No. of Recommendations: 6
Well, in the US, the problem is that the tax system is sort of a 19th century design. It simply isn't capable of raising the tax needed without breaking some industries.
I'm afraid I may come across as MAGA. I am absolutely kicking the MAGA tires, partially because I thought the clown car the Democrats were offering was a complete POS and partially because, like it or not, we have already bought the MAGA clown car and so I'd really like to understand as well as I can how it likely to perform. If it is likely to burst into flames while we are driving it across Europe or Asia in the next two or three years, I'd really like to know ahead of time.
But I read this post from Jim and, frankly, most of the other posts from Jim even when I challenge aspects of them, and I think "Damn skippy." There's plenty of economists who question our fetish for income taxes and against VAT. I described to a friend earlier today that, in my opinion, The US resists a VAT for metaphorically similar reasons to why the US resists the Metric System. Which is to say, I think, out of a perverse conclusion that anything the Europeans like must be wrong. Considering that Europe is actually where (nearly) everything that is great about American culture was developed over about 2000 years, up until fairly recently. And as to recent cultural innovations from our hemisphere, it is not at all apparent to me that we are net improving ANYTHING.
But I will continue to kick the MAGA tires. Even knowing that the tariffs are virtually certainly a dumb idea brought about by a commitment to even dumber ideas, I need to know enough about it to estimate just what is the likely downside of going the way we are going. It is facile to say "they are wrong therefore we are doomed and by extension, the rest of the civilized world with us" even though that is almost certainly an exaggeration. I need to figure out how to retain some significant value in my IRA so that I might retire in the comfort to which I would like to stay accustomed sometime before I am 75.
I just thought I'd briefly try to blend into the crowd before resuming my destructive testing of economic ideas.
Cheers,
R:)
