Wealth taxes

Even her fellow Democrats are challenging Elizabeth Warren on how she will pay for her big spending proposals. Her answer to that relies very heavily on her proposed wealth tax. She clearly thinks it will be a goldmine. There have already been some good comments on why such a tax will be very destructive but I just want to set out the kernel arguments about why such a tax will raise little if anything.

For a start, great wealth is not usually held in the form of bank deposits. It is almost all in the form of real estate, shares and other tangible assets -- so liquidating even a small part of that would depress asset prices generally. And that will depress spending and investments across the board. It will affect the wealth of large sections of the population, leading to very negative feeling among job creators. Unemployment would shoot up and income tax receipts would be reduced.

And the second effect would be large scale emigration among the wealthy. Some nearby Caribbean islands are pleasant places to live in the sun and many have very low tax rates. To escape the tentacles of Uncle Sam, the emigrants would also have to renounce their American citizenship but many retirees do that already. And You only have to bring a few million with you to be granted residence in Australia or New Zealand and you can definitely drink the water there. And there is never any need to press 1 for English. A lot of rich people have well-appointed bolt-holes in NZ already.

And when the rich move out, they take their income taxes with them -- as well as escaping a wealth tax. And the rich pay a big proportion of income tax so, once again, tax revenue would FALL.

Even if she can't tax the departed rich Warren might have the bright idea of taxing any assets left behind in the USA. But that would lead to a mass liquidation of assets, with the proceeds of that going to purchase assets elsewhere.

High taxing Leftist governments have encountered that problem before and their response is to make the currency not convertible -- so you can't use greenbacks to buy (say) New Zealand dollars. But that drives away all foreign investments, which are a major source of jobs in America. So Warren's "clever" proposal would lead to lower revenues and higher unemployment.

She seems a smart sort of woman so she probably knows all that. As a Leftist, the thought of destroying American prosperity probably turns her on


Warren would apply a 2% tax on every dollar of net worth for households worth $50 million or more, and a 3% tax on every dollar of net worth beyond $1 billion.

According to tables in a recent paper by Saez and Zucman, this would apply to around $11 trillion of holdings this year, producing revenue of at least $220 billion.

Sanders’ “extreme wealth tax” would levy a 1% tax on the first dollar of net worth above $32 million. That tax would rise in increments, to 2% on net worth between $50 million to $250 million all the way up to 8% on wealth above $10 billion.

Sanders’ campaign estimated the plan, which would tax just the top 0.1% of U.S. households, would raise an estimated $4.35 trillion over the next decade.

Saez and Zucman say their research points to the wealth tax as an effective way to equalize the amount of tax paid by people with massive fortunes like investor Warren Buffett and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with the middle-class, and then seed the proceeds through the economy.

Had the Warren proposal been in place since 1982, the share of wealth held by the top 400 would still have risen - but only to 2%. A higher tax rate of 10% on holdings above $1 billion, meanwhile, would have kept that group’s share of national wealth stable.

In more individual terms, the 3% rate on holdings above a billion would mean Bezos would be worth just $86 billion this year, versus $160 billion. At the bottom of the top 15, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson would have $18 billion, versus $35 billion.

A dozen European nations used to have wealth taxes but most have done away with them. France, one of the last, abolished its wealth tax in late 2017, after thousands of millionaires relocated to neighboring, lower-tax countries.

Saez and Zucman argue that Europe’s history with wealth taxes is not relevant to the United States because those countries set their wealth tax bar too low, and because it is easier to relocate within the continent for favorable tax laws.

The U.S. tax system, on the other hand, essentially taxes all citizens, no matter where they live.

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The Totalitarian American Left

BY DAVID LIMBAUGH

The left is becoming more unapologetically totalitarian every day. Every freedom-loving American should be alarmed.

From hounding conservatives out of restaurants to spitting on Trump supporters at rallies, from firing employees for politically incorrect statements to fining people for "misgendering" a person, the left is on a path toward absolutism.

Even some former and current leftists have recognized this intolerant trend and broken from their colleagues, lamenting their intolerance of opposing ideas and disturbing mission to suppress dissenting opinion.

Just the other day, three incidents typifying the left's authoritarianism popped out at me as I was surveying the morning news.

The Federalist reported that venues in three North American cities -- Toronto, Brooklyn, and Portland -- canceled screenings of a movie about Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson because of leftist criticism. Peterson exploded onto the scene in recent years with his no-nonsense, brilliant, and clear-eyed critique of insane cultural trends, especially those concerning gender.

Peterson's book "12 Rules for Life" is wildly popular, and there are countless viral videos featuring his encounters with various leftist interviewers, panelists and audience members who have tried and failed to entrap him on a number of issues, and been reduced -- in every case -- to blundering, ineffectual bullies.

 If you haven't partaken of these videos, you owe it to yourself to witness one arrogant leftist after another being gobsmacked by the simple weapon of unadulterated logic. These videos are irresistibly contagious and imminently satisfying for those longing to see intellectually defenseless, virtue-signaling finger waggers brought to their knees through the medium of polite debate.

Peterson, you see, won't kowtow to the leftists' demand that we embrace the tenets of gender ideology, which teaches that gender is less about biology and more about personal identification. He refuses to support laws that criminalize one's failure to use a person's preferred pronouns, such as "they" instead of "she."

Peterson has the temerity to say that men and women are biologically different, and that gender is not a fluid, human construct. That doesn't sit well with the left, which not only insists that we accept its cockeyed ideas as normal but also advocates imposing them on us by force of law.

Can you get your mind around the irony of the left banning a movie about Peterson because he's dangerous? Who is more dangerous: a person who peaceably expresses an opinion that happens to be supported by thousands of years of human experience and common sense, or those who try to ban his voice or even a movie about it? This is "1984"-level scary, and it's getting worse by the hour.

Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin Ditch Patreon Over SPLC, Credit Card Censorship

On what possible grounds is the left arguing that Peterson's views are dangerous? He doesn't advocate violence; he isn't a rabble-rouser or revolutionary. He simply states his opinion instead of genuflecting to the despotic left.

But they claim that if Peterson's views are openly expressed, he might convince other people that he's right, and that could lead to the proliferation of conservative thought. Peterson's "conservative perspectives on feminism and gender," according to an opinion piece in The New York Times, "are very popular among young men and often are a path to more extreme content and ideologies." Think about this. Conservative speech is dangerous because it is a slippery slope to the adoption of conservative ideas? This must be satire. Do these clueless cranks know how ridiculous they sound?

Again, who is more extreme and dangerous: Jordan Peterson, who advocates the silencing of no one and expresses mainstream opinions, or leftists, who are actively trying to censor Peterson?

Please don't make the reckless mistake of dismissing this crusade against Peterson as exceptional. This is the left's pattern, and it is becoming more aggressive all the time.

The second and third incidents I came across are further proof that the left is increasingly Stalinist. In the most recent Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Kamala Harris pushed for the suspension of President Trump's Twitter, speciously alleging that he is trying to obstruct justice and intimidate and threaten witnesses. You see, the left always has some urgent rationale to smother conservative speech -- whether it's to prevent the incitement of violence or obstruction of justice. But it just wants to shut us up.

Those who would silence the other side are the very definition of dangerous. Don't take Harris' musings lightly, even if she is mostly posturing to gin up more support from the Trump-hating Democratic base. It is instructive that efforts to muzzle speech almost always come from the left, not the right, because the left is insecure about the popularity of its kooky ideas.

The third incident involved demagogue and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who said in a CNN forum on LGBT issues that churches and religious organizations should lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage. If I have to explain how outrageous this is, the country is in even greater danger than I imagined.

I found these examples in 15 minutes of reading this week. They are everywhere. America was founded on the idea of claiming and preserving our God-given liberties. The illiberal left, which believes our rights and freedoms come from government, is hell-bent on destroying our liberties and forcibly imposing its thoughts and ideas on all of us.

God save us.

SOURCE 

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Why They Hate Tulsi Gabbard

She's the only decent candidate they've got, as far as I can see. She actually seems susceptable to reason 

Note to Democrats: If you want to win your party’s presidential nomination in 2020, make sure you march as far to the left as possible — preferably off the cliff.

These days, any politician who doesn’t embrace the most radical elements of the Left’s agenda is disparaged and denounced. Democrats and their media brethren have been doing this to Donald Trump since he became a Republican, and now they’re going after one of their own.

Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat presidential candidate, Hawaii congresswoman, National Guard major, Samoan American, and Hindu is being portrayed as — get this — a Russian ally and a bedfellow of white nationalists. Why? Because she’s taken old-school Democrat stances on issues of foreign policy, drugs, and abortion.

That’s how far left the Democrat Party has moved.

Gabbard’s views on a range of issues certainly aren’t to be mistaken for Reagan-style conservatism. But compared to the rest of the Democrat field, she’s as American as Normal Rockwell. And this has apparently caused the media to smear Gabbard as a politician more at home on the alt-right than in the Democrat Party.

Swallow your drink first, but Hillary Clinton likewise chimed in, “I think they’ve got their eye on someone who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.”

Gabbard called such smears “completely despicable.”

Earlier this month, The New York Times lamented, “On podcasts and online videos, in interviews and Twitter feeds, alt-right internet stars, white nationalists, libertarian activists and some of the biggest boosters of Mr. Trump heap praise on Ms. Gabbard. They like the Hawaiian congresswoman’s isolationist foreign policy views. They like her support for drug decriminalization. They like what she sees as censorship by big technology platforms.”

Wait a minute. Haven’t Democrats always been big supporters of drug decriminalization? When did that become a right-wing issue? And leftists have proudly marched against every U.S. military endeavor since Vietnam, but now we’re supposed to believe they’re foreign-policy hawks ready to defend American interventionism abroad?

Of course, it’s not about principle. It’s all about President Trump. Whatever he supports, Democrats must reflexively oppose.

“Regime change wars are just fine with most 2020 Democrats, so long as it allows them to oppose Trump,” Jack Hunter writes at the Washington Examiner. “The president’s recent policy in Syria is not unlike the anti-regime change stance Obama promoted as a candidate in 2008. The Obama-Biden ticket won the White House by opposing Bush’s regime change war in Iraq and promising not to repeat that mistake (although they eventually did).”

Republicans aren’t going to storm Gabbard’s Capitol Hill office and ask her to switch parties, but there’s a dose of decency and common sense in what she says. And she’s not afraid to step out of line, which is no doubt why Trump supporters often like what she has to say. In fact, that characteristic is part of why Trump was elected in 2016. Like the president, Gabbard marches to the beat of her own drummer.

Reason’s Robby Soave writes of Gabbard’s Libertarian appeal, “Indeed, Gabbard was the only candidate on the stage Tuesday night to advocate a unilateral, immediate end to the disastrous policy of intervening in every conflict in the Middle East with the goal of changing the regimes. As she wisely noted, such schemes have backfired in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and likely would have backfired in Syria if undertaken there as well. Refreshingly, Gabbard called out both parties and the mainstream media for their complicity in the U.S.‘s foolish foreign policy interventionism.”

But she didn’t stop there. During the Ohio debate, Gabbard took a position that’s certainly to the left of most Republicans but still considered unacceptable by every other Democrat candidate. Responding to a question about states restricting abortion, Gabbard replied, “There should be some restrictions in place. I support codifying Roe v. Wade — while making sure that, during the third trimester, abortion is not an option unless the life or severe health consequences of a woman are at risk.”

Uh-oh, Tulsi. There goes the nomination.

In the minds of Democrats, taking the wrong stance on the military or drug enforcement is bad enough, but utter anything other than prostrate praise for the holy sacrament of “choice,” including government-funded abortion-on-demand, and you’re toast as a viable Democrat political candidate.

It’s sad to see one of our two major political parties destroy anyone who dares challenge their status quo. In the end, Tulsi Gabbard doesn’t have a chance of securing her party’s nomination, but her campaign has served America well by reminding the rest of us just how extreme the Democrat Party has become. And that’s good news for Trump in 2020

SOURCE 

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Mexico has deported over 300 Indian nationals to New Delhi, the National Migration Institute (INM) said late on Wednesday, in what it described as an unprecedented transatlantic deportation

The 310 men and one woman that INM said were in Mexico illegally were sent on a chartered flight, accompanied by federal immigration agents and Mexico’s National Guard.

The people had been scattered in eight states around the country, INM said, including in southern Mexico where many Indian migrants enter the country, hoping to transit to the U.S. border.

“It is unprecedented in INM’s history - in either form or the number of people - for a transatlantic air transport like the one carried out on this day,” INM said in a statement.

The Mexican government in June struck a deal with the United States, vowing to significantly curb U.S.-bound migration in exchange for averting U.S. tariffs on Mexican exports.

Caitlyn Yates, a research coordinator at IBI Consultants who has studied increasing numbers of U.S.-bound Asian and African migrants arriving in Mexico, said the backlog of migrants in southern Mexico has grown as officials have stopped issuing permits for them to cross the country.

“This type of deportation in Mexico is the first of its kind but likely to continue,” Yates said.

SOURCE 

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