Circus Circus

Suite Madame M (apologies to Styx):

The current debt standoff might have some effect, but I doubt it. Short-attention spans, and constant changing of the picture and the news item of the week, will likely see to that. How many people are still talking about BP? Dodd-Frank “Financial Reform” Act? Real strategy for the nation? The real items go away quickly or never even come up.

When you say a flat tax, I assume you mean income tax, and not the other taxes that would likely remain (payroll, excise, sales, etc.) I will say that a flat income tax would go a good portion of the way toward removing some inequities, but would accentuate others. If one’s system is so corrupt, as Russia’s was/is, then a flat tax actually is beneficial to all, but especially government. If your system is not so corrupt, then a flat tax burden falls disproportionally on the middle class (assuming the lower class is exempted out by certain minimums). However, it does bring certainty, which markets and business love and reward because it allows for ready calculation into plans and operations. One of the tricky parts of a flat tax is making sure that collection is not only solid, but that the rate is set high enough to actually achieve the revenue streams needed.

Nearly the whole idea behind progressive taxation, as opposed to flat rate taxation, is that the burden of supporting a government that serves a society should be borne proportionally to ability to do so. While fairer to the middle class, the upper class (and sometimes the middle class and lower classes as well) want to tinker with the tax code to bend the effects of progressive taxation, or to achieve some reward or preference, or politicians try to steer national policy and economic effect through it, etc., all leading to ever more (maddening) complication. In a world where no constant tinkering with the tax code would occur, progressive taxation would work superbly. Even imperfectly, it has worked well for some decades of the American experience. But regretfully, that was decades ago.

People don’t much remember, but for a brief period of time, we had a semi-flat tax hybrid of two tax rates, 15% and 28%. This seemed to combine the best features of progressive and flat tax, but alas, the tinkering would not stop, and not only did many loopholes return (just different kinds of loopholes), but the rates and brackets got messed with as well.

Our system is so subject now to special-interest manipulation, a flat tax would, while not as fair as the ideal progression, greatly simplify American personal and business lives, and also free up a lot of misspent money and energy presently wasted in either wrestling with the tax code or manipulating it (or having to pay someone to do so). One could almost think of the flat tax as a membership fee for residing in America or benefitting from it.

But really, as I have said in the past, a better way is to stop taxing productive things altogether. Producing income is often (although not always—witness much of Wall Street for example) economically productive, and for the middle class person almost certainly so. Instead of taxing (punishing) income, we should instead tax the things which are harmful to environment, to individual health, to society itself. One therefore would reward what we as a society want more of (economic productivity), and punish what we want less of (harmful things), and in the process fund our necessary servant (government).

On to travel: Possible you say? That some people—the self-centered, the ideologues, the close-minded—are not bettered and broadened by travel, or even a period of foreign residency: it has happened. While thankfully, far fewer remain unmodified by their travel experience than the number that are bettered, it has happened and continues to happen, and there are some notable (and sometimes infamous in a way) examples.

As to the semi-rhetorical question, yes, there are some things I can’t or won’t find another side to. Not many, because the real world, and humanity itself, is just so complex there are nearly always two or more sides to something. What are some examples of things that I can’t or won’t find another side to though? Wanton cruelty, to animals, humans, or the planet. Rape of a little child. Irreverent enslavement or destruction against free will.

The kindness of strangers in lands where community is valued is something to behold—thank you for the link. And even in our community-dessicated American culture, people still long for and will gladly do it if they get a chance to come out of their self-preservation and promotion shell.

Interesting, isn’t it, that the small business owners, many of whom are struggling or even going under, still refuse to point in the direction of the specific big corporations that are responsible for, or at least fomenting the problems, but instead blame a generalized thing like “the media.”

You have started off well with an insightful and appropriate quote from Hedges. Nice segue! How very applicable to the vaporous drivel that passes for information “of note” in this spectacle culture. Ah, Plato would have felt right at home in drawing all the parallels. But perhaps he might also have been a little disappointed that after three millennia the basics had still not been taken to heart!

As to opening salvo on the new book, ladies first! :)