Why Bashing High Income Earners May Not Resonate So Well

Mark Perry points out why bashing high earners may not be getting as much traction with the public as Democrats would like.

Why China Grows Faster Than The US

One continues to hear a lot of China bashing. They compete "unfairly". American companies are "shipping jobs" to China. What you seldom hear is a discussion of the comparative economic incentives in China versus the US. The fact is, government in China has created a much more friendly place to work and produce than in the US. The US heavily taxes economic success. China does not. Wonder why Chinese businessmen no longer come to the US to set up their businesses? Look at the table below.


                                                              China                                                      United States

Capital Gains Taxes                                  0                                                            20-45%

Property Taxes                                          0                                                         Substantial

State and Local Taxes                               0                                                             10-20%

Top Federal Income Tax Rate                 35%                                                           43%

Corporate Tax Rate                                 15%                                                           39%

Inheritance Tax                                         0                                                               55%




Also consider that this China is not the casino economy the US is where everyone is playing with borrowed money.


Min. Home Loan Down Payment            30%                                                             3%

% Vehicles Purchased on Credit               7%                                                           >50%

Now, you might still rather live in the US for non-economic reasons. China  has a one-party government that can punish people it doesn't like (of course, as we have seen, the IRS behaves that way in the US). But what China has done is create the sort of economic climate that used to exist in the US. One where people were strongly incented to produce. One where people could keep most of what they produced instead of handing it over to government. The result is clear:

GDP Growth Rate                                   10%                                                             2%

Best Income Equalizer? Cheap Fuel.

Democrats are always posturing that they seek to "help the poor", but actions speak much more than those words. If Democrats really want to help the lower income population, cheap energy would be the place to start. Instead they fight fracking.  They fight pipelines. They fight gas production. They promote and impose expensive energy sources like solar power.  The wealthy can afford to pay for boutique energy.

If Grocery Stores Were Run Like K-12 Schools

Don Bourdreaux makes the point about the absurdity of the monopoly K-12 education by imaging what the grocery industry would look like if it were run the same way.

News reports would regularly include stories of “grocery experts” offering new and “pioneering” proposals to improve grocery distribution, and of the citizens of “grocery districts” meeting with their local “grocery boards” to discuss and debate these different proposals. ”Professors of Groceries” in all the top “Schools of Groceries” across the land would debate with each other and with the public the whys and why-nots of the failure of the latest scheme to make America again #1 in international measures of grocery distribution.  Newspapers of record would regularly feature headline reports on the “grocery crisis.”

Ordinary men and women – physicians, electricians, cab drivers, auto mechanics, professors of economics, web designers, kennel owners, carpenters – almost none of whom have the slightest bit of expertise or experience to qualify them to assess the different methods proposed to deliver groceries, would nevertheless be expected to have such an opinion, and they would be applauded if and when they attend the next meeting of the “Grocery Board” to express their opinions on how best to supply groceries.

Anyone proposing to get government out of the grocery-supply business would, of course, be ridiculed as being totally unrealistic or being an out-of-touch ideologue, or accused of harboring a secret desire to see the the vast majority of people starve while only the top one percent of the population continues to enjoy excellent access to superb groceries. 


Read the whole thing here http://cafehayek.com/2015/01/if-groceries-were-supplied-like-k-12-education.html