Asinine is right: Marketwatch story blames James Madison for bloated tax code

There wasn't an income tax until 1913, for crying out loud, and never was intended to be.

James Madison, of all people, believed in neither an income tax nor a feckless giving to the voters whatever it is they may want. In fact, Madison feared the tyranny of the legislative the most, because the constitution gives it direct access to the pocketbooks of the people.

The story at Marketwatch here is beneath the dignity of any thinking person. It is a laughable farce of a story.

Caroline Baum should be ashamed of it.

Caroline Baum should be Treasury Secretary: She knows there's no reason even to think defaulting on the debt is possible

. . . unlike the rogues running the place currently, who are playing chicken with the full faith and credit of the US government.

Once again Caroline Baum cuts through the silliness and explains that there's plenty of revenue to pay what must be paid, here:

'The U.S. Treasury can’t cover all its monthly payments with incoming monthly revenue. But it can avoid default . . .. In any given month, the tax revenue flowing into the Treasury far exceeds interest payments — by a lot. Last month, for example, the Treasury took in $365 billion in tax receipts and made $21 billion in interest payments. For fiscal 2015, which ended Sept. 30, those figures are $3.2 trillion in tax receipts versus $402 billion in net interest. The U.S. government’s ability to service its debt — the principal can be rolled over — should not be an issue. But Treasury has made it one, claiming in 2011 and 2013 that it lacks the authority to prioritize debt payments, something households do all the time. ... [I]n written communications with the House Financial Services Committee in May 2014, the Treasury admitted that it would be “technologically capable” to prioritize debt payments.'

Obama Regime's Default Alarmism is Straight out of Saul Alinsky

Caroline Baum notices that the Obama regime is acting strangely:

Instead of dangling the default threat every chance they get, Obama and Geithner should be telling the world that the U.S. has every intention, and the resources, to meet its debt obligations. They should shout it from the rooftops, put a banner on the Treasury Direct website, and use the Sunday talk shows to reassure investors, not frighten them.

Rule 3 for Radicals: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy.

And make no mistake about it, you are the enemy.

Unlike Some People Caroline Baum Still Believes in American Exceptionalism

And she notices its Anglo-Saxon character, too, here:

What about other indicators that challenge the notion the US is going the way of empires past? Students from across the globe flock to the US for college and post-graduate education. Six of the top 10 universities in the world are located in the US, according to US News & World Report. The other four are in the UK, that other emblem of Empire Passe.

US students may score poorly in math and science, but somehow they manage to overcome that handicap to become world-class researchers. The US can claim more Nobel Prizes than any country: 320 versus 116 for runner-up UK. In areas such as physics, chemistry and medicine, the US has two to three times as many Nobels as its closest competitor, which is either the UK or Germany. ...

The number of patents issued to US residents in 2009 (93,727) was about the same as those issued to residents of all other countries combined (96,395), according to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Let's ask Great Britain to send that statue of Churchill Obama didn't want in the Oval Office to Caroline.

She's marvelous, and she's right.

Caroline Baum Says "There Isn't Anything Government Can Do" For Housing

It's right here:

Owners’ equity in household real estate, or the value of assets minus liabilities, fell from a peak of $13.1 trillion in 2005 to a low of $5.9 trillion in the first quarter of 2009, according to the Fed’s Flow of Funds report. That’s a whopping 55 percent decline in four years. By the second quarter of 2010, owners’ equity had climbed back to $7 trillion.

Even with the 87 percent rebound in the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index from the March 2009 lows, household net worth is still below its 2007 peak.

Housing, which along with manufacturing has traditionally led the economy out of recession, won’t be pulling its weight this time -- even with historically low mortgage rates. And there isn’t anything the government can do except let prices fall so the market can clear, something it’s been unwilling to do.

Aside from the fact that the rebound in equities would directly benefit fewer than half of US households, what's this about government impotence? Government can do plenty.

If the fascists over at the Federal Reserve can loan a bunch of fascist bankers and fascist industries $9 trillion from 2008 to 2010 at nearly zero percent interest, surely it can come up with $6.1 trillion for homeowners to close the gap in lost equity in household real estate.

Oh, but I forget! Most homeowners aren't fascists like the oligarchy!

My bad.

Love the makeover, though, Caroline. You look mahvelous.

Individual Charitable Giving Declines Nearly 5% Between 2008 and 2009

Caroline Baum reports some interesting figures for Bloomberg.com about the relatively puny contributions people have made to the US Bureau of the Public Debt:

Last year, the Treasury received more than $3 million in gifts, the biggest annual take since 1995’s $7.3 million. ...

Public Law 87-58, “Gifts to Reduce the Public Debt,” was passed on June 27, 1961, in response to a generous bequest of $20 million dollar from an estate. ... Since then the single largest gift was $3.5 million in 1992, also a bequest from an individual’s estate.

In the first 10 months of fiscal 2010, which ends today, Treasury received $2.7 million in gifts.

For all the handwringing that goes on about the growth of deficit spending, you'd think the numbers would show a little more civic-mindedness, but they don't. Compared with giving to private charities, this tells you all you need to know about where people think their money will do the most good, and it sure isn't the government.

Boston College's Center on Wealth and Philanthropy reports the latest numbers:

Individual charitable giving in 2009 amounted to $217.3 billion . . . $228.5 billion total in 2008. ...

The American people still believe there is a huge need out there which government spending through forced taxation is not meeting, and despite that taxation they open their wallets to address it. But what should disturb more people is the recent decline in giving due to the financial meltdown, a casualty of this country's war on the middle class:

[T]he total decline in inflation adjusted dollars [was] $25.3 billion between 2007 and 2009.

Follow the links for the stories.

The Pyramids of John Maynard Keynes

Caroline Baum notices that President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget contains money for everything, it seems, except pyramid building:

No longer will President Barack Obama be content to cite specious numbers about “jobs saved or created” as a result of last year’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus. Now he’s proposing $100 billion of new spending to “jumpstart job creation,” according to White House Budget Director Peter Orszag. It’s part of a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2011, unveiled Monday, that projects a $1.3 trillion deficit next year, following a $1.6 trillion deficit this year.

Spend money to save money. Spending dressed up as a jump- starter is still spending by another name.

The only thing missing from the energy-cleansing, rural- community-assisting, climate-change-mitigating, health-food- promoting blueprint is money for pyramid building. In Chapter 10, Section VI of “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money,” John Maynard Keynes advocated building pyramids as a cure for unemployment.

In fact, “Two pyramids, two masses for the dead, are twice as good as one,” he wrote in his 1936 treatise.

The reason Obama avoids mentioning pyramid building, however, has to do with the fact that Obama has political power, whereas Keynes did not have political power and did not therefore feel constrained.

"What's that?" you say. "What does that have to do with it?"

Because of what Aristotle said:

It is also advantageous for a tyranny that all those who are under it should be oppressed with poverty, that they may not be able to compose a guard; and that, being employed in procuring their daily bread, they may have no leisure to conspire against their tyrants. The Pyramids of Egypt are a proof of this, and the votive edifices of the Cyposelidse, and the temple of Jupiter Olympus, built by the Pisistratidae, and the works of Polycrates at Samos; for all these produced one end, the keeping the people poor.

Obama wouldn't want to put any strange ideas in anyone's mind, now, would he?