Flat tax.  aka “Fiar tax” - where it’s a simple x% and everyone pays the same percentage of income tax.  Or the idea of a national sales tax - so tax becomes comsumption based instead of income based.

Both of these are great ideas and definitely make much more sense than our current system.  [We can argue that later, it's not the point of this short article]

Here’s why it’ll never happen:

Taxes; specifically, the right of congress to levy taxes, or even more specifically the right of congress to change how they levy taxes.

They can control how much you pay in taxes.  And they can adjust that amount (up or down) simply by saying “aye”.

How much power does that give them?

All the power in the world.

It literally gives them puppet strings attached to every single producer in America.  To use a Rand-like metaphor, it’s as if congress has a throttle control attached directly to YOUR motive engine.

In the recent 2008 electin, ALL the candidates included campaign promisses stating what they would do with taxes.  Obama promised to lower them for some, and raise them for others.  McCain promised the exact same thing, only for different groups.

They BOTH were essentially buying votes with the tax rate as currency.

A flat, fair, consumption (whatever you want to call it) tax would take that power away from Congress.  No longer would they hold such influence over American producers.  No longer would the rich fear retribution from them, no longer would the poor expect concessions from them.  The power of Congress would be greatly reduced with such a tax.

Political candidates, of all parties, could no longer use “tax breaks” as a campaign item.  What would they have left to talk about?  Sure would be nice to find out.

How could class warfare exist if we all paid the same % of our earnings?  If we all payed taxes based on what we bought, how then could a poor apartment dweller claim “unfair” against a wealthy multi-house owner?

These are just a few of the results (or as I like to call them: benefits) of a flat or consumption based tax system.  And they are the exact reasons why it will never be passed.

Very few in power are willing to legislate a reduction in that power.

DMobile Economic, Values congress, Economic, Taxes

Normally I just ramble thoughts off from my own mind. Today I present an excellent column from Phil Kerpen….enjoy:

Obama’s Top Five Broken Promises

mzev44 Economic, Patriotism, Philosophy, Political

Van Helsing over at RightWingNews hit the nail on the head with this one, here’s a clip:

Say Group A works hard and has created $1 trillion in wealth out of nothing. Group B smokes crack and watches Oprah, and doesn’t create any wealth at all. It receives food stamps, welfare, subsidized housing, et cetera, ad nauseam, but say Group B has no more wealth than it creates. If Chairman Zero wants to spread the wealth around so that both groups have the same amount, he doesn’t have to take half a $trillion from Group A. All he needs to do is give Group B $1 trillion dollars that doesn’t exist in the form of mortgage bailouts and stimulus packages.

Since the money doesn’t exist, the government will have to print it. Instead of $1 trillion dollars, there is now $2 trillion that represents $1 trillion of actual wealth. By making money worth half as much, Obama has effectively seized half of what Group A worked to create.

DMobile Economic, Values Bailout, coup, marxism, Obama, redistrubution, socialism

Many people these days are calling for higher taxes on the upper income earners to help offset the growing social needs of the citizenry. They feel that “the rich” need to pay their “fair share”, and it’s up to Congress to soak them for all they’re worth. Nevermind that the upper 5% of income earners shoulder 39% of the total tax revenue, as long as they still have a penny left over at the end of the year, someone needs to take it away from them. But let’s think about what this REALLY does.

Bill Gates earns, approximately, $2 billion annually. Let’s say we jack up his tax rate by an extra 10%. A $200M tax increase on Bill Gates means an extra $0.61 to each American, ASSUMING zero administrative cost of redistributing the wealth. With and extra 61 cents, most people will super-size a happy meal or buy a lottery ticket, or do something frivolous. With that extra $200M, Bill Gates could start a new hospital, employing 1,000 people, and adding billions of dollars to the economy in the form of created wealth - wealth from which he, too, could profit, if he runs his investment well.

Instead of working to increase the taxes on the rich, if we’re so concerned that they’re not paying their shares, why not mandate that they invest that money in startup firms that create jobs and help the community. (Like hospitals, private schools, and so forth.) The competition from all these forced-investment properties will drive the prices of the services that they offer down, which will be good for consumers. They’ll create new jobs. The money won’t disappear into some government tar pit. And they might even end up turning a profit for the erstwhile taxpayer - something his taxes would never have done. We mandate that they invest, say, 5% of their net income each year to funding startups, and we’ll start to see an explosion of wealth and new business like we’ve never seen. Observing Europe, we can see that increased government intervention leads to economic stagnation and double-digit unemployment. Let’s see what happens when we empower millions of Americans to start their own businesses each year.

If the people trying to take the money from the rich were really, honestly, trying to do something abuot poverty and equality, this is what they’d be proposing. However, it’s all about stealing from the productive to increase the size and bloat of the government.

[editor's note:  Thanks Mike.  We love hearing from you and thank you for you contributions and support]

About Vegas Mike:  Mike is a fantastic American with a great love of liberty and freedom.  While we often cringe at his radical ideas for proposed implementation, we completely agree with his ideals of limited government, personal liberty, and free trade.

DMobile Economic, Values Capitalism, Libertarian, Taxes

Stupid.

There, I said it.  I tell my 4 year old not to use that word, and I seldom say it out loud, but there’s just no other word that fits this situation.

Everyone including President Obama, the major media outlets, my coworkers and most of congress are talking about the tragedy of the recent home foreclosures.  Not just that, they’re (even some GOP senators) talking about how something “must be done” to help keep people in their homes.

We can all agree how sad it is to lose your home; I personally came very close in 2001 after the dotcombomb but that’s a different story.

Here’s the problem with nearly every one of the sob stories that get paraded in front of us non-stop by our loving 24-hour news cycle:  They nearly all have variable rate loans.

Yup, maybe one out of 20 stories is about someone who lost a job or something, but nearly every one of them is about someone with a variable interest rate mortgage that has now adjusted up out of reach of their income, and the home has dropped in value so they cannot refinance to a lower payment. 

Here’s the problem with that:  If you needed the low variable rate to afford the home – you couldn’t actually afford that home.

I’ll repeat that in case you didn’t hear me:  If you can’t afford the fixed rate loan, you can’t afford the house.  Period.

So what do we call someone who can’t afford the real payment, but takes the low introductory payment with no idea what they’ll do when it matures? 

Irresponsible? Short-sighted? Long-term planning ability disabled? Unable to read or find a source of information or even ask someone older who owns a home so we’ll listen to the shady realtor trying to make some quick money syndrome?

Don’t let my kid hear, I think “stupid” will do just fine.

UPDATE:  Heres a great article by Michelle Malkin detailing some specifics of recent sob story mortgage “victims”

DMobile Economic irresponsible, mortgage crisis

In 2006 we were told by Nancy Pelosi and the new Democratic controlled Congress that they would get things done. They would work with Republicans for the good of the nation. They would end corruption once and for all. They would be transparent and work for the people. None of that took place and as a matter of fact it was the exact opposite. More corruption came out of the Democratic Party after 2006 than in recent years. Congress did nothing except name a bunch of Post Offices after a known KKK member and lion of the Democratic Party - Robert Byrd. The “Do-Nothing Congress” is amply named. And since 2006 our nation has gone straight down the toilet. I’m not blaming only Democrats. Republicans sold out their COnservative beliefs and spent, spent, spent, like their name was Bill Clinton. Bad move. Regardless this Congress has done NOTHING to bring the nation together. NOTHING.

Now comes Barack Obama. Straight from the heavens above! He promises to end corruption. He promises to be bi-partisan. He promises that no lobbyists will be in his cabinet. So what happens? He appoints lobbyists, he has members of his team resigning in disgrace because they are tax cheats, they put out this stimulus bill that will not stimulate ANYTHING and refuse to take in Republican ideas on it. They won so too bad for the Repubilcans! Way to be bi-partisan.

Does anyone care that the White House has taken the Census away from the Commerce Dept and moved it to the White House? Anyone even understand why they would do this? They are trying to change the electoral map! This is an outrage! Senator Gregg is going to be confirmed to be Sec. of Commerce and he’s a Republican so the White House takes away one of his most important jobs. This is a disgrace.

Is anyone aware of the wasteful spending in this new stimulus bill that is supposed create jobs and save the economy. They talk about creating these jobs in construction to fix bridges, roads and other infrastructure…wonderful. Those jobs wont last. When the job is done, you are laid off. Those are not permanant jobs. One of the items in the bill is an 88 million dollar plan to construct new schools in Milwaukee when there are 15 vacant schools already!!! WTF?!?

$150 million dollars to livestock insurance to cover honeybees and fresh fish??? Thats stimulus? That creates jobs for the middle class and lower class? This will help the economy? The worst thing is that Obama is walking around LYING to everyone and saying there is no pork and earmarks in this bill when there IS. How dare these people lie to us. They are stealing our money and telling us one thing while doing another. And the people walk around like zombies saying “OOOO Baaaaaa Maaaaa, OOOOO Baaaaaa MAAAAAA” WAKE UP ZOMBIES! They say this is an emergency and if we dont take action now then we will be up shits creek! Well than why are they loading up all this pork into the bill? Its like Al Gore saying the planet is dying and then adds to its death while asking the rest of us to stop. WTF is going on here???

$350 + million for education on sexually transmitted diseases. Great idea…how does that create jobs? How does this help the economy?

$650 million for coupons to help people switch to digital tv?!??!?! WTF?

$150 million for renovations to the Smithsonian. WTF!?!?!?

$70 million to help people to stop smoking. Great intentions but how does this help the economy?

Thats just a few of the items in the bill! This bill is almost $900 BILLION DOLLARS of guess who’s money? OURS! Not the Governments. Obama’s admin already has proven they dont pay taxes.

They say they are going to give tax cuts to everyone. Well what about the people who do not pay taxes? They will get a check in the mail for absolutely nothing. What is that? Sounds like WELFARE to me.

They cry about the deficit we are in but they want to spend their way out of it. How is that possible? The government needs to STOP SPENDING.

Oh and to top it all off, the Obama admin is going to cut Defense Spending by at least 10% and as much as 25%. We are in the middle of a war against terror. China and Russia are developing their weapons. Obama is taking apart ours. He is AGAINST the missile defense system that would prevent a missile from hitting a city in our nation. WTF?!?!!

To top it off they rushed this bill through and did not give anyone a chance to read it first! Its high time that the people of this nation know what is going into these bills before they are signed into law. It is unacceptable that these elected officials can insert nonsense into a bill without anyone knowing what was done.

Ok…let me stop….enough is enough. You get the point…or do you? I know a few of you do. But most of you dont. Obama lied. People were duped. I thought it would have taken a few years to expose this radical group of individuals who are taking over this country but as Charles Krauthamer said it only took a couple of weeks.

Obama has failed us already.

mzev44 Economic, Patriotism, Policies, Political, Values

Many Americans, and nearly all conservatives, are growing weary of all the hype and publicity revolving around the Obama presidency and upcoming inauguration.  In a book store recently I, from the doorway, could see his picture on the cover of a book or Magazine eleven, yes eleven times without even fully walking into the store.  Even some that voted for him agree that the “Obama dinner plate collection” is a bit overboard.

While I’m well past annoyed by all the press & publicity, I can actually see a great potential for this celebrity status to be put to good use.

There’s a role that a US President plays that isn’t in the constitution, or in any piece of legislature, or probably even written anywhere – it’s the role of Leader.  By that I don’t just mean Commander-in-chief or Chief Executive Officer, I mean the intangible Leader.

Most of my US readers are somewhat fans of football so I’ll use a football analogy:  Parallel the US President with the quarterback.  Most of the QB’s responsibility is to call the right play, and execute his part of that play.   Same as the President, he has to have a good plan, and successfully execute his role in said plan.

The quarterback, like the US President, also have a very large intangible role that accounts for, I’d say nearly half, of his value to the team.  And that is the role of Inspirational leader.  The QB and POTUS have to not just call the best play for the situation, execute their role in the play, but also must inspire the team to believe in three things:  The play he just called, his ability to execute the play and, most importantly- themselves.

For example, let’s look at President Bush2 post 9/11.  While many people didn’t support (or even want to acknowledge) his presidency, you can’t deny that he gave everyone a feeling of comfort.  In troubled times, nearly everyone looks to the leader.  And he didn’t let us down (at least not right away). 

He gave us confidence in 1. the idea that America would retaliate and seek justice, 2.  His ability to get us there and 3.  our ability as Americans to come together and overcome tragedy.

And that brings us to the point of this article.  Soon-to-be President Obama may be a Marxist, a product of corrupt Illinois politics, a glutton for political celebrity, a manufactured by the DNC, or all or none.  But one thing he is for sure, is an inspirational leader.

In our current economic situation, not only do we need a good plan, and sound execution, but we need belief & confidence.  Much of the US condition is based on “consumer confidence”.  And while the real permanent solution is fiscal responsibility, we also need a big dose of individual belief, and here’s why Obama might be the guy to help:

From: “Obama can save us!”

According to a survey published last night, 71 per cent of Americans believe the economy will improve during the first year of the Obama presidency and 65 per cent said they think unemployment will drop.

Asked about cash-strapped Wall Street, 72 per cent said they thought the stock market would recover.

Some 63 per cent were confident that their personal financial situation would improve.

So he’s doing what he does best, in fact possibly the only thing he’s actually good at, inspiring people to believe.

HOWEVER:

(and this is a big however)

The problem with Obama’s inspiration?

1.

He’s inspiring people to believe in the government, and not in themselves.

Admittedly yes it’s good that they’re being inspired to something, we really need a leader who will inspire people to believe in themselves.  Since its individuals that actually make up America and her economy.

2.

He’s inspired much of America yes, but some of the most important facets of the Economy, the “rich” – business owners, producers, and job providers, are not onboard with his plan, and therefore still quite uninspired.

I’m thankful that the economy is still good for me and my family - for now.  As for the future, I sway bettwen somewhat concerned, and really concerned.  I guess we’ll see.

DMobile Economic, Policies, Political Economy, Obama, Obamamania

We’ve all heard about fair tax or “consumption” based tax as a tax vehicle preferred over our current income tax system, and there are great arguments both for and against such tax methods.

However, the concept of a consumption tax is being twisted and perverted into a “discouragement” tax. Take tobacco for example; politicians claim that taxing this harmful product is a way to discourage us from using it. (For the record, I haven’t used tobacco products since about age 23). They’ve made similar proposals for Alcohol and most recently, gasoline.

Here’s the problem with this type of tax: what if it works?

I’ll use some simple numbers to demonstrate. Say there are 100,000 people that smoke, and a tax is levied to discourage smoking.

Let’s suppose that this tax costs the smokers $100,000 per month, about 1$ per smoker, generating an additional $100K per month of tax revenue.

The government, now basking in the additional revenue creates a program, or hires some workers or initiates an improvement project, or something that costs $100K per month to sustain. No problem, the new tax revenues are paying for it

But what if it works? Let’s say that a small amount of these smokers, 10%, fed up with the extra $1 per month decide they’re going to quit smoking.

Well now we have only 90,000 smokers, paying $90,000 per month. Great, it’s working; we’re a healthier society with 10% fewer smokers.

But wait!

What about the new parks, teachers, roads or whatever else we were doing with that $100K per month?

You got it, budget shortfall = more taxes.

And that’s my point, be it tobacco, gasoline, alcohol, carbon or what-ever – the truth is that taxing something to make us use it less may work temporarily, but it can’t be sustained…because the government spends the money.

It creates the following situation: we’ll tax you to make you use it less, but the less you use the less money we get, but if you actually use more, we’d get more money….

Note: we feel that in general, a usage based tax in replacement of, not addition to, income tax could actually work. (But would NEVER be enacted)

DMobile Economic Government waste, Taxes

Welcome to the Bizarro Universe, also known as present day America.

Forget what you thought you knew, we already live in a world where high achievement is ridiculed and mediocrity is rewarded.

We live in a land where many think we can spend our way out of debt.

And don’t forget, in mortgage land we plan to reward the irresponsible as well.

Now finally, a renewed effort to punish the responsible In a letter to Michelle Malkin from one of her readers:

I want to share this story with you, and you may share it with your readers if you wish. I ask only that my name be left out.

5 years ago while we were in the middle of putting an addition on our home - the final step in our remodeling - my wife was forced to leave her job on long term disability due to very serious back issues. She had been having back problems - including two surgeries prior to this so when she began her job at a nearby university we purchased disability insurance. Even with the insurance, we lost 40% of her income. We went from things being a little tight but comfortably manageable to mortgaged over our heads instantly. For five years we have managed to bootstrap our way from month to month by drawing down savings to cover whatever we were short on the mortgage and putting any extra that came our way back into the savings account.

After four more surgeries and little relief it is quite clear that my wife will not be returning to work, and the savings well is nearly dry.

We recently contacted our mortgage lender, WAMU/JP Morgan and outlined the situation for them. Explaining that while we had never been even a minute late, in about five to six months we would likely be unable to make a payment. We weren’t looking to get out of our debt, but to hopefully restructure it to take some of the pressure off, and hopefully keep our home. We thought we were doing the right thing by being proactive. We thought they would be happy to work with us before we defaulted.

We thought wrong.

They took all of our financial information to review, but the person we were working with explained that they really didn’t have anything in place to help people like us.

Repeat: “they didn’t have anything in place to help people like us”  That’s right, nothing in place to help actual responsible people who want, and are willing to work, to do the right thing.

He recommended that we stop paying the loan because once we were in default it would be easier for them to work with us. I have to admit that I thought about the benefit of saving a couple of months worth of our mortgage. I thought about it for about ten seconds. Then I sat down and took another look at what we squeeze out of our budget. Just tightening the belt further would buy us a month or two. So I started taking on extra work on the side.

They actually told them to STOP PAYING THE LOAN because they could only help them if in default.

translation: “sorry but you currently qualify as a producer with some semblance of ambition and personal responsibility and therefore don’t qualify for our socialist program”

Seriously, how far have we come that we can’t/won’t help someone who is actually working but needs help, but we can help someone once they pass the fail threshold?  That’s the equivilent of not offering any preventative medicine saying “come back when you’re really sick and we can treat you”.

Read the author’s last line below:

I don’t know if we will be able to restructure our loan, but I [am] damn certain we will never miss a payment. You can count me proudly among the chumps.

 This is someone I would gladly help to pay their mortgage.

DMobile Economic, Values

Just when you thought it was safe to put your shoes on and go about your day, we get this:

Where’d the bailout money go?

a more articulate version of this rant is available at HotAir

WASHINGTON – It’s something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where’s the money going?

Not exactly, they just want to know how to get the collateral if you default, but let’s continue

But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

Whoa, wait a sec, for a moment there I thought you said…oh wait, you did

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”

Translation: “thanks for the dough you suckers, have a nice day”

Ok, so it’s just JPM&C right, surely other banks will be more grateful and cooperative, right? (and don’t call me Shirley)

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

Excuse me WHAT?!

Yup, you heard right, NONE of them are cooperating, a few gave ambiguous answers like “we put all the money in a big pile and burn spend it all from there”

Now sure, you could stretch that, (ignoring common sense and your accountant friend that works at a bank) and it almost sounds believable, but you think they could have made some exception considering this was taxpayer money that they did absolutely nothing to earn or deserve?

Good thing the whole TARP idea came with strict oversight and accountability, or else we’d never be able to track that money.

Wait…don’t tell me….

Since it was such an “emergency” and “the world as we know it could end”, TARP was passed without most congressmen even reading it.  And per CNN, and anyone not voting for it was a “detached rich guy with a political agenda”…helloo, have you met Henry Paulson?

Read the full story if you like, but it doesn’t get any better.

Congress recently summoned a handful of bank execs and “asked” them to please start lending money.  Know why they asked them that?  Because that’s all they could do - ask.

Since Paulson decided to write checks to banks instead of buying an actual physical asset, toxic as it may be, we now have absolutely nothing to show for our money.

I have an idea for the next $350B - DONT SPEND IT!  But since that’ll never happen, how about this:

The US population is roughly 310 Million so you could cut a check for about $1125 to each man, woman & child in America.  At least then we’d know where it went.

DMobile Economic Bailout, Paulson, thievery