From: Clay Olbon II <olbon@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 12:36:26 -0800 (PST)
To: Jim Wise <jw250@columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: wealth and property rights
Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19961127203425.006dff10@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 02:17 PM 11/27/96 -0500, Jim Wise wrote:
>Actually, at the risk of interrupting your little diatribe, the average
>welfare recipient is on the dole for under 4 months.  While we're on the
>subject, I may as well point out that the average welfare recipiant is also
>white, lives in a lower-middle class suburban neighborhood, and has two or
>fewer children, but you'd never know it from watching the pols...

Just because lots of white folks get it for a short time it must be OK then
;-) Welfare (and the so-called safety net) hurt far more people than it
helps.  The poverty rate in this country is unchanged after 30 years of
transfer payments totalling over a trillion dollars.  The worst living
conditions in the country are in areas of subsidized housing.  It ought to
start clicking with someone soon that the only people the current system
really helps are in Washington DC. I don't have a solution, but I can face
the reality that what we currently have doesn't work.  By extension, I
believe that most changes offered (more $$, minor tweaks to the system),
will offer similarly poor results.

>
>At any rate, as I mentioned in my last post, you and I are paying three times
>as much to corporate welfare as to personal welfare...
>
>[Source: Michael Moore _Downsize_This_, NY Crown Books, 1996]
 
Micheal Moore is far down on my list of reputable authors.  His point is
blatantly untrue, as it equates direct transfer payments (welfare) to tax
breaks (in the same light, your mortgage and dependant deductions should
count as transfer payments to individuals).  Not that I am for corporate
welfare.  Personally, I am for elimination of corporate income tax entirely
- who do you think really pays it?  Hint - it is you and me in higher prices
for goods and lower return on investments.  As such, it is the worst kind of
tax, an invisible one.

>> See my above points.  Implement this and prepare the for US to become a
>> third world country.  100% inheritance taxes would probably be the largest
>> incentive for people to leave (they leave now with ONLY a 50% inheritance
>
>Actually, the US has one of the lowest tax rates in the world, and far
>less of your tax money goes to welfare (or foreign aid, or disaster relief,
>etc.) than in any other industrialized nation...

BINGO!  You win the prize.  We also have lower unemployment, higher GDP
growth and more economic stability than any of the other large
industrialized counties. You think there might be a correlation there? 

>Yes, your taxes do go to those who are producing nothing, namely a bunch of
>CEOs and wealthy shareholders

This is just silly.  If you run a business you are employing lots of folks,
and you are delivering a product or service.  This is producing.  If you are
a shareholder, you are risking your capital to support a business, hoping
that business will grow, producing more jobs, etc.  Besides, because of the
growth of 401K plans, the majority of Americans now fall into the
shareholder category. 

>> them even greater incentives for producing nothing (heck, get welfare
>> payments up around $50K and I would quit work - I could find lots of
>> enjoyable and intellectually stimulating ways to keep myself busy!).
>
>Or welfare payments of up to $500 million at a shot, if you happen to be GE, or
>General Motors...

As I said, I don't agree with corporate welfare.  Of course, GM produces far
more jobs than the average welfare recipient.


>The only examples of large-scale socialism we have are in extremely statist
>environemnts.  Statism is brutal and innefficient no matter what economic
>system it pays lip service to.

Agreed.  But how do you redistribute wealth without a statist society?  The
only reason I pay taxes is because I will go to jail if I don't.

        Clay


*******************************************************
Clay Olbon			    olbon@ix.netcom.com
engineer, programmer, statistitian, etc.
**********************************************tanstaafl