The Restless Heart

Mark Perry sees the Consumer as back, but I wish for greater elements than Retail Spending Without Employment. The economy remains the crippled Cartoon when confronted by bygone Booms. Some 21,000 units were sold in Housing last November; I can remember when that many units were sold in my rural State in one month. I think back to a discussion I had over thirty years ago, where We were translating Average Income of Taxpayers into other elements. Now I would first like to say there is no way to in any way reach this conclusion in a rational manner, but I estimate that the average Taxpayer would have to own about 23,400 shares of Corporate stock and be a Day-Trader to equal the Income levels they possessed during the height of the last Boom. Two things: It is nice to know that some things never change, and I am still as poor at Math as I ever was; and the economy is about in that bad a shape.

I will turn Us away from the futuristically impossible with a far more down-to-earth evaluation by Arnold Kling; though it may be a biased in its own way. Understand that Conservatives and Liberals share a common thread: they hide their faults and Sins within a provisional ideology which can be modified to fit all circumstances. I wonder at Arnold’s praise of Cancer research, whose Price per Cure went from about $200k to about $600k since 2006. Isn’t there something in Economics about Scarcity, and proper division of Resources? I also doubt his predictions about Mini defaults, because a Credit Rating will have to reestablished for Government entities, whether they deserve one or not! Energy will also always come from a deliverable source, and Solar will not take over until electricity is genuine replacement for Oil or Coal.

I will really waste time and energy on this issue, when actual real Tax revenues from US corporate tax rates actually exceed Japanese collections. The United States may hold the Record for the most Tax remissions per Dollar of collected tax receipts. I hereby state my New Year’s Resolution, which is to congratulate Congress when it finally restructures the American Tax Code to a place where it makes some Sense. Knowing my relative animosity to Congress, I feel gratified that there is little chance I will have to praise Congress at any time. lgl