Category Archives: political-economy

Remembering the GOP tax policy heritage

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From a newspaper editorial circa 1910:

As is well known, the Republicans think that the happiness and prosperity of the Nation are due to high tariff taxes, and the expenditure of an enormous surplus thus produced. The election gave signs that others than Republicans, and even many Republicans, have had enough of that kind of happiness, but the information has not yet extended to all those still exercising authority. The President’s message appreciated the situation, and he sounded a note of warning against extravagance. When commenting upon this counsel of perfection we remarked that it would do well to await the action of Congress before taking it for granted that the President’s counsel would be heeded. The clerks off the appropriation committees have completed their tabulations, and the figures indicate such an excess over last year’s expenditures that there is talk of raising more money by new taxes.

via Division of Labour: I swear I don’t make this stuff up c. 1910.

Assange the rock star does not bode well

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The fate of whistle-blowers and tellers of dangerous truth is rarely rock-star celebrity. Count them. Mordechai Vanunu, who exposed Israel’s nuclear program – imprisoned for nearly 20 years. Gary Webb, who exposed the CIA connection to the distribution of crack cocaine in the US – probably murdered. Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who criticized Putin’s policies in Chechnya – assassinated. Lebanese journalists Samir Qassir and Gebran Tueni, who criticized the Syrian government – killed in car bombings. In 90% of such cases, says the Committee to Protect Journalists, the killers are never brought to justice. Yet, Assange, “the most dangerous man in Cyberspace,” according to the faux-alternative magazine Rolling Stone, lives to tell the tale of his persecution from the cover of Time magazine and the podium of TED conferences, weighted down with awards and honors from such establishment worthies as Economist, New Statesman, and Amnesty International.

And now he is the center of an international man-hunt. Here too, the claims are bizarre. If Wikileaks hasn’t put lives at risk or seriously damaged “national security,” by even the government’s own account, what to make of all these feverish cries for prosecution under the espionage act, for imprisonment and torture, even for execution? Are they for real, or does any one else detect an element of theater? The Wikileaks disclosures have been called cyber-terrorism by many. When before have we seen an international man-hunt for a rag-tag band of terrorists headed up by a charismatic mystery man with a striking appearance and a personal life shrouded in mystery? Now we have Osama-bin-Assange and Al-Wikileaks at war with Joe Lieberman and Sarah Palin, on one hand, and cheered on by David Frum, on the other. Notice that Frum points out that the disclosures actually support George Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq.

This is box-office gold. As some wide-awake journalist has noted, the big winner in all this is the establishment media. Before, it had one foot in the grave. Deservedly. Now it is a “truth-teller.” Readership is up, resurrected by proxy. And the major alternative press, the foundation activists, are bolstering the conclusions of the New York Times. How convenient.

I dearly wish Julian Assange were exactly as he seems – a brilliant iconoclast delivering the death blow to imperialism. But my memory is not so dim. I remember another media circus besides the one around Osama. I recall the mass adulation of a man who exuded brilliance, youth, hope, and salvation. That was in 2008, and he was a young law professor from Chicago. How did that turn out?

via The Case Against Wikileaks – I : Veterans Today.

I know we’re supposed to pay but that doesn’t change the definition of theft

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Our country has a bad habit of locking up non-violent, first-time criminal offenders. Some people are dangerous and should be put in prison for a long, long time. Then there are people who effectively steal from the government for not paying their taxes. The later should be fined, forced to pay the back taxes, sentenced to community service, or something of the sort.

via The REAL reason Wesley Snipes shouldn’t go to prison.

For the record, I think the Bible commands us repeatedly, when dealing with tyrants, not to resort to individual tax resistance. So, as a model for Christian behavior, Snipes is simply wrong.

But there is nothing in the Bible that requires me to be blind to the fact that a powerful armed corporation is threatening and taking other people’s money. Referring to the those who refuse to submit to this process as “people who effectively steal from the government” makes my eyes water.

And while I very much agree with the post’s perspective on prisons, I don’t think what is happening to Snipes is part of a generic social blindness. Even if we were more sane in other areas, I think the Federal Government is always going to demand prison for tax resistors–even though it could easily confiscate the money plus a heavy penalty that would deter others.

People who don’t pay must be singled out and tormented. The majesty of the state demands no less.

Again, I’m not approving of Snipes’ behavior. I think he has brought this on himself and is being something of a fool. He could have paid his taxes and used his money and reputation to far better use in resisting the state. This was a lost opportunity.

Dave Ramsey has already done it right

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According to the Treasury, the meeting will include “the unveiling of a new coordinated National Strategy for Financial Literacy. That National Strategy is designed to guide the ongoing efforts of the federal government and private organizations to empower average Americans with the financial skills they need to strengthen their long-term economic security and stability.”

via EconomicPolicyJournal.com: A New Obama Group of Financial Schemers to Hold First Meeting.

So I’m hearing a ton of .gov supported ads for promoting energy efficiency, education, and financial sense lately. Does this mean we will see a stepped-up national campaign:

  • Telling people how stupid it is to flease a car?
  • Reminding people how much they are losing every week to their state lotteries?
  • Encouraging people to never use unsecured consumer debt?

Don’t hold your breath. Whatever this “literacy” involves, I’m betting it will be encouraging people to stay in underwater homes and “only” use their credit cards for “good” debt. The program will pursue some alleged path to keeping the geese laying those golden eggs for Wall Street without dying from the effort.

If you don’t understand that the modern state is a giant predatory lender, you don’t understand the modern state.

Consumer Christians in an Age of Plastic: Prohibitions, Arguments from Silence, & Weird Priorities

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Awhile back I noticed somewhere that the Bible positively prohibits Israel’s rulers from multiplying wives (inter- and intranational covenants/treaties) and multiplying horses and chariots (war technology). It also never says that rulers are supposed to use their tax revenues to fund entitlements for the population or some portion of the population. So American Evangelicals often argue in favor of multiplying and stockpiling WMD and against the legitimacy of entitlements and welfare.

A related thought occurs to me now. We have, as far as I can tell, zero prohibitions in Scripture barring anyone from receiving financial aid from the civil magistrate, but we have a bunch of prohibitions in the Bible against going into debt, or at least warnings that it is a stupid and dangerous thing to do. But Evangelicals are far more likely to resist receiving government assistance than they are likely to avoid debt.

Maybe Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express are actually more economically dangerous and enslaving than the Welfare State. I’m not settled on that point, but I think it is worth considering.

Consumer Christians in An Age of Plastic: The College Years

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Before the blogosphere brought debate-p07n to your lap, you had to go to a church or college to get in ideological fights to affirm your superiority over others. Back in the 80s, the Religious Right was something of a phenomenon, which meant it was an object of general scorn on Christian college campuses–not always for imaginary reasons, but one got the impression that real facts were only collected by happy accident.

Back then Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger was a Bible for the cool socially conscious Christian college student who wasn’t smart enough to get a computer or business degree but wanted to feel like he was making the right choice.  And then came out David Chilton’s Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulators which allowed students like me to feel the same. The blogosphere was still stuck in book publishing back then.

So there were sides drawn on some Christian college campuses: Evangelicals for Socialist Action versus Ugly Americans for Christ or something like that. And the debates and arguments provided great entertainment over minimum wage law, welfare, and the legitimacy of the profit motive, etc.

And we discussed this stuff not just in class, or on bulletin boards (literal real space bulletin boards where we posted notes made of real paper), or in the school student newspaper–but often while eating Pizza in a dorm room, or while eating chicken wings at the campus fast food joint. Or we would discuss it in the car while we were going out to a rock concert or a restaurant (even that was a mini-road trip where I went to college).

We paid for food on many an evening, even though we were all on the meal plan.

None of us had plastic yet, then in the second half of the eighties. I remembered being amazed at all the direct mail we were sent right before graduation telling us to buy a new car on credit.

But our behavior was rather interesting.

I have good authority that Ron Sider lived what he preached. He wanted everyone to live on $38k in 80s dollars, if I recall correctly, so that they gave everything else away. This feat required low-budget living and careful planning. It meant living on a severe budget and thus tracking expenses.

And I opposed this ESA agenda with a message about persistence in labor, patience, saving, risk-taking, and responsibility for one’s life and the lives of one’s dependents.

And we argued about this over pizza.

It never occurred to me to point out that none of my leftist student friends seemed to be even slightly prepared for a life of austerity and budgeting so that they could give away the excess. And it never occurred to me that the money I earned in college was for any other purpose other than to spend on immediate wants–my needs were taken care of along with tuition.

Saving and all the rest were for other people in another life. As long as I worked at graduating with a decent GPA, nothing else mattered. I was free to spend and consume. Real economic initiative and responsibility beyond that one duty would wait for when I was in the real world with a real job.

I lived in a bubble–to use a pregnant financial term.

I and my ESA friends lived exactly the same sort of economic life.

And Dave Ramsey and Ron Sider have more in common with each other than they did with either group of students.

Workers v. Warriors & Civilization (according to Laura Ingalls Wilder)

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The canons leaped backward, the air was full of flying grass and weeds… Everybody was exclaiming about what a loud noise they had made.

“That’s the noise that made the Redcoats run!” Mr. Paddock said to Father.

“Maybe,” Father said, tugging his beard. “But it was muskets that won the Revolution. And don’t forget it was axes and plows that made this country.”…

Independence Day was over… That night when they were going to the house with milk, Almanzo asked Father:

“Father, how was it axes and plows that made this country? Didn’t we fight England for it?”

“We fought for Independence, son,” Father said. “But all the land our forefathers had was a little strip of country, here between the moutains and the ocean. All the way from here west was Indian country, and Spanish and French and English country. It was farmers that took all that country and made it America.”

“How?” Almanzo asked.

“Well, son, the Spaniards were soldiers, and high-and-mighty gentlemen that only wanted gold. And the French were fur-traders, wanting to make quick money. And England was busy fighting wars. But we were farmers, son; we wanted the land. It was farmers that went over the mountains, and cleared the land, and settled it, and farmed it, and hung on to their farms.”

From Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy, “Independence Day,” p. 179-181

(Living in Post-Civil-War America, I realize Mr. Wilder is engaging in some self-deception. But the ideals shouldn’t be lost even if their execution was far more tainted than he wants to admit.)

No miracles coming

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The good news is this is a knockout punch for Obamanamics. Cap-and-Trade and a whole bunch of other Obama supported nonsense is no dead. This Congress, especially the House, will be far more fiscally conservative than the last, also a good thing.

The bad news is the economy will remain stuck in the mud and troops will likely remain stuck in Afghanistan and 139 other places around the globe.

The Republicans can block anything they want, but they cannot pass anything they want. The same holds true for Senate Democrats.

No miracles are in store. So don’t expect any.

via Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis: Anticlimactic Blowout and Knockout Punch for Obamanamics.

I’ll probably show up to the voting booth and demean myself, but I still find this stirring

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I thought you might be interested to hear how I “voted” today. I live in Massachusetts but I go to school at Cornell, so I requested and received an absentee ballot a few weeks ago. Today, standing next to one of the famous Ithaca gorges, I burned my ballot while my girlfriend read passages from Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed.

It’s an exhilarating feeling to know that I’ve withheld my sanction from a rotten system. No doubt some “responsible” people will say that I wasted my vote, that I would’ve been better served to pool my vote with one million other votes for Sean Bielat. But refusing to vote is itself a powerful and radical vote; it’s an act of delegitimation that says that I want no part of the current system. Etienne de La Boetie would be proud.

via How I ‘Voted’ Today « LewRockwell.com Blog.