What can the government do to protect America from another financial catastrophe?
Sponsored by Allstate. Learn more at allstate.com/fedreg.
I'm not a financial expert, so I don't have anything but a Monday-night quarterbacker's thoughts on all this.
What I do know is ... blaming "Dubya" isn't fixing anything. I'd prefer to blame the Democrat-controlled Congress of 2006-on, but that doesn't fix anything either. I'd like to blame Obama and Reid and Pelosi and other Democrats who were on the lobbyists payroll with regard to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, but that won't fix anything either. I'd also like to blame Greenspan for lowering interest rates so much that big investors went after the home owner and created the foreclosure mess, but that still doesn't fix things.
What it can do, though, is establish ground rules for avoiding the next mess. We now know certain parameters that affect markets in certain ways... which sounds odd in saying so, as if it's like we're still trying to learn how this stuff works as we go.
The financial mess relies on the little guy. The small business operator, the big business operator and everyone inbetween and working for them. Anyone who actually creates wealth and moves money. The government does not create wealth (aside from print it, and printing more actually decreases the value of the money). The government does not create jobs. It's the Main Street shop/business that does.
And how they get to do more and operate better and employ more people is simple — REDUCE BUSINESS TAXES. I do not understand why a specific portion of the populace thinks that if you raise taxes, you get more revenue. You don't, simply because the number of tax sources decline as a result of the higher taxes, and you're left holding the bag... with less in it. Reducing business taxes provides an incentive to do business. The more business, the more money moved. The more business, the more employed. Period, end of story.
I work freelance, and I consider getting out of it every tax season. My taxes are close to 50%, and that's on income of less than $50,000 per year. I have to pay income, sales, social security, unemployment and a host of other "fees" that I would normally bequeath to an employer when working for them. I work for myself, so I pay it all, and when it adds up, almost half of my sweat is gone.
If you lowered my tax and "fee" burden, I would have the incentive to stay in the business. I would enjoy more business because others would be willing to pay, since they also have less tax/fee burden. More business because, since advertising is a key part of what I do, people will advertise more and require the needed collateral. And if I do well enough, I may actually expand sufficiently to hire someone to help me out. Which in turn helps them out.
I'm no financial wizard, but surely I have a reasonable understanding that can be applied in the overall market. Why is Ireland doing so well in business? Because they lowered business tax rates from the 30+% mark down to about half that. The rest of Europe is envious of Ireland for doing so well, and refuse to lower their own tax system accordingly. Same with the US, where corporate tax rates are about 33%. You may not like "big business" but remember ... EVERY big business started out as a small business, some in garages, and ALL big businesses hire and employ people.
Regulation of some of the fat cats in Wall St. that make their living off the small operator (speculation, hedging, etc) is not a bad idea either. But regulation needs to be cautious and limited, in order to allow the business world to work.
What can the government do to protect America from another financial catastrophe?
Sponsored by Allstate. Learn more at allstate.com/fedreg.
I'm not a financial expert, so I don't have anything but a Monday-night quarterbacker's thoughts on all this.
What I do know is ... blaming "Dubya" isn't fixing anything. I'd prefer to blame the Democrat-controlled Congress of 2006-on, but that doesn't fix anything either. I'd like to blame Obama and Reid and Pelosi and other Democrats who were on the lobbyists payroll with regard to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, but that won't fix anything either. I'd also like to blame Greenspan for lowering interest rates so much that big investors went after the home owner and created the foreclosure mess, but that still doesn't fix things.
What it can do, though, is establish ground rules for avoiding the next mess. We now know certain parameters that affect markets in certain ways... which sounds odd in saying so, as if it's like we're still trying to learn how this stuff works as we go.
The financial mess relies on the little guy. The small business operator, the big business operator and everyone inbetween and working for them. Anyone who actually creates wealth and moves money. The government does not create wealth (aside from print it, and printing more actually decreases the value of the money). The government does not create jobs. It's the Main Street shop/business that does.
And how they get to do more and operate better and employ more people is simple — REDUCE BUSINESS TAXES. I do not understand why a specific portion of the populace thinks that if you raise taxes, you get more revenue. You don't, simply because the number of tax sources decline as a result of the higher taxes, and you're left holding the bag... with less in it. Reducing business taxes provides an incentive to do business. The more business, the more money moved. The more business, the more employed. Period, end of story.
I work freelance, and I consider getting out of it every tax season. My taxes are close to 50%, and that's on income of less than $50,000 per year. I have to pay income, sales, social security, unemployment and a host of other "fees" that I would normally bequeath to an employer when working for them. I work for myself, so I pay it all, and when it adds up, almost half of my sweat is gone.
If you lowered my tax and "fee" burden, I would have the incentive to stay in the business. I would enjoy more business because others would be willing to pay, since they also have less tax/fee burden. More business because, since advertising is a key part of what I do, people will advertise more and require the needed collateral. And if I do well enough, I may actually expand sufficiently to hire someone to help me out. Which in turn helps them out.
I'm no financial wizard, but surely I have a reasonable understanding that can be applied in the overall market. Why is Ireland doing so well in business? Because they lowered business tax rates from the 30+% mark down to about half that. The rest of Europe is envious of Ireland for doing so well, and refuse to lower their own tax system accordingly. Same with the US, where corporate tax rates are about 33%. You may not like "big business" but remember ... EVERY big business started out as a small business, some in garages, and ALL big businesses hire and employ people.
Regulation of some of the fat cats in Wall St. that make their living off the small operator (speculation, hedging, etc) is not a bad idea either. But regulation needs to be cautious and limited, in order to allow the business world to work.
What can the government do to protect America from another financial catastrophe?
Sponsored by Allstate. Learn more at allstate.com/fedreg.
I'm not a financial expert, so I don't have anything but a Monday-night quarterbacker's thoughts on all this.
What I do know is ... blaming "Dubya" isn't fixing anything. I'd prefer to blame the Democrat-controlled Congress of 2006-on, but that doesn't fix anything either. I'd like to blame Obama and Reid and Pelosi and other Democrats who were on the lobbyists payroll with regard to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, but that won't fix anything either. I'd also like to blame Greenspan for lowering interest rates so much that big investors went after the home owner and created the foreclosure mess, but that still doesn't fix things.
What it can do, though, is establish ground rules for avoiding the next mess. We now know certain parameters that affect markets in certain ways... which sounds odd in saying so, as if it's like we're still trying to learn how this stuff works as we go.
The financial mess relies on the little guy. The small business operator, the big business operator and everyone inbetween and working for them. Anyone who actually creates wealth and moves money. The government does not create wealth (aside from print it, and printing more actually decreases the value of the money). The government does not create jobs. It's the Main Street shop/business that does.
And how they get to do more and operate better and employ more people is simple — REDUCE BUSINESS TAXES. I do not understand why a specific portion of the populace thinks that if you raise taxes, you get more revenue. You don't, simply because the number of tax sources decline as a result of the higher taxes, and you're left holding the bag... with less in it. Reducing business taxes provides an incentive to do business. The more business, the more money moved. The more business, the more employed. Period, end of story.
I work freelance, and I consider getting out of it every tax season. My taxes are close to 50%, and that's on income of less than $50,000 per year. I have to pay income, sales, social security, unemployment and a host of other "fees" that I would normally bequeath to an employer when working for them. I work for myself, so I pay it all, and when it adds up, almost half of my sweat is gone.
If you lowered my tax and "fee" burden, I would have the incentive to stay in the business. I would enjoy more business because others would be willing to pay, since they also have less tax/fee burden. More business because, since advertising is a key part of what I do, people will advertise more and require the needed collateral. And if I do well enough, I may actually expand sufficiently to hire someone to help me out. Which in turn helps them out.
I'm no financial wizard, but surely I have a reasonable understanding that can be applied in the overall market. Why is Ireland doing so well in business? Because they lowered business tax rates from the 30+% mark down to about half that. The rest of Europe is envious of Ireland for doing so well, and refuse to lower their own tax system accordingly. Same with the US, where corporate tax rates are about 33%. You may not like "big business" but remember ... EVERY big business started out as a small business, some in garages, and ALL big businesses hire and employ people.
Regulation of some of the fat cats in Wall St. that make their living off the small operator (speculation, hedging, etc) is not a bad idea either. But regulation needs to be cautious and limited, in order to allow the business world to work.
It's Tax Day! Show us something taxing.
Good people, make sure you file, if you have not already done so. I already did, and this return was the hardest ever, so far, to fill out. I won't complain about the automatic credit we get for producing the offspring, but I hate getting 1099 forms. The INT and DIV are not such a big deal (and, believe me, there's not enough on them to matter), but the MISC (non-employee compensation) is a pain. I have no business, therefore I have no business filling out Schedule C. Maybe I mined ore in a past life, but then I would have been a solitary, cave- or shack-dwelling prospector who would have fed IRS types to the coyotes under the desert moon. Oh, right, they didn't have the IRS back then.
I have friends and acquaintances from all points on the political dial, and taxes are a bane for all of them. Not even the most starry-eyed social-program-loving liberals enjoy paying taxes, and those on the other end of things get downright apoplectic at their very mention. Nah, it's not apoplexy: they revert to toddlerhood, and screech and stamp their feet about "MY money, MY money, MY money." I sometimes bring up FICA and SSI payroll deductions around them solely for my entertainment, and though I probably shouldn't laugh at their pathetic state, it is pure comedy to see grown men and women act this way.
Anyway, today might be an appropriate day to get serious and discuss taxes in the most reasonable ways possible. One of my freeper-ish friends consistently reminds me that, in his estimation, "the IRS spends $3 to make $1." (As is typical for this guy, I think he got that off someone's talk radio show.) I really don't know the actual inefficiency quotient, but I suspect that any of us would be disgusted by its truth. I don't like paying taxes, but I don't mind doing so -- until I start discovering the waste and misappropriation that occur after I've remitted my fair share.
We know that even if we stripped the cohesive function known as "government" down to the barest essentials that its operation would not be free of cost. Anarchy is the only free way, but it only exists in the vacuum of theory: if we humans tried it, mini-barons would spring up like toadstools and command other people around, and you'd have little governments, in effect. Then those little guys would start to form alliances, then knock each other off, and still others would do the whole coup thing, and so it goes. And each and every type of king or prime minister or whatever would demand a valuated show of fealty from his subjects.
The best thing to do, then, in a constitutional democratic republic, is to build and maintain grassroots energy that keeps our system of mutually-approved self-assessment simple, open, waste-free, and as small as possible while ensuring that it protects us in the right ways. Where it gets complicated is in the fact that we all have different opinions of what those "right ways" are. There are (at least) two very wrong ways to approach this inherent challenge:
1) Keep voting for politicians who flagrantly defy the principles of "simple, open, waste-free, and as small as possible while ensuring that it protects us in the right ways." Some would have you believe that Democrats are the only politicos who practice this violation, but I submit that we should examine the current GOP administration and its production of record deficits closely and decide whether or not they fit the description as well.
2) Use accumulated wealth to effectively buy politicians who will in turn create loopholes and such that essentially allow you to "take your toys and go home" and no longer play with the rest of us (typically this results in a disproportionate burden on the middle class, which in turn causes economic polarization).
I don't want Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon or GE ripping me off any more than I want a "Department of Oversight of the Departments of Regulatory Agencies" ripping me off any more than I want pork projects in another state because they have a more powerful Senator ripping me off. I want to know that when I honestly and humbly submit to giving up that portion of my, yes, hard-earned cash
-- a portion that grows progressively as my intake increases, for what should be obvious reasons
-- a portion that you won't find darkening the door of a "faith-based" alternative and being squandered by that den of thieves
-- a portion that actually represents a right, not merely a duty, when it comes from a citizen who is free to elect those who vote on its use --
that my resource is received and utilized with the same honesty and humility by those fellow citizens whose job it is to handle that.
If we can just do that, please, then taxes, which will never be pleasant, will at least be a bearable, understandable and sensible interaction.
It's National Stress Awareness Day. Show us something that calms you.
National Stress Awareness Day (NSAD) is organised by the International Stress Management Association (ISMA UK) – a registered charity whose aim is to advance the education of the public in the field of biological stress. Funded by our qualified stress management practitioners registered with ISMA UK, and
also by organisations that have an interest in stress and stress reduction, our aim is to rationalise and develop understanding of stress and to open access to the many coping strategies and sources of help available to people and organisations who want to reduce the harmful outcomes of stress.
Now in its 11th year NSAD is a firm fixture in the UK calendar on the first Wednesday of November (4th November 2009). People can be affected by external pressures over which they believe they have very little control but they are also affected by internal pressures through their thinking patterns.
Worrying is one such pattern. It creates negativity, reduces body energy and saps morale and this year we are encouraging the nation to :
