Sin Taxes

The War in Iraq is expensive by any Accounting procedure, and the Cost is likely to increase significantly in the future. No one else will say it, but the Cost of the Iraq War will exceed a half-trillion dollars sometime next year, and the Win which Bush insists upon doesn’t exist. Win what? There is no method to disarm the Sectarian sides in Iraq, no way to disarm the racial Sides in Iraq, and the Bush-backed regime is itself a Sect which uses violence against it’s enemies. The one Salvation of Iraq might be civil war where the Terrorists of all but one Side are destroyed.

Greg Mankiw provides a very good Post examining the purported increase in inequality, both Alan Reynolds and Greg thinking that heavy Tax-Shifting by Reportage methods created an illusion of increasing inequality which may not be the statistical case (the serious Student should check out the links provided, especially Bernstein and Furman). The Furchgott-Roth paper may lack a comparison Period to stabilize extreme Readouts. The real issue, though, may be Who owned the assets prior and after Tax-Shifting occurred. The previous Tax reportage system is likely to have simply hidden inequality which has been excessively large throughout.

Steven Kyle presents an examination of the real working of Social Security taxation, stating that Social Security taxation is higher than Income taxation until after you reach the median Household Income of $44k. The real fact here ignored, as everywhere else, comes in the use of Income bracketing. The practice literally allows upper Income brackets three advantages: a reduction of owed taxation, the ability to write-off their Social Security contributions, and the right to demand the highest Social Security benefits without payment. Am I being extreme? Now, I was going to propose Today the progressive taxation of Patent and Copyright royalties, as such are basically a gift from the Government (never really extended to myself). lgl