As most of you know I have been firing off emails for quite a while on political and economic issues. For a long time, my daughter, Pamela, has been urging me to start a blog. Well, with the help of Pam and her husband, Mike, I'm taking the plunge.
When I figure out how, I will tell you how to pass my web address along to people you think would be interested in reading my blog. You will receive it as an email, unless you notify me that you have a life and don't have time for my ruminations. Just let me know. No hard feelings, #@*(&>#!
Lou
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Taxing the rich
In every Presidential campaign the Democrat rolls out the Party's perennial theme, taxing the rich & corporations to pay for goodies for "working Americans." (Like the people they want to tax are not working Americans). A kind interpretation of this is that these politicians are economic ignoramuses: the less charitable view is that they are charlatans.
The fact is that you can't tax the rich without taxing everyone. Typical net profit margins are around 5-6%. To survive, the corporation, business or professional person must pass along to customers, clients & patients all of their expenses, including taxes, or scale back on staffing, employee compensation or expansion. The corporation, small business & professional person are simply the conduit through which the taxes are extracted from each & every consumer & worker.
Incidentally, we have the 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the world, just a smidgen behind Japan, whose economy has been in the toilet for about 15 years.
The key factor to keep your eye on is government spending. The more the government spends, the more we are all going to pay, one way or another. There's no escaping. So when you here a politician promising goodies at someone else's expense, ask yourself if it's worth jeoparding your income or paying higher prices for the goods & services you depend on.
Spending, that's really the issue.
The fact is that you can't tax the rich without taxing everyone. Typical net profit margins are around 5-6%. To survive, the corporation, business or professional person must pass along to customers, clients & patients all of their expenses, including taxes, or scale back on staffing, employee compensation or expansion. The corporation, small business & professional person are simply the conduit through which the taxes are extracted from each & every consumer & worker.
Incidentally, we have the 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the world, just a smidgen behind Japan, whose economy has been in the toilet for about 15 years.
The key factor to keep your eye on is government spending. The more the government spends, the more we are all going to pay, one way or another. There's no escaping. So when you here a politician promising goodies at someone else's expense, ask yourself if it's worth jeoparding your income or paying higher prices for the goods & services you depend on.
Spending, that's really the issue.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
John Malone (Liberty Media)
Interesting interview with John Malone (Liberty Media) in today's WSJ. On the current economic downturn, he says it's "the scariest one in my business career." He says that if the banking system loses $800 billion and they are leveraged 20-1, that means were going to see $16 trillion of financial values wiped out, not incl. housing.
He goes on:
"America was the place to be. We've kind of frittered that away. We've lived beyond our means as a country & in many cases as individuals. Sooner or later that's going to come back in a compression of standard of living.....The thing that scares me the most is our technological capabilities relative to the rest of the world." Then he goes on about how 70% of the science & engineering students in our university graduate programs are foreigners & that after they get their degrees "we kick them out of the country." Maybe that's why Steve Ballmer (MSFT) says that by 2025 80% of the world's scientists & engineers will be in Asia.
Do you hear any politicians talking about any of this?
He goes on:
"America was the place to be. We've kind of frittered that away. We've lived beyond our means as a country & in many cases as individuals. Sooner or later that's going to come back in a compression of standard of living.....The thing that scares me the most is our technological capabilities relative to the rest of the world." Then he goes on about how 70% of the science & engineering students in our university graduate programs are foreigners & that after they get their degrees "we kick them out of the country." Maybe that's why Steve Ballmer (MSFT) says that by 2025 80% of the world's scientists & engineers will be in Asia.
Do you hear any politicians talking about any of this?
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