An Interesting Thought

In the United States we have a rule that income from local and state government bonds are not taxable. This is so the same people that are paying out interest are not taking in certain percentage points as tax right back from the bond holders. This also allows state governments to borrow money cheaper than the market would allow because the tax benefit makes the real rate of return higher. The problem with this policy is best explained with an example. Lets’ say you have a family of great wealth that has a large enough store of wealth that it can make do living off of interest payments alone from these tax exempt bonds. In this situation regular income tax payers are paying the taxes that are being used to raise money needed to pay for the interest payments to the wealthy. So while the state has programs to ensure the poor benefit from lower taxes and social assistance programs (makes sense), and in this case the rich have to pay no taxes on the interest they are receiving from the state for allowing them to borrow such a large amount of money (makes sense). The class, in this situation, that will be stuck with most of the tax bill than would be the middle class. (Doesn’t make sense)

This is Why I go to College

Today I heard an economist on c-span use wit, logic, and emotion to change my mind about things. It is a challenge to always be open to having yourself proved wrong but this challenge has the most rewards of anything in life.  I tend to have more liberal economic policies but I think as you will see, he does a great job with his argument and his logic is solid. As much I like the fact that the government is trying to fix things for the American public as a whole, I agree with the speaker that the most recent government bailout favors the rich the most. It is actually a transfer of wealth from the lower income to the wealthier to help them recover their own loses incurred in the free market. Let me lay it out.

My father invests; he takes money out of his perfectly safe savings account and injects it into the wild market in hopes to obtain the same high rate of return the rich regularly enjoy.  Sometimes he makes money other times he doesn’t but this is how life and the free market works. To be honest every member of our family, all six of us, have been in the stock market. When the four children were born our grandmother gave us each a $1,000 savings bond, and when I turned twelve my father told us all to pick a company to invest in. The four kids choose; Disney, Ford, General Electric, and Walmart. Much as you would guess we all did very different Ford went way down to around $300 at time and Disney did the same but is recovering now close to its original purchase price. GE made a small but steady gain, and Walmart went all the way up to $3,000. We all did different but overall more was gained than lost. But the point of the story is that the government is not mailing my small family check to compensate for our loses and we all knew that beforehand.

The government is however giving the bank CEOs the money they need to keep their too-big-to-fail financial institution afloat. Now this is interesting because not only are they using the money paid by the general public, such as myself and my librarian mother, to help the financial system stay liquid and functional but also to dish out bonuses to the tune of millions. Understand “the government” is not a thing separate from us, it is the way we organize ourselves. It exists only with the people and the money we choose to give to it. It this organization we use to make our laws and ensure life, liberty, and the rest. If this organization is one that takes money from the poor and gives it to rich, it isn’t one that I would care to associate myself with.

Letters from Earth Review

Last night I was searching through FORA.tv when I encountered a lecturer who made it a point to inform the audience that he was allied with progressivism. This made me, a more liberal minded Roman Catholic casually interested in Progressivism because I so enjoyed what he had to say during his talk. I googled “progressive ideology” and read up on the movement. I found a certain amount of personal familiarity in what I had found on the web. I agreed with most of what was written, while I’m sure when writing about one self it is easy to twist language to make you self sound better than might be observed by another. But the principles of limited trust for authority figures and the continuous questioning of the status quo sounded like something I might say to describe many of my own thoughts if I was surrounded by people who I think could handle such a statement, most of my friends though could not. Anyways a link on one of the sites I visited had a work by the American author Mark Twain. It warned that it could be a painful read.

A disclaimer warning about physical/mental pain that could be associated with a short piece of literature is uncommon in this day and age. So being the open minded individual I usually pride myself on being I decided to see what Huckleberry Fin’s author had to say. Needless to say that was the last enjoyable moment of the night. I’m not going to say that I didn’t grin or laugh at points. But I sat there helplessly while I witnessed the precious world view I held so close to my heart and deep in mind get torn apart piece by piece with a style of razor sharp wit that even I was completely unprepared for. The short story which is available online for free is written in the unfamiliar style of personalized letters from Satan to his non-banished archangel friends, Gabriel and Michael. He observes the hypocrisy of man, a species, nay an experiment, of the supreme creator.  Most of the chilling observations made are ones that if you look deep enough inside of yourself you know to be true. Now not everything written is law, or even meant to be taken seriously but if you are a Christian this will leave a fowl taste in your mouth that your mind may almost mistake as sweat. If you are looking to go on a mental skydive give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Hello

I never thought I’d like to blog, but I think I would like an audience to bounce ideas off of at all hours, argue points with, and just figure it out together. I have no idea what I may or may not say on this or even if this is going to have a theme, but I want the communication to start. I am not really doing this for anyone but if someone were to enjoy it that would be great.