On wealth and taxes

I think it is time for some straight talk about wealth and taxes in the US. So I have an idea for how things might be greatly improved. Simply put, it is for a tax on wealth. Wealth, not income. I'm putting up the first part of the scheme today, actually the first two paragraphs of a somewhat longer essay.

Suppose this was a nation where every family owned a million dollars. Since there are about 106.5 million families in the country, the total personal wealth of the country would be 1 million times 106.5 million, or $106.5 trillion dollars. Actually, the total wealth of the country in 2001 was at least $42.1 trillion (and was about $54.3 trillion dollars if government assets are included). If the personal wealth of $42.1 trillion) was spread equally across all families, each would have about $395,500. Not very close to a million but within striking distance.

In such a society, every family would be somewhat wealthy and everybody would pay taxes. Since few or none would be poor, most people wouldn't need Social Security. They probably would need less Medicare or Medicaid. Such a society can never be attained, but it can be approached much more closely than the society we have now, where we have a few hundred billionaires, several million millionaires, millions doing pretty good, and tens of millions just above or a little below the poverty line. How could we get to a society of all or mostly millionaires? The only way is a drastic redesign of our tax system.

(I will post more on this a little subject later, but not at any specified time or date.)

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The power of the lobbyists!

One of the ways multinationals make money is by taking advantage of tax dodges. Congress passed a law that allows a company to classify a subsidiary one way in the US and another way in a foreign country. If the US government tries to tax the subsidiary, the multinational claims it is a foreign company. If the foreign country tries to tax the subsidiary, the multinational claims it is a US company. No taxes are paid to either country. Congress passed this idiotic law in 1996 and then declined to fix the error in 1998. Ain't lobbyists great!

This information was taken from p62-63 of Lou Dobbs' "Exporting America".

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The Money Culture

Why has money become so important to Americans? The Money Cultlure is corrupting medicine, politics, sports, the air we breathe, the food we eat and probably much else. Why? The people who do have a little more money than average usually have enough to have a decent life. Why is it important to some of these people to scratch and bite for more, more, more? Is it just a game? If it is a game, maybe the rules can be changed. If it's a sickness, maybe it can be cured.

In the book "Overdo$ed America, The Broken Promise of American Medicine", Dr. John Abamson, M.D. details how the big drug companies are basically running the entire American health care industry, with profit for the drug companies the main objective, not the health of the population. Here's part of what Eric Scholosser, author of "Fast Food Nation" says about the book on the back jacket: "Some of the worst drug dealers aren't peddling on street corners, they're occupying corporate suites. 'Overdo$ed America' reveals the greed and corruption that drive health care costs skyward and now threaten the public health."

The drug industry has 625 lobbyists, who spent $177 million in 1999 and 2000, lobbying 535 Congressmen and Senators. Did you know that of the 23 richest countries in the world, 21 have longer life expectancy than America? Further, Americans pay almost twice as much for their inferior health care as the top 22 countries.

Do we really want 40 million or so Americans to go without adequate medical care?

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Outsourced SS taxes

In "Exporting America" Lou Dobbs says that "at least 750,000 American jobs were lost as a direct result of NAFTA". If these jobs were still in the US, the job holders would probably be making at least $30,000 a year. So, since the SS tax is about 12% a year, that's $3600 a year per worker that the SS system is not getting. Multiply $3600 by 750,000 workers and you get $2.7 billion. That's the amount lost to the SS system because of outsourced NAFTA jobs.

It might be a good idea for companies that outsource jobs to pay into the SS system the SS taxes being lost by the outsourcing. ARPA says that the amount the SS collects in recent years is about $627 billion, of which $461 billion is paid out and $165 billion is used to buy US Government bonds. That lost $2.7 billion is only 1.6% of the $165 billion going into the trust fund, but it is hardly negligible.

Further, Dobbs says that by 2015, $151 billion in wages will have been shifted from the US. If the SS tax stays the same, 12% of $151 billion is $18.12 billion. This is $18 billion that the SS system will lose every year unless Congress acts. Hardly trivial.

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A call for independent video and film makers

If you know any really independent, low budget, video and/or film makers, you might tell them about this blog. I'm looking to share experiences and perhaps marketing exposure and expenses with them. If they have a dvd project that they think has commercial possibilities, no matter how small, tell them to drop in. Anything or nothing can happen.

I also make comments or suggestions about various economic and political subjects. But this is separate from the film making.

http://www.thelittlegreenie.com