I rarely comment on Vice President Biden because he is not a serious person in the world of policy. The only attention he gets on this blog is jabs from the late-night talk show hosts, and I also posted the Joe Biden caption contest and this Joe Biden joke.
Perhaps I would have given Biden some attention if I had started this blog in 2008 instead of 2009, because the then-Delaware Senator made a very silly statement during that year’s campaign.
Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans. …Biden said: “It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”
I’m not sure how America’s Founding Fathers would have reacted to that statement, but I suspect that Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Mason, and Paine would have had a different perspective.
But I’m not surprised that the Socialist candidate for President in France has the same mentality (and I’m referring to the official candidate of the Socialist Party, not the socialist currently running the country). Here’s a blurb from the BBC.
The Socialist favourite in France’s presidential election, Francois Hollande, has said top earners should pay 75% of their income in tax. …Mr Hollande himself renewed his call on Tuesday, saying the 75% rate on people earning more than one million euros a year was “a patriotic act”. …”It is patriotic to agree to pay a supplementary tax to get the country back on its feet.”
Isn’t this wonderful that politicians of different nationalities and from different continents can be united in the idea that it is “patriotic” to give the world’s least competent people more money?
Maybe Biden and Hollande can also take a trip to Greece together so they can learn how to use the additional money to subsidize pedophiles and collect stool samples as a condition of getting a business license to set up an online company.
This might actually be a good development, since it will likely accelerate settling the issue of whether high taxes and central planning are the key to prosperity. Having lost the Soviet Union, seems like humanity needs to be reminded once again. I’m happy that French voters seem poised to sacrifice themselves to add another data point to the debate. Besides, humanity needs diversity and it would be good if more countries also followed the opposite example so that we may draw better conclusions.
So let’s see what a 0.5%-1.0% annual economic growth compounded for another 10 years does to France. In the end they will all get poor enough to be equal, not only amongst themselves, but also equal to the worldwide prosperity average. The dream will complete.
France has already been riding on a 1% growth trendline for the last few decades vs. the now established 5% annual growth world average – as the developing world is roaring to adopt the lessons of individual freedom it learned from the west at breakneck pace – by historical standards. Anyone with elementary arithmetic knowledge of compounding knows what that means. So the future looks bright for the French! France is going down, so might as well go down to a 0.5% growth trendline, what’s the difference anymore.
I wonder how the Germans feel about this and about the prospect of having a redistributionist Mr. Hollande as French president – since that accelerates the inevitable time when the French too will also line up for their “fair share” at German wallets – how long are the Germans going to last – with France joining the southern Europeans in pan-european redistribution, German wallets will be outvoted by the South+French coalition of masses of a united Europe. In the end, Germans too must have a Laffer curve, and I don’t think it is quite a Mother Teresa like straight line.
Europe has fallen into the death spiral of mandatory collectivism – once more. On a historical time scale it is basically living its last few decades as a mentionable world player, as it consumes prosperity accumulated in the past. America will not save Eurppe this itme. It cannot. It is herself veering on the road to decline under Copy-Europe HopNChange.
The western world is folding. Precipitously so, on a historical timescale. This is no longer a problem of the next generation. Panic will inevitably bring more (mandatory) collectivism. The death spiral is accelerating towards the event horizon… others will take the lead in human freedom and prosperity… OECD defections will mark the turning point…
Mitt Romney says that “The character of the Chinese government—one that marries aspects of the free market with suppression of freedom—shouldn’t become the norm.” (an otherwise pathetic article save the hope expressed in the quoted statement). I agree, but if western voter-lemmings cannot help refraining from pushing the redistribution button at the polls (which is hardwired to the central planning and regulation button) the Romney conjecture will be doomed and pointless. The world will degenerate into an ensemble of authoritarian states acting like corporations (corporations being essentially small dictatorships that have to compete amongst each other) with mobility of people, goods and services ensuring that the most successful policies will survive. Those that restrict even the mobility will be quickly doomed and a Darwinian environment will, once again, select the best policies. Personally, I do fear that outcome and still hold out hope that some, perhaps initially small (but expanding with time and success) islands of free societies will from, whose key to success are self-selecting voters that refrain from pressing the redistribution button at the polls… and that these societies, by virtue of their success, will form and lead the world to a new state of freedom. We’ll see. If that does not flourish, I’ll personally take the competing dictatorships option over the worldwide Francification.
[...] in context, I don’t blame people from France for evading confiscatory taxation. I don’t blame people in corrupt nations such as Mexico for evading taxation. I don’t blame [...]
[...] written several times about crazy French statism, you will understand why I like this [...]
[...] wants to increase the top tax rate in America to 39.6 percent, for instance, but Hollande wants a top tax rate of 75 percent, making Obama look like a libertarian by [...]
[...] news coming from Europe. Whether we’re talking about fake austerity in the United Kingdom, confiscatory tax schemes in France, or bailouts in Greece, the continent seems to be a case study of failed [...]
[...] written several times about crazy French statism, you will understand why I like this [...]
[...] Unlike clowns such as Joe Biden who think higher taxes are patriotic. [...]
Or you can look at Hong Kong, top 1 or 2 in the freedom index with a growth rate of around 1% for two decades:
http://bit.ly/wlw50k
A simpler way to look at it is growth within US by president:
http://bit.ly/JpiSCy
A picture’s worth a thousand words, indeed.
[...] a difference. But it also helps to have rational citizens (unlike France, where people vote for economic illiterates and protest against reality). While spending cuts have triggered strikes, social unrest and the [...]
[...] a difference. But it also helps to have rational citizens (unlike France, where people vote for economic illiterates and protest against reality). While spending cuts have triggered strikes, social unrest and the [...]
[...] want irresponsible policies, even though the Hollande’s views about Keynesian economics and soak-the-rich taxation are basically identical to the nonsense Summers was peddling while in the White [...]
[...] they want irresponsible policies, even though the Hollande’s views aboutKeynesian economics and soak-the-rich taxation are basically identical to the nonsense Summers was peddling while in the White [...]
[...] written several times about crazy French statism, you will understand why I like this [...]
[...] they want irresponsible policies, even though the Hollande’s views about Keynesian economics and soak-the-rich taxation are basically identical to the nonsense Summers was peddling while in the White [...]
[...] things. But this is why the Senator’s remarks strike such a discordant note. He’s echoing the words of Joe Biden and Francois Hollande, two of the world’s most reprehensible [...]
[...] can read the following and not get upset, you are not a good person. Please move to France (where higher taxes are “patriotic”) and don’t come [...]
[...] can read the following and not get upset, you are not a good person. Please move to France (where higher taxes are “patriotic”) and don’t come [...]
[...] Hollande follows through on his threat to impose a “patriotic” 75-percent tax rate, for example, that could be the trigger that makes the bond market a lot more skittish. [...]
[...] Hollande follows through on his threat to impose a “patriotic” 75-percent tax rate, for example, that could be the trigger that makes the bond market a lot more skittish. [...]
[...] Hollande follows through on his threat to impose a “patriotic” 75-percent tax rate, for example, that could be the trigger that makes the bond market a lot more skittish. [...]
[...] Hollande follows through on his threat to impose a “patriotic” 75-percent tax rate, for example, that could be the trigger that makes the bond market a lot more skittish. [...]
[...] they want irresponsible policies, even though the Hollande’s views about Keynesian economics and soak-the-rich taxation are basically identical to the nonsense Summers was peddling while in the White [...]
[...] Biden, Hollande has asserted that entrepreneurs, investors, small business owners, and other “rich” taxpayers should welcome high tax rates so they can express their patriotism. So why, then, is he limiting their love of government country to 80 [...]
[...] and decided (Obama must be quite envious) that a top tax rate of 75 percent is fair.” And patriotic as [...]
[...] and decided (Obama must be quite envious) that a top tax rate of 75 percent is fair. And patriotic as [...]
[...] and decided (Obama must be quite envious) that a top tax rate of 75 percent is fair.” And patriotic as [...]
[...] Hollande follows through on his threat to impose a “patriotic” 75-percent tax rate, for example, that could be the trigger that makes the bond market a lot more skittish. [...]
[...] opponent says higher taxes are patriotic, so I guess he belongs in the same category as Joe Biden and Francois Hollande. I guess we’ll call them the Three Stooges of [...]
Zorba: The competing tyrannies sound pretty good. So what need is there for ‘free societies’ (by free I assume you mean democracies)? When it’s clear that this is the natural path of democracy… as predicted long before widespread modern democracy even began. It is ‘you’ that brought about the fall of western civilization by your willingness to fight for democracy.
[...] Hollande follows through on his threat to impose a “patriotic” 75-percent tax rate, for example, that could be the trigger that makes the bond market a lot more skittish. [...]
[...] And let’s not forget the laughs we all enjoyed when he asserted that paying higher taxes was patriotic. [...]
[...] just like Joe Biden, French politicians want people to think it’s patriotic to give more money to wasteful and incompetent [...]
[...] and decided (Obama must be quite envious) that a top tax rate of 75 percent is fair.” And patriotic as [...]
[…] After all, this is the guy who equates higher taxes with patriotism. […]
[…] After all, this is the guy who equates higher taxes with patriotism. […]