Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts
January 24, 2012
Calling the Better Angels of Our Nation
Do we want to be a people, one people?
This is the fundamental question that most often divides our representatives -- how are we to be together.
Loosely? If all people have some evil in their hearts, then loosely would seem best.
But if we are born innocent, and any evil we have is only learned, then we might be redeemed by a helping hand. One might reach out to grab and rescue a hand from the rough waters of the sea.
Will we choose to be more than only allies?
Might we be a People? The American People.
"Together," Obama says, and this needs to become the heart of his message this fall. Because "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
November 1, 2011
A Truly Fair Tax Structure In A Nutshell
After seeing tax proposals and much wrong analysis thereof in the media and blogs, I've taken time to summarize my ideas from this blog on how to change our tax system to boost American jobs and our economy.
The key to protecting and enriching working American families is boosting our economy and thereby boosting wages. Key to boosting the American economy is to put American labor on an equal footing with its foreign competition.
We currently tax American jobs in two ways. Taxing your job only once would actually increase tax revenues over time by increasing the total number of American jobs and increasing wages, and thus income tax revenues.
This effective double taxation encourages many American businesses to open new factories, labs, service centers overseas.
Currently, if a business is considering where to open it's next plant or center, it must consider that in the U.S. it will pay a high tax rate on the business itself (unless it corrupts Congress with bribes to get tax loopholes) and then employees and stock holders will then pay tax again on their earnings.
But, imports from overseas get a tax-free ride, coming into the American market without federal taxes.
Foreign goods come tax free into America, while we heavily tax American goods.
What do you think that does to the playing field?
You're right.
That's not all. Other nations are far more rational -- they tax all goods sold with a national sales tax. Therefore, American goods end up paying foreign taxes, foreign sales taxes when competing in other markets.
That means the tax penalty of making things in America is very high. Since it is often a close call whether to expand or build in America, this difference often is the deciding factor (when the sum of other factors, like transportation, skills, etc. are close).
Our tax structure is a strong, direct incentive to ship American jobs overseas!
(President Obama campaigned in part on changing this. It hasn't changed yet.)
...
The net result is a tax penalty on American-made goods and services of about 15%-20% versus foreign competition.
This is in addition to a price disadvantage American products face vs Chinese goods caused by the Chinese currency peg that amounts to about 25-30%.
Our competitors tax us. And we don't tax them.
Our bad tax structure threatens your own job, no matter what that job is, because all jobs depend on the health of our economy. All jobs are interconnected, interdependent.
Customers that support your job, or your stock portfolio, are simply other Americans that have jobs. If there are fewer American jobs, and therefore more job seekers and thus lower wages, then all American businesses have fewer customers and lower profits.
Your own wages/earnings depend entirely on other Americans having jobs. You get a raise if enough other Americans are earning good money.
You get laid off if not enough other Americans are earning good money.
Whatever decreases American jobs and depresses American wages takes money right out of your own pocket (even if your income is dividends, stock market gains, or rental income....).
...
Our tax code should put American workers on a level playing field with foreign workers.
This way we can we stop exporting our jobs and our future prosperity to other nations.
Tax Fairness in a nutshell:
Replace the tax on American businesses (and thus on American jobs) with a national sales tax (with exclusions) at a rate of 12% to 15% (using measures below to make it progressive).
Exclude from the national sales tax: Food, children's clothing/items, school and educational supplies, tuition and expenses and out of pocket medical expenses.
To counteract the regressive effect of the national sales tax on other goods and services, increase the federal income tax personal exemption (for oneself, one's spouse, and one's dependents such as children) from the current $3,700 per person to $10,000 per person.
Otherwise, we can keep the current income tax rate structure as is and as it will be later when the Bush tax cuts expire with tax rates and deductions reverting to the levels of the growth-filled 1990s. The new and higher personal exemptions will improve tax fairness. (A special 15% rate for direct investment can be separately set up to encourage business expansion.)
Taxing imports equally to American goods will result in rising American wages and increased employment.
Foreign goods being sold in America will begin to pay their fair share of American taxes, just as our goods sold overseas pay shares of foreign taxes.
Now...is your favorite candidate on board with what is best for America, or only what is best for his donors who have special tax breaks they purchased from Congress?
The key to protecting and enriching working American families is boosting our economy and thereby boosting wages. Key to boosting the American economy is to put American labor on an equal footing with its foreign competition.
We currently tax American jobs in two ways. Taxing your job only once would actually increase tax revenues over time by increasing the total number of American jobs and increasing wages, and thus income tax revenues.
This effective double taxation encourages many American businesses to open new factories, labs, service centers overseas.
Currently, if a business is considering where to open it's next plant or center, it must consider that in the U.S. it will pay a high tax rate on the business itself (unless it corrupts Congress with bribes to get tax loopholes) and then employees and stock holders will then pay tax again on their earnings.
But, imports from overseas get a tax-free ride, coming into the American market without federal taxes.
Foreign goods come tax free into America, while we heavily tax American goods.
What do you think that does to the playing field?
You're right.
That's not all. Other nations are far more rational -- they tax all goods sold with a national sales tax. Therefore, American goods end up paying foreign taxes, foreign sales taxes when competing in other markets.
That means the tax penalty of making things in America is very high. Since it is often a close call whether to expand or build in America, this difference often is the deciding factor (when the sum of other factors, like transportation, skills, etc. are close).
Our tax structure is a strong, direct incentive to ship American jobs overseas!
(President Obama campaigned in part on changing this. It hasn't changed yet.)
...
The net result is a tax penalty on American-made goods and services of about 15%-20% versus foreign competition.
This is in addition to a price disadvantage American products face vs Chinese goods caused by the Chinese currency peg that amounts to about 25-30%.
Our competitors tax us. And we don't tax them.
Our bad tax structure threatens your own job, no matter what that job is, because all jobs depend on the health of our economy. All jobs are interconnected, interdependent.
Customers that support your job, or your stock portfolio, are simply other Americans that have jobs. If there are fewer American jobs, and therefore more job seekers and thus lower wages, then all American businesses have fewer customers and lower profits.
Your own wages/earnings depend entirely on other Americans having jobs. You get a raise if enough other Americans are earning good money.
You get laid off if not enough other Americans are earning good money.
Whatever decreases American jobs and depresses American wages takes money right out of your own pocket (even if your income is dividends, stock market gains, or rental income....).
...
Our tax code should put American workers on a level playing field with foreign workers.
This way we can we stop exporting our jobs and our future prosperity to other nations.
Tax Fairness in a nutshell:
Replace the tax on American businesses (and thus on American jobs) with a national sales tax (with exclusions) at a rate of 12% to 15% (using measures below to make it progressive).
Exclude from the national sales tax: Food, children's clothing/items, school and educational supplies, tuition and expenses and out of pocket medical expenses.
To counteract the regressive effect of the national sales tax on other goods and services, increase the federal income tax personal exemption (for oneself, one's spouse, and one's dependents such as children) from the current $3,700 per person to $10,000 per person.
Otherwise, we can keep the current income tax rate structure as is and as it will be later when the Bush tax cuts expire with tax rates and deductions reverting to the levels of the growth-filled 1990s. The new and higher personal exemptions will improve tax fairness. (A special 15% rate for direct investment can be separately set up to encourage business expansion.)
Taxing imports equally to American goods will result in rising American wages and increased employment.
Foreign goods being sold in America will begin to pay their fair share of American taxes, just as our goods sold overseas pay shares of foreign taxes.
Now...is your favorite candidate on board with what is best for America, or only what is best for his donors who have special tax breaks they purchased from Congress?
January 16, 2009
The Direction Forward
As this blog begins, America faces a special moment in history.
Never before have so many possibilities, dangers, needs and desires, often conflicting, been set swirling in the air all at once.
At the beginning of 2009 the world faces a possible general economic collapse, as people around the world pull back on their purchases in fear of possible seriously worsening conditions. While it's wise to have more savings and to reduce debts, when everyone moves the same way at once, the boat does tip over.
Noticing that a lot of people are already in the water, pundits have a range of suggestions and prescriptions.
We've been told to all rush to the side of the boat (save more, spend less). Reasonably, we've been told we need more stimulus to support spending. While we throw lumber (unemployment benefits) from the boat down to those (jobless) in the water, many plans are made.
Some say we should haul swimmers from the water to work on building old fashioned boats (the technology of the past -- roads and bridges), and some say set more of the rescued to work to harness the wind and sun in case our fuel runs low, as we must keep the ship pushing into the wind. But in the meanwhile, the ship itself seems to be sinking lower in the water.
Is it the nature of a ship of this kind (an interconnected modern economy) to right itself? Will more rescued swimmers working more bilge pumps be enough? What of the weather and the sea?
But this single metaphor reaches its limits.
We do want to think in terms of natural systems, though. An economy is like a natural system. In fact, an economy is a complex system, just like global climate or a continental ecosystem. This has profound implications for economics and policy choices. I will be writing more on this soon.
In some ways, modern market economies (like that of America or most nations of the world) act like forests on the North American continent.
Growth is rapid when there is enough rain and not too many beetles. Yet the trees do not live forever, and weaker trees often die when normal drought arrives. Fires (recessions) then burn through. The overgrowth burns to leave a seemingly empty world of ash -- or ash and blackened trees, some still alive. Miraculously new life appears in the spring. Soon the cycle begins again. Yet there is no easy way to say if this is what we want.
Lodgepole pines 10 years after 1988 Yellowstone Park fires - north of Madison River; Jim Peaco; September 1998
One may wish to save certain large old trees (GM, Bank of America), even when many tree beetles linger.
In fact, sometimes saved trees flourish, and the old beauty is maintained.
If our metaphor serves, we might imagine a diverse ecosystem of many kinds of trees and plants, naturally resistant in part to any natural menace, insect, animal or climate. Variety insulates the ecosystem from catastrophe. If some kinds of plants die, others take their place.
Flowers amongst burned Douglas firs near Tower Junction; Jim Peaco; Late August 1989
http://www.nps.gov/archive/yell/slidefile/fire/postfiresuccession88/page.htm
And perhaps here our metaphor tells us something quite useful.
We should not seek to control every part of what grows and where and how and when, even as we seed some fields or scatter fertilizer in some places to speed things along. We might indeed wish to save some of the old trees, even while other spots are opened up for new growth of new kinds.
Uniformity is not the American way. Yet neither are we only plants and trees subject to the whim of nature.
We should take this lesson from Nature, and combine it with our free will.
We'd like to see both new meadows full of new life, and deep old groves of tall, tall trees, as we walk through our woods.
Never before have so many possibilities, dangers, needs and desires, often conflicting, been set swirling in the air all at once.
At the beginning of 2009 the world faces a possible general economic collapse, as people around the world pull back on their purchases in fear of possible seriously worsening conditions. While it's wise to have more savings and to reduce debts, when everyone moves the same way at once, the boat does tip over.
Noticing that a lot of people are already in the water, pundits have a range of suggestions and prescriptions.
We've been told to all rush to the side of the boat (save more, spend less). Reasonably, we've been told we need more stimulus to support spending. While we throw lumber (unemployment benefits) from the boat down to those (jobless) in the water, many plans are made.
Some say we should haul swimmers from the water to work on building old fashioned boats (the technology of the past -- roads and bridges), and some say set more of the rescued to work to harness the wind and sun in case our fuel runs low, as we must keep the ship pushing into the wind. But in the meanwhile, the ship itself seems to be sinking lower in the water.
Is it the nature of a ship of this kind (an interconnected modern economy) to right itself? Will more rescued swimmers working more bilge pumps be enough? What of the weather and the sea?
But this single metaphor reaches its limits.
We do want to think in terms of natural systems, though. An economy is like a natural system. In fact, an economy is a complex system, just like global climate or a continental ecosystem. This has profound implications for economics and policy choices. I will be writing more on this soon.
In some ways, modern market economies (like that of America or most nations of the world) act like forests on the North American continent.
Growth is rapid when there is enough rain and not too many beetles. Yet the trees do not live forever, and weaker trees often die when normal drought arrives. Fires (recessions) then burn through. The overgrowth burns to leave a seemingly empty world of ash -- or ash and blackened trees, some still alive. Miraculously new life appears in the spring. Soon the cycle begins again. Yet there is no easy way to say if this is what we want.
Lodgepole pines 10 years after 1988 Yellowstone Park fires - north of Madison River; Jim Peaco; September 1998
One may wish to save certain large old trees (GM, Bank of America), even when many tree beetles linger.
In fact, sometimes saved trees flourish, and the old beauty is maintained.
If our metaphor serves, we might imagine a diverse ecosystem of many kinds of trees and plants, naturally resistant in part to any natural menace, insect, animal or climate. Variety insulates the ecosystem from catastrophe. If some kinds of plants die, others take their place.
Flowers amongst burned Douglas firs near Tower Junction; Jim Peaco; Late August 1989
http://www.nps.gov/archive/yell/slidefile/fire/postfiresuccession88/page.htm
And perhaps here our metaphor tells us something quite useful.
We should not seek to control every part of what grows and where and how and when, even as we seed some fields or scatter fertilizer in some places to speed things along. We might indeed wish to save some of the old trees, even while other spots are opened up for new growth of new kinds.
Uniformity is not the American way. Yet neither are we only plants and trees subject to the whim of nature.
We should take this lesson from Nature, and combine it with our free will.
We'd like to see both new meadows full of new life, and deep old groves of tall, tall trees, as we walk through our woods.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
