Utopia, you are standing in it!

This morning in Monaco, I moderated a panel for the Convention of Independent Financial Advisors on the implications of an “uber-ized” economy. In my introductory comments, I asserted that the best part of capitalism was “creative destruction.” Simply stated, we all benefit when entrepreneurs come up with products such as personal computers that make our lives better.

But I also pointed out that creative destruction was the most painful part of capitalism. Think, for example, about the people who used to work in the typewriter industry.

One of the speakers, Professor Philippe Silberzahn of the EMLYON Business School, cited another example. Kodak used to be one of the biggest and most profitable companies in America, but the digital camera (ironically, first invented by Kodak) set the firm into a death spiral. What was creative for the rest of us wound up causing destruction for the people who worked…

According to the bean counters at Ernst and Young, the United States has one of the highest capital gains tax rates in the world.

But if you don’t trust the numbers from a big accounting firm, then you can peruse a study from the pro-tax Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that reaches the same conclusion.

But does this really matter? Is the United States harmed by having a high tax rate?

The Wall Street Journal certainly makes a compelling case that high tax rates on capital gains are self-destructive.

And this remarkable chart shows that workers are victimized when there is less investment.

Let’s add to all this evidence.

Jason Clemens, Charles Lammam, and Matthew Lo have produced a thorough study for the Fraser Institute about the economic impact of capital gains taxation.

A capital gain (or loss) generally refers to the price of an asset when it is…

Earlier today at the Friedman Conference in Australia, I spoke on the proper design of a tax system.

My goal was to explain the problem of double taxation.

I’ve repeatedly shared a flowchart to illustrate the pervasive double taxation in the current system (my example is for the United States, but many other nations make the same mistake).

And to help explain why this is economically misguided, I developed a (hopefully) compelling visual based on how to harvest apples.

But I’ve always wondered if I was presenting the information in an accessible and understandable manner. So for today’s presentation, I decided to experiment with some different visuals.

Here’s how I illustrated the current system.

As you can see, there are several additional layers of tax on people who save and invest their after-tax income.

And I explained to the crowd that this is very foolish since every economic…

The economic analysis of taxation has plenty of jargon, statistical analysis, and complicated graphs, which can make it seem very mysterious to ordinary people.

But the core principles are actually very easy to understand.

Simply stated, the more you tax of something, the less you get of it.

For instance, politicians often argue that there should be higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol in order to discourage smoking and drinking.

Given my libertarian proclivities, I obviously don’t like them trying to control our private lives, but they are right about higher taxes reducing cigarette and booze consumption.

To be sure, politicians don’t care about our health. They simply want more money in order to buy more votes. And they also don’t seem to care that punitive tax rates increase smuggling.

But I’m digressing. Let’s get back to the economics of tax policy.

The wind cultist is always ready to spear hundreds of giant 240m (787ft) industrial wind turbines into your backyard, but howls bloody outrage should the ‘favour’ look like being returned. Destroying your patch of paradise is a sacrifice that he is always willing to make. Characters like former Greens leader, Bob Brown and rent-seeking renewables lobbyist, Oliver Yates.

The other ‘joy’ that these hypocrites are keen to deliver (unselfishly) to everyone but themselves are the thousands of kilometres of high voltage transmission lines that are required to collect and deliver the dilute and diffuse power occasionally generated by wind turbines and solar panels scattered all over the countryside, often hundreds of kilometres from the homes and businesses where it might be consumed.

As with their approach to jamming hundreds of giant wind turbines and seas of solar panels into peaceful and prosperous rural communities, the corporates involved in the grand…

In April of 2013, I introduced a Moocher Hall of Fame to “celebrate” some very odious examples of welfare dependency.

Since that time, I keep thinking that it’s time to do something similar for government bureaucrats. This compilation from last December would be a good place to start, though I’d have to figure out whether to have group memberships so that we could include the bureaucrats at the Patent and Trademark Office who get paid to watch TV, as well as the paper pushers at the Department of Veterans Affairs who got big bonuses after creating secret waiting lists that led to the death of former soldiers.

But if we’re creating a Bureaucrat Hall of Fame, I won’t want to discriminate against foreigners.

The U.K.-based Telegraph reports, for instance, that an unnamed doctor from Italy is a very worthy candidate for this award.

The notorious inefficiencies of Italy’s…

In 2022, I did a seven-part series about Bidenomics, focusing on the president’s track record on subsidies,  inflation,  protectionism, household income, fiscal policy, red tape, and labor-force participation.

Let’s take an updated look at his record on household income.

I’m motivated to address this issue because of a Wall Street Journaleditorial featuring this depressing chart showing that inflation-adjusted wages for the average American worker have declined during the Biden presidency.

This is not a happy chart, though at least there’s been some slight improvement over the past 12 months.

Here’s some of the accompanying analysis from the WSJ‘s editorial.

…why are voters so unhappy? The answer can be found in one lesson by looking at the…chart. It tracks average real hourly earnings for all workers in the private economy across the Biden Presidency, and it tells an ugly story about the…

I created the Bureaucrat Hall of Fame to give recognition to government employees who confirm our worst suspicions about being lazy and overpaid. Or worse.

Getting selected is not easy. For instance, the bureaucrats from the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board (the focus of yesterday’s column) did not make it into the Hall of Fame.

This is an “honor” reserved for those who go way above and beyond the call of duty.

Such as Cinzia Paolina De Lio.

Who is this person? What makes her worthy of being inducted into the Bureaucrat Hall of Fame?

She’s an Italian teacher. But she’s a teacher who almost never taught. She missed 20 years of work over her 24-year career.