Laissez Faire/Libertarianism: The Cannibalistic System

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	Top of Form The not-so-little state of horrors In California lives the biggest beast in the world, the Taxmonster. The Taxmonster is a humongous animal with insatiable appetite. The only food it eats is money. It does very little for the people who feed it, but mysteriously for some reason it does some favors to those who never give it any food. As the monster grows so does its appetite and so the cycle of feed-grow-feed-grow never stops. When you stop feeding the beast for awhile, it starts threatening the people of California with eating its children and elderly. Most of the people do not understand that the proper way of dealing with the Taxmonster would be a new medical procedure, called weight-loss surgery. If we, Californians, would deny the green feed, the beast would shrink down to a size that we could put it back in a cage and keep it under control. Peter Ligeti San Jose Comments To Mr. Ligeti who rants about the tax monster, of course you realize that without taxes we wouldn't have police, fire fighters, public education, county hospitals, forest rangers, public roads and freeways, public universities, museums and much, much more. I bet your life has been safer and/or greatly enhanced by these services, yet folks like you would rather pretend that all public services should be free. And from the perspective of business, how much commerce do you think we would draw to California if we had lousy universities, freeways, hospitals, etc? Posted by: glenn 1/14/2008 5:24 PM 26093.1 Report as Violation Avg 5.00, 1 vote Thank you to Peter Ligeti for writing in with that simplistic, 100% false and thus illustrative description of taxes as a monster. In Mr. Ligeti's ideal world, there are next to no taxes. This is also called Libertarianism and Laissez-Faire. In his ideal world, no roads are produced or maintained, no public schools, no police or fire or any public safety, no courts or legal system, a purely corporate government, and no regulations. How can I be so sure? Because: what pays for all those things? Taxes. It is amazing that in 2008 we have to connect the dots from point A to point B with some people, but yes, tax money becomes all of these public services. In Mr. Ligeti's world, not only would the poor die in front of the hospitals, he wants your kids to go to private schools where they learn flat-earth intelligent design theories and if you can't afford thousands to send them to private school, they can sit at home and play with whatever the unregulated NRA will make sure they have access to. In his paradise of deregulation and privatization, Enron accounting crises would go unchecked and Enron/energy speculators could cause blackouts and skyrocketing prices as they did during the last round of regulation. Media will speak with one corporate voice more than it already does. We see in Iraq how a low-paid soldier is infinitely more efficient that highly-paid corrupt private military, who number over 100,000 and still cannot complete projects, although they can defraud us and loot our treasury. In Iraq we have a stark side by side contrast of the private and public delivery of goods. On the privatized side you get unaccountable state-terrorists blasting innocents with machine guns in countless incidents that an American study found the contractors started over 80% of the time. You get a Christmas Day- gunshot murder committed by a contractor inside the Green Zone, killing the Iraqi Vice President’s bodyguard, and the punishment was a one-way ticket home. Notoriously those punished in such a fashion return weeks later with another private mercenary firm. I agree our tax system is wildly in need of reform and is wholly unfair. How else can we evaluate a system where 60% of US Companies pay no income tax, tax shelters are rampant and, coupled with taxing the unfathomably richest percent or two, represent enough lost revenue to ease the burden on the middle class. As one of the richest men on the planet, Warren Buffet famously notes, he pays a lower percent of his income in tax than his secretary, who earns wages. If Mr. Ligeti can handle a Pulitzer-Prize winning Investigative Journalist’s inquiry into our unjust tax code, I recommend David Cay Johnston’s book, Perfectly Legal. But I really want to emphasize not just the inequity of how our tax system subsidizes corporate welfare while letting companies of the hook along with the ultra-rich at the expense of the middle and upper-middle class who are sorely in need of relief, but the fact of the public good – in fact, the countless public goods that are known as public infrastructure, roads, bridges, UC, CDC, and DHHS medical research, the public airwaves, all public transportation systems, are all funded by taxes. Does Mr. Ligeti want us to go the way of Texas who sold off their highway to a Spanish firm? Some East Coast bridge and toll systems are in private hands. Do we really want foreign firms buying our infrastructure and do you really count on this government you so despise to get a good price as it sells off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling, and selling off vital infrastructure, for the firms to charge you to use what you now use free? This administration wanted to let an Arabian, OPEC Government suspected of terrorist assistance manage the ports, a key security vulnerability. Rupert Murdoch, an Australian, will own more and more of the US Media. We will have more Conrad Black’s, the Canadian media baron who acquired half of the country’s media and was convicted of fraud, but with a twist – without courts or law enforcement he would get away with it. And forget about the fired (not a typo) department putting out your house unless you’ve paid a private firm a fee. In Southern California this effectively already happened, except they at least do have a fire department, when those who paid contractors to spray their house with a fire retardant were spared while neighbors who didn’t pay lost everything. And those rent-a-cops will all have to get carry permits, that is, if you can afford to pay them – for everyone else, with no taxes, there’s no money to pay cops. What a softball. David Moglen Assoc. Professor of Economics (at three Colleges) Posted by: David Moglen 1/14/2008 5:37 PM 26093.2 Report as Violation Avg 5.00, 1 vote Of course, all you smart people noticed that he didn't say to kill the "Taxmonster". He said to put it on a diet, let it get smaller, put it in a cage so we control it instead of it controlling us. You are all right, what a "simple" idea. Posted by: js 1/14/2008 7:21 PM 26093.3 Report as Violation Avg 5.00, 1 vote Ligeti doesn't say to kill the monster but he does say "It does very little for the people who feed it..." Really? Mr Ligeti and supporters don't drive on the streets and freeways, don't send their kids to public school, don't exist more safely with police and fire protection, don't enjoy state parks, don't use public libraries, have never needed a court of law? The "tax monster" mainly reflects what we all want. The main difference is that some of us want it for free and others recognize there is a financial cost to having decent living environment. Posted by: glenn 1/14/2008 7:34 PM 26093.4 Report as Violation No rating David Moglen, who teaches at a community college but aspires to be an academic at a real university, fails miserably to understand much of anything about competitiveness in taxation. This past summer, Treasury Secretary Hank Poulson convened a converence on international tax competitiveness, including respected scholars from major research universities and the Vice Presidents of Tax from major corporations. GE pointed out, for example, that they manufacture medical equipment in China, and right across the street their corporate competitor Siemens manufactures medical equipment. Siemens, of course is a German company, while GE is a US company. The US' corporate tax system penalizes GE relative to Siemens. Siemens can sell its medical eqiupment in China for the same price as GE, but GE pays 20% more in taxes to the US Goverment than Siemens does to the German Goverment. This puts GE at a huge disadvantage -- they cannot just charge more to fund the US Gov't tax that Germany wisely does not impose, because the market requies parity. Thus, GE makes less profit, and as a result, in the long-run, has less money to invest in R&D for the future --both for the future of mankind (which do-gooders would like) and for the future of the company (which do-gooders don't like). Similarly, the head of Tax for Intel reported that to build and operate a semiconductor wafer fabrication factory in China costs $1Billion less than in the USA. In contrast to popular opinion, it is not labor that costs less (labor does cost less, but that is an insignificant fraction of the $1 Billion number). The plant & equipment cost the same. The difference: Tax subsidies from the Goverment of China! The goverment of China correctly realizes that corporations are not evil - they are the driver of prosperity for the future. Mr. Moglen, in his on-line rant, sounds like an economist from the 3rd world railing against "evil American imperialism" instead of realizing that increases in GDP and our standard of living will be choked off if he puts such confiscatory taxes on companies who will build the future. [] No one says we should disband all goverment. The Goverment, however, responds to potential cuts in the same way that a mother bear would respond to a threat to its offspring. This is called the "Washington Monument Strategy" among the beltway insiders. Whenever Congress threatens to slow the rate of growth of the budget of the Department of the Interior, does the Dept of the Interior respond by cutting low-value added itmes such as repainting outhouses in the middle of Nebraska that are rarely used? No. The Dept of Interior reponds by saying they will close public access to the Washington Monument to save the money. Why? the DOI knows that families take their kids to Washington DC to see some of America's history, and they expect to be able to see the Washington Monument. If they can't, they complain to their representatives. No one, of course, would complain that an outhouse in the middle of nowhere wasn't painted last year. [] Similarly, California, newspapers, goverments etc when faced with the threat of reduced increases in funding cry "OHMYGOD, they want to cut schools, police, fire departments & libraries!" Never do they talk about cutting useless bloated bureacracies. Why, for example, do our tax dollars go to a California department that researchs and disseminates information about how to remove mustard stains from silk neckties to the dry-cleaning industry? I'm not making this up - you can find it yourself if you look hard enough. But you will have to look hard, because not only do we spend tax money on this, they don't do a very good job at disseminating the information, which of course is part of their core charter. [] No one says we should eliminate all goverment -- we just want to get rid of marginal programs like the mustard stain on silk necties program, and we want our goverment NOT to engage in "Washington Monument Strategies." Posted by: 1/15/2008 7:48 AM 26093.5 Report as Violation Avg 5.00, 2 votes The anonymous writer who criticizes me but hides HIS identity (any adjectives pop into your mind) the ad hominem attacks are not necessary. Frankly, you don't know me, so saying I want to teach at a UC or CSU and somehow community college teaching is dishonorable, is a guess at best. In fact I've been offered jobs at both CSU and UC and chose to stick with community colleges. I don't expect I'll ever teach full-time at CSU or UC, nor do I want to. To the real point of the matter, Mr Anonymous who won't even give his first name is quite right. I agree with almost everything you said, and if you can find a way to cut wasteful spending I'm all for it. If you can stop the Pentagon and State Department from overpaying fraudulent contractors for no-bid, cost-plus contracts, I will be all for your plan. So I agree, let's cut waste. Bur your personal attacks, like saying I sound like a third-world critic of the US, do not add much subatance to the discussion. And I don't think you read my post, since it is dense with facts missed by those who wish Government to be drowned in the bathtub (their words, on record). But I read yours and I think we are in full agreement about cutting waste, just the gratuitous personal attacks seem unnecesary. Maybe I should think twice about being so up front with my identity, since it seems to invite such vitriolic bile, maybe I should take a cue from Mr. Anonymous and throw my verbal javelins while hiding in the shadow behind a computer screen. For reference, here is my post, with some syntax errors cleaned up and a note about Parade magazine's Bhutto story. Original Post: “Thank You…(omitted here – refer to above)….We just had another huge example of the consequence of media consolidation (as if the lies pre-Iraq weren’t enough) when the national weekly Parade magazine paraded Bhutto as the savior in an in-depth cover story published a week and a half after she was assassinated. What a softball.” David Moglen Assoc. Professor of Economics (at three Colleges) Posted by: David Moglen Bottom of Form
When they tell you they just want to nibble around the edges of public spending, not eradicate whole chunks of vital services, just look at what an attractive figure like Huckabee says: eliminate the IRS. No income taxes. Switch to purely sales taxes - which every economist says is hugely regressive and will burden the middle class more, vastly increasing their taxes. So don't believe that they just want to nibble around the edges. Eliminating the tax police (IRS) is a recipe for eliminating vast and vital public services, and an excuse to put more of the burden on the middle and upper middle class, and less burden on the ultra-rich. That's a key point; all these folks who want to live in a dream world with a healthy country with some level of vital social fabric and no taxes: you people are acting/voting against your own economic interest. If you are middle or upper middle class, the Republican privatize-at-all-costs/loot the treasury for corporate cronies philosophy is hurting you and helping only the ultra rich. Now I know you think you will one day be in that category, with hundreds of millions of dollars, but the fact is most of us won't win the lottery. So unless you are in that fraction of 1% of highest-earning people (usually all that income is unearned, dividend/capital gains income) the right wing is robbing you. Everyone in the middle and upper middle class needs to stop voting for the cowboy/ Chuck Norris Identity (Republican) and start voting their own economic interest (Democrat). Read Perfectly Legal, you can see the many ways, one being the AMT, how the middle and upper middle class are being robbed for the ultra-rich (and notice simultaneously pitted against the weakest, most vulnerable, the demonized blue-collar backbone of society, the working poor). In closing, if people want a simplicity like Ligeti serves up, here's one. Latin American Countries collect very little as a % of income in taxes. Nordic Countries collect a lot. The result is, in Latin America, total poverty and misery. In the Nordic countries, there is great wealth, poverty is basically eliminated, the environment is protected, and there is a complete social fabric/safety net. Where would you rather live, Latin America or Sweden? I'll take Sweden. Apparently our leaders are intent on turning America into a third-world country, and will not rest until the only taxes are those levied against the middle, upper-middle, and lower classes. Just remember what Warren Buffet says about how his secretary pays a higher % of income to taxes than he (one of the richest people in the world) pays in taxes. You're being fleeced people. Wake up.
Posted by: David

Our nation is facing a life or death choice

Soundbyte:

Private Health Care = Death

Public Health Care = Life

Our nation is facing a life or death choice and it rushes in to choose death.

1. Soon to be 50 million uninsured

2. US pays more than anyone and receives less than more than 35 other countries (World Health Organization statistics)

3. US pays 82% more for the same pharmaceuticals as the other developed countries

4. The US is the only developed country to create an unnecessary middleman of health insurance companies who serve no role whatsoever but to stand between the services a doctor and hospital can offer and the patient who needs them.

While their staff get bonuses based on their ability to deny claims, we pay for their wholly unnecessary advertising costs, bloated corporate beurocracy, and lets not forget their profits.

In a civilized country the hospital never has to hear that a prescribed surgery is experimental or too costly & therefore denied.

People don’t have to pay for services or prescriptions, except in some cases a small copay. And they never have to worry that a paid agent of the insurance company is employed to conjure reasons why they should have to pay back any major payouts the insurance company reluctantly does make. The typical reasons are any prior complaint of pain indicates a preexisting condition that exempts the company and requires the patient to repay their medical costs.

And let’s not forget the many millions who have been denied coverage at least once, often across the board with no one who will insure them even if they might be able to afford it.

This is a letter I wrote to a San Jose Mercury News columnist, Sue Hutchison, in response to her 2/5/08 column describing some local folks who had their lives saved by area hospitals and arguing that funding shouldn’t be cut.

Hi Sue,

My sincere thanks for your piece today. There is much more that needs to be said, some obvious logical extensions, but I don't know if you are at liberty to say such things. The obvious answer is some version of single-payer (doesn't Sheila Kuehl have such a proposal?). We need this on a national level.

When will the US finally join every other civilized nation on earth in viewing health care as a right? When will the fiscal conservatives realize that uninsured folks don't get preventive care and end up in the ER and cost everyone much more than if we did provide public health care? Or do they want to see people dying on the streets? Between our hyper-militarized national image and the apparent desire to see the uninsured perishing in front of hospitals reserved for the rich, I can hardly believe how bloodthirsty these warmongering anti-health people are.

I'm sure you've seen Sicko; it is a useful and comparative microcosm. I wish our messengers of progressivity could all look like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Gary Webb (and not the slovenly Moore) but the undeniable fact is he is delivering a truth that right wingers and the Wolf Blitzers/Sanjay Guptas of the world cannot refute (though it is ludicrous and painfully entertaining to watch them try). We pay more than everyone, and we get less than every civilized country. And we need to hear everyday on every media outlet (currently we hear this absolutley nowhere and never) that in France THE DOCTOR WILL COME TO YOUR HOUSE. Forget about waiting in a waiting room. So the hated French have a system that is incomparably and infinitely better and more humane than ours. No wonder they live longer despite their fatty pastries and incessant wine-drinking.

As a personal note, being a professional with a graduate degree and working two jobs (sometimes, as recently, up to five jobs) I cannot afford health care for myself, my wife, or my 10-month-old daughter. This is a revolting state of affairs that should not be tolerated in a civilized country. This is an outrage. I asked at the shiny new hospital next door to my apartment complex (where at least 1000 other families with young kids also reside) where I would go if there was an emergency. I told them I live right next to the Tully Medical Center. They said that's an urgent care facility which doesn't handle emergencies. So if my baby has an emergency, I can't go to the shiny new hospital full of doctors next door; I have to drive 20-30 minutes to O'Connor.

Our nation is facing a life or death choice and it rushes in to choose death.

Notice we are always warned how taxes will go up if we have a nationalized health system and cut out the unnecessary middleman - health insurance companies - whose only purpose is to stand in the way between doctors and patients. In other countries health care is given if you are sick - here it is given only if you can pay. Doctors in civilized countries NEVER have to clear a procedure with the middleman. They never have to deal with money issues at all vis a vis the patient. They are free to provide health care, with, in effect, infinitely LESS RED TAPE AND BEUROCRACY. So we are always warned how taxes will go up if we have a nationalized health system - yet taxes didn't go up, in fact they fell for the ultra-rich, when we spend what will be in the trillions of our treasure to kill foreigners in Iraq.

In fact, relative to what we pay for private insurance, if we even do a half-assed mimic of the best part of the English/French/ etc. health systems, the tax increase should be much less than we pay private insurers now, so it would feel like an expenditure decrease. The market power of the government as a single buyer would guarantee this. And if the program was scaled to be paid for by a progressive tax that would be even better. We have some, ineffectual, progressive taxes on income; notice there is virtually no attempt at all at progressivity with regard to WEALTH (assets) which is different than income. So there is a source right there. Ask Bill Gates' father if he thinks the Estate Tax is robbing him (hint - he doesn't - he's promotes the idea that the rich actually have some social responsibility). And ask Warren Buffet who pays a higher tax rate, him or his secretary (he's famously said it's the secretary).

In Canada, the CBC held a huge six week poll to determine who is the greatest Canadian. Over a million people voted. Wayne Gretzky was #10 on the list. Tommy Douglas, the politician who brought national health care to Canada, was voted #1. So whoever it is that gets the credit for bringing this to the US (if Canada is any indication at all - and we have more cultural similarities with Canada than any other country), that person will be lionized and elevated to the level of Michael Jordan, Jackie Robinson, our greatest sports heroes; it will be Washington, Lincoln, and whoever that brave soul is who improves US health care.

Every humane citizen should be outraged. I want to hear these right-wing millionaires (and their middle class companions who falsely believe they will one day be millionaires, and therefore vote and advocate against their own economic interest in favor of identity politics) tell me why almost 50 million people shouldn't have health care. Let them tell me why it's a great thing that I can't afford health care for myself or my wife who is ill. We should all demand that the US becomes a civilized country.

David Moglen

Economics Instructor