And then we wonder why the heck the US is dropping in the Economic Freedom rankings (down to 18th – we used to be in the top five a short few years ago)? Could this attitude be one reason? Hillary took off the mask and went past “tax and spend”. Taking a page out of Moochella’s playbook (“sure – eat! But only what we want you to eat”), Hillary makes it rather clear when talking earlier this week at her husband’s Clinton Global Initiative – translation: “You get to keep only what we think you should have – because you aren’t spending it the way we want!” (a take off on “you didn’t build it”):
And one of the issues that I have been preaching about around the world is collecting taxes in an equitable manner, especially from the elites in every country. (Laughter.) You know I’m out of American politics, but – (applause) – it is a fact that around the world, the elites of every country are making money. There are rich people everywhere. And yet they do not contribute to the growth of their own countries. They don’t invest in public schools, in public hospitals, in other kinds of development internally. And so it means for leaders telling powerful people things they don’t want to hear. It means being transparent about budgets and revenues and bringing corruption to light. And when that happens, we shouldn’t punish countries for uncovering corruption. We should reward them for doing so. And it means putting in place regulations designed to attract and protect investment.
Where do I start? There is certainly a move afoot to “harmonize” taxes all over the globe – countries with high taxes have been trying to force those with lower ones to raise them so as not to be at a disadvantage (sorta like on a union job when the “eager beaver” gets shut down for being too quick and good, thereby making all the others look bad). So if someone “of means” wishes to protect his assets from greedy politicians all too willing to spend other peoples’ money, there is no safe harbor.
But Hillary shows her Progressive roots – unless your money is spent on what SHE thinks is important, she is advocating taking it away by shaming others to do her dirty work (i.e., as in “don’t worry, they are like troublesome children that cannot share. Like kindergarten children, we who are better will teach them that you can take it without feeling guilty to share”). After all, those rich folks are screwing everyone else ought of what they need!
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When the economy got rough my employer had to cut back staffing. By the time they were done we had dropped about 70% of our staff, down to the bare minimum needed to operate each department. We kept the best people and asked them to do a lot more for the same money, and sometimes less. We went to smaller quarters. We re-thought everything. We looked for fat and cut it. We analyzed how we did things when we were busy and a bit lazy and got into shape.
