and each state is technically competing against it's fellow states for economic progress. That's all well and good 200 years ago now, but the world has shrunk and the whole nation needs to work more efficiently together. Right now, a corporation can whore itself out, building factories where it gets the best graft from the local state government. The state's know this, and they know that even worse, a corporation can go outside the US to make it's goods and still be allowed to sell it here. So - the corporation gets all the money and the nation gets nothing NOTHING in return!!
What we need to do is make a universal mandate, from the fed, that corporations need to pay taxes and not let them shop around state to state for the best deal.
Well, you say, then all the corporations will go elsewhere.
NOPE, don't be silly, this nation has the strongest negotionating ammo around, we have the CUSTOMERS. What we do is get out of that WTO and we tell everyone who wants to sell to our customers - you need to 1) be in this country, and 2) pay taxes. Want to take your manufacturing elsewhere? Sure, fine, dandy, but you're going to pay super high tarrifs to sell your goods here.
There's nothing wrong with that - if we were out of the WTO. Think about it - the dvd player in china cost the manufacturer about 2 dollars to make, whereas it would cost 20 dollars to make here in the US, but in the US we make our companies pay their employees, we enforce environmental policies. those things are things that allow us americans have a decent lifestyle. And - personally, I think that those types of policies should be adopted everywhere, and then we would, as the economists predict, have a leveling of the playing field and there would not need to be trade inequalities. But - right now the trade imbalances are levelling at the lower, undesirable level, forcing quality of life in developed places to dip instead of raising quality of life in less developed areas. That's because the rich are controlling this and their quality of life is GREAT no matter what. Joe Schmoe American Millionaire does not care if his fellow americans live like 3rd world sweat shop slave wage earning peasants. And he certainly doesn't care about the actual 3rd world sweat shop slave wage earning peasants in China, India, or wherever else they're exploiting people today. As far as he is concerned all that matters is having more money than everyone else.
And fine, I don't begrudge him that, but it's not self sustaining. I'd rather have everyone fed, housed, gotten medicine, and education, and allow everyone to be able to buy Joe Schmoe's products for their whole life and for their children and children's children to do the same. Not to leave the earth as a blasted wastland, polluted, boiling, and lifeless, just so some rich guy today could have two 200 foot yaghts.