While undoubtedly the discovery that most of the tax burden falls on employees will be for some a strike against the tax, and for others a sign that we need some stiff laws to force those corporations to place the burden elsewhere, it seems to me that this piece of information makes the corporate income tax no less attractive than it was before–which is to say, not at all. Levying a corporate income tax is a very inefficient way to do what we want, which is to redistribute money from the company’s richer owners, customers, and managers to its poorer employees.
(All right, maybe we don’t all want to do this; no doubt many of my readers are even now cringing in horror at the thought. But let us posit, for the sake of discussion, that we do want to do this, because that is at heart of all the arguments I have ever heard in favour of the corporate income tax, and even assuming the ends, the means make no sense.)
I agree. The corporate income tax is nuts, and arguments for it are born purely of economic ignorance.
Zombie Time has an exhaustive expose of the media’s slander against Israel in the ambulance incident. It would be both appropriate and ironic to give this piece a Pulitzer. It will never happen, of course.
Bruce Schneier says that our mindless reactions to terrorist plots is a victory for them in itself:
Regardless of the threat, from the would-be bombers’ perspective, the explosives and planes were merely tactics. Their goal was to cause terror, and in that they’ve succeeded.
Imagine for a moment what would have happened if they had blown up 10 planes. There would be canceled flights, chaos at airports, bans on carry-on luggage, world leaders talking tough new security measures, political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people panicked. To a lesser degree, that’s basically what’s happening right now.
Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we’re terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists’ actions, and increase the effects of their terror.
We’ve had a quiet season so far, but as we get into the end of August, that could be changing:
The Canadian model continues to be very consistent and very gung-ho, developing 97L into a strong tropical storm on Saturday, south of Jamaica, then taking the storm into the Gulf of Mexico as a hurricane.
Economist reports that my idea about doing non-destructive stem cell research has been successfully tested.
Once a fertilised egg has divided into eight cells, one of those cells can be removed in a biopsy without reducing the chance of a successful pregnancy….such biopsied cells might, instead, be encouraged to reproduce