tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post7457164901660407398..comments2024-03-11T13:16:19.098-04:00Comments on Ad Orientem: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes AltogetherUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-45295041108295478362011-03-26T09:27:35.198-04:002011-03-26T09:27:35.198-04:00The Anti-Gnostic said...
The private sector can...The Anti-Gnostic said...<br />The private sector can't create jobs so long as government maintains its huge and heavy footprint in the capital markets and consumes people's incomes via taxation.<br /><br />3/25/2011 5:30 PMrabidgandhihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07775744049172133221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-40243800947365534172011-03-25T16:25:08.035-04:002011-03-25T16:25:08.035-04:00Two things, John;
First, I no longer think politi...Two things, John;<br /><br />First, I no longer think political reform is possible in the U.S. The plutocracy has an unbreakable hammerlock on all the institutions of society. There is no longer any "front" on which such battles can even be fought. Look at Wisconsin. Despite all the protests and unified political opposition, the plutocracy got exactly what it wanted. The same thing goes for all the bailouts a few years back. Banks and corporations have more rights than people do (the Supreme Courts says so, after all). Votes are irrelevant, and politics is simply theater.<br /><br />Only a "clean slate" will change anything. Given all the Biblical floods and earthquakes lately, I am tempted to ask if Nature (and Natures's God) may be about to supply the "eraser." I honestly don't know, but I am sure that any time spent trying to "reform" this system is time and energy wasted.<br /><br />The second point, is that politics follows culture, not the other way around. The response of different societies to natural disasters is instructive. In both Japan and in New Zealand (where I now live), there was either no looting at all (Japan) or only isolated, sporadic instances of it (Christchurch), in response to the recent earthquakes. In the U.S., New Orleans decended into something worse than the law of the jungle after Katrina. In Chile, after their big earthquake, the army had to be brought in to restore order. Haiti's earthquake resulted in a state of near civil war.<br /><br />Violent, sociopathic, lawless people require violent, sociopathic, arbitrary governments to restrain them and keep them from killing each other. <i>When</i> (not if) the current plutocracy collapses of its own corrruption, arrogance and ineptitude, what will replace it? Thomas Jefferson and New England town meetings? Methinks not! A Yugoslavian-style breakup and an "N-way" civil war (with a potentially unlimited number of gangs and armed factions) is a more likely scenario.<br /><br />If I were still in the U.S., that is what I would be thinking about, far more than political reform. A "failed state" is nothing compared to a failed society.Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-54447310901922453492011-03-25T16:21:22.948-04:002011-03-25T16:21:22.948-04:00I am almost with you in your prescriptions, except...I am almost with you in your prescriptions, except that I think that tuition and mortgage interest deductions need to go as well. Nevertheless, I find it encouraging that a thorough-going statist like myself can see nearly eye-to-eye with a whig like you. One hears talk of grand bargains on tax reform in the works. Here's hoping that such common sense can prevail.gdelassuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11107851777800250317noreply@blogger.com