Thursday, September 16, 2010

Pulling an Ireland

I must type quickly for the Rupmleminze has entered my mouth and has about 10 minutes before it enters the blood stream and therefore turns my mind into that of a normally observant economist and not the brilliant (and charming) economist I am whilst sober.

I was listening to talk radio and the whole commotion today is about whether or not to let the Bush tax cuts expire.

Which is like arguing about whether or not we should re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic because it's so cute and so short-falling of what it utterly needed to get this economy out of recession.

What is needed to get this economy out of a recession is something much more revolutionary, albeit much simpler - pulling an Ireland.

Now many people ask, "Captain, what is "pulling and Ireland?"

Well I shall tell you.

Ireland before it had its economic boom was not too unlike the United States today - a socialist nation, burdened by slow economic growth, huge deficits and debt, and no real hope or future to look forward to.

Then in the early 90's Ireland decided to do something revolutionary;

Cut government spending.

Cut taxes

And become a tax haven by lowering corporate taxes to 12%.

Over the 15 years Ireland's standard of living went from roughly 70% that of the European average to 120% (if I recall my figures correctly) and started to rival the US (and guess who's going to come out of the recession sooner!)

Now admittedly, IReland is suffering from an economic crisis more severe than the US, but that is more due to their idiotic bankers and banking system which made Lehman Brothers look conservative, but neither here nor there, Ireland's economic lot improved.

And the reason why Ireland was able to shrug off the economic malaise was because instead of looking to the government to solve the problems that ailed it, it left it up to the people to solve. It GREW ITSELF out of it's problems.

I remember the Reagan years where the deficit and debt were HUGE issues. A $200 billion deficit was HUGE. Well Pelosi and Obama propose new "stimulus measures" on that amount every other week. That $200 billion today looks like chump change.

The reason why is the economy BOOMED and grew itself out of its debt woes.

Now what's funny (and this is what makes me the genius economist that I am) is that the US doesn't have a choice....Well it' DOES have a choice, but if they want to get out of this recession, it only has one REAL choice.

Choice #1 - Continue the way Japan did since 1990 and wonder why we limp along at 1-2% RGDP growth.

CHoice #2 - Pull and Ireland, slash taxes, get the economy BOOMING to the point it not only dwarfs out current debt and deficit problems, but makes social security and medicare look like chump change.

In other words, implement policies that get the average income per capita of the nation up to $150,000 per year (which I believe is possible-laugh as you may) and we can afford all these cute little entitlements with spare change.

Now the myopic idiots BOTH in WAshington and on talk radio somehow think lowering taxes will increase the debt (and what I find utterly hypocritical is they act like pissing away money on the stimulus doesn't!), but forget the Laffer Curve, forget supply side economics, I'm going to explain to all you idiots in Washington in REAL simple terms that everybody can understand why lowering taxes is the way to go -

North Korea
Venezuela
Cuba

You see, let's break it down really simple and imagine taxes are a linear, single variable. If you increase taxes, tax revenues go up. If you lower them, tax revenues go down. So according to this simple linear philosophy, North Korea, CUba, Venezuela and any other communist country should have AMPLE government revenues to pay for all their little socialist services. Because their tax rates are effectively 100%. Right? So they should have TONS, AMPLE amounts of government revenue to afford their socialist services. Matter of fact, they should SHAME the US by the sheer amount of money they blow on services.

But what's funny is if you look at their budgets (if you can find them) they spend NOWHERE NEAR THE AMOUNT THE US DOES ON SOCIAL SERVICES.

Well, now, how can this be?

Well, the reason why is that no matter how you try to think otherwise and no matter what you tell people, in the end the government inevitably and invariably derives its revenue from production in the private sector. And if there is no production in the private sector (like say in Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela) there's nothing to tax and therefore no tax revenue.

Ergo, even though philosophically they are considered "caring socialist nations" in the end, they effectively spend a pittance on social programs compared to their (decaying and dying) capitalist counterparts simply because the money (or production) isn't there. ie-they fail in their socialist cause because they destroy the goose that lays the golden egg.

Now why this is so hard to understand, I don't know. The simple fact that the government by default is a parasitic organization that lives off the private sector (the host) means if you had wise government you would know that your gravy train, your blood, comes from a booming private sector. Ergo, implement policies to boost it.

Ireland inevitably figured it out.

Our forefathers certainly did.

And even those stubborn Russians abandoned their childish Marxist religion.

But no, you idiots in WAshington cannot appreciate the simplicity of pulling an Ireland. And the idiotic American public, with a severe and unforgivable level of ignorance elected arguably the most inept, childish, incompetent charlatan in the history of the US.

Of course, perhaps I hit it on the head. To you people who are so adamantly against lowering taxes and thinks the economy's salvation lies within the government, perhaps I give you too much credit. Perhaps deep down inside you know the government can't solve the problem but are inhibited by your zealous religion. Perhaps you know the world is round and the Earth is not the center of the solar system but you cannot abandon your religion. Perhaps you are no more of an intellectual than all those "southern, bible belt Christians." Because you don't care to bother looking up the "truth" as much as you care about being married to your equally worthless religion of leftism and socialism. Because I'm sorry, could you please explain to me how socialism materially differs from a religion? Last I recall, no empirical proof is cited by its followers, just like most religions. Perhaps i could have a bumper sticker that says, "Obama, Protect me from Your Followers?"

Regardless, enjoy the decline! Hallelujah Socialist Brothers and Sisters! Enjoy the decline!

I shall enjoy now a very secular and second Rumpleminze.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great piece! I can tell you what would end the society of entitlement, a US government default. The US government borrows trillions of dollars, so they can feed the entitlement machine. Does anyone really think, someone in Washington will stand up to say, farm subsidies? Well cutting off all the borrowed money, would put an end to a lot of silly government programs. This would also enable a return of common sense economics, which you are suggesting. In democracies changes seem to arrive after a crisis. In the meantime, Washington will continue to borrow money, and serve up the pork.

CBMTTek said...

You know, whenever I talk to a "progressive" about what to do and they bring up taxing corporations, I ask one question, and only one question.

"How high should we raise corporate taxes to entice the companies back to the US?"

Generally, I am called an idiot.

Anonymous said...

Damn! I wish you were wrong about this. But as usual, you aren't.

Anonymous said...

www.businessinsider.com/the-great-housing-bamboozle-2010-9

Captain, sinc eyou love the housing market....

Jaime Roberto said...

Just to play devil's advocate, Ireland also received a whole lot of aid from the EU leading up to and during the boom years, which enabled it to keep the tax rates low. I too like low tax rates. I'm just not so sure that Ireland is the perfect example.