Lot's of harsh words have been recently tossed around about Google, Apple, and other mega companies who find creative ways in avoiding the payment of billions in U.S. taxes. This type of behavior always makes the news, and it literally boils the so-called "Progressives" that walk amongst us. Some have even boycotted Apple & Google products to show their distaste.
But you'll never hear peep about another group of tax evaders. This group flies under the radar every time.
You see, when The Federal Reserve cranks out fresh copies of Bernanke Bucks, someone always gets their hands on the money first. These are the evaders of the insidious "Inflation Tax".
As Murray Rothbard wrote (my emphasis):
"Inflation...confers no general social benefit; instead, it redistributes the wealth in favor of the first-comers and at the expense of the laggards in the race. And inflation is, in effect, a race—to see who can get the new money earliest."Those who cozy up with the greatest skill, get the money first. Think Wall Street, The
The rest of us suckers get stuck with the bill.
Rothbard continues (my emphasis):
The latecomers—the ones stuck with the loss—are often called the “fixed income groups.” Ministers, teachers, people on salaries, lag notoriously behind other groups in acquiring the new money...Life insurance beneficiaries and annuitants, retired persons living off pensions, landlords with long term leases, bondholders and other creditors, those holding cash, all will bear the brunt of the inflation. They will be the ones who are “taxed.”Wake me up when "Progressives" (whose constituents are ironically those that are hit hardest by the inflation tax) start calling for the dismantling of The Fed.
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"Progressives" and all inflationists creeds will ALWAYS either deny the obvious about the theft of purchasing power by those receiving the new money first or else will obfuscate about it.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, they will invariably obfusctate about the concept of economic calculation and miscalculation because because economic calculation can only properly occur when people are not the subject of statist interventions. The statists dare not concede that their entire worldview is based upon them thinking they are so much smarter than the economic actors themselves.
http://factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.com/2013/08/its-been-hazlitt-love-fest-lately-what.html?showComment=1376101087679#c7111377882594081063
These are the two points we should be constantly pounding home in our outreach to the politically non-engaged.
If you could actually get a Keynesian brain for focus on the subject for 90 seconds, I would bet that they would deny that "inflation" results in a transfer of purchasing power and wealth and is thus could arguably be deemed "taxable income". The Internal Revenue Code states that "gross income means all income from whatever source derived," and gives specific examples. Gross income is not limited to cash received. "It includes income realized in any form, whether money, property, or services".
ReplyDeleteNot to give anyone any funny ideas, but I would bet that the idea of acknowledging that the recipients of new money are deriving "income" from it is so threatening to the Keynesian hoax that the Keynesian would much rather avoid the analysis even if it meant giving up on a new potential source of tax receipts.