DISQUS

I agree with Andy's comments. The parable of the Vineyard does not apply. The workers agreed to a rate, so the "do no harm" may apply. The taxpayers that are meeting their obligations did NOT agree to pay their neighbors mortgage.

I see countless articles of people complaining the government should bail them out. When they signed on the dotted line at closing, they promised to pay the mortgage back. They didn't promise to pay it back if the government guaranteed they wouldn't lose money. They didn't promise to pay it back as long as their neighbors would pay their bills. They didn't promise to pay it back if they were guaranteed not to lose money.

As soon as it is possible to stop paying your mortgage and not receive punishment (financial or otherwise), folks of all kinds will stop paying, even if they can afford to. This madness has to stop.

If TARP has a 0% change of working (agree), the stimulus (pork bill) has a 25% chance, and HASP has a 50% chance, how can there still be so much support for Obama? That's $2 trillion of taxpayers’ money that has a very high expected value of not working at all. Insanity. The arguement that there is no other option discounts all of our abilities.

Liberty First

I don't always agree with your post, but respect your point of view. This is an absolutely wonderful post; thank you for sharing! It is particularly relevant to me right now.

Keep'em coming...

Wow... The basic theory may be ok, but there are so many pitfalls to your argument that I don't know where to begin. Oh heck - let’s list a few for fun:

1) The 'evil' consumer product companies that you bash provide the very salary that is being taxed. Without consumer’s spending money, companies go out of business, unemployment goes up, tax revenue goes down, and now one has computers to read your blog... very sad situation.

2) There are many differences between Americans and Europeans beyond our social welfare systems, and therefore, changing tax systems would not equate to the same behavior in the US as in Poland, at least not in the short term (next 30 years). Besides, what would we do with the million unemployed accountants?

3) Socialism relies on the belief that humans will put the good of society above their own personal well being. History, however, has proven that humans are primarily motivated by improving there personal situation. When we can do this while also helping society, great! However, this isn't always possible (ex: driving a car). Bottom line... Most people don't want to live in a society where there retirement is guaranteed to be vanilla. Sure, you won't end up in the gutter, but you also won't have a cabin in the woods.

I'm off to pay my taxes... BTW, can I get whatever "CUiNDC" is smoking?