Krugman Exhausts His Vocabulary by Monotonously Reciting the  Only Two Words He Understands In Economics: Tax And Spend. Let’s Tax the Stock Markets!!

Abstract: Paul Krugman is a two-toot political advocate whose machinations are limited to only two choices: whether to tax [toot 1 if you please] and spend [toot 2] or whether to spend and tax  later [reversed retoots]. That is his dilemma.  Which comes first—or does it matter-- to a socialist? Suffering from the evil aftermath and agony of Tax Cut Zombieism he avoids the sunlight of the tax cuts and other polices that are the only solution to the creation of jobs and restoration of our economy. Has he realized that the Obama stimuli have failed? Out of fresh ideas and confined to the three soiled pages of his short stack of leftist clichés,  he now apes the bankrupt Brits and praises their intent to ‘regulate’ banks and stock market trades  and ‘fix’ the capitalist system and thusly purge the greedy capitalists of their use of “socially useless” activities. As usual there is no hint of the magnitude of this new tax or even a scant reference to our massive 12 trillion dollar national debt that has been doubled since His Master was elected.

The New York Times (draped in  eternal glory and celebrated in song and theater as the Walter Duranty Papers[1] in honor of their most beloved Pulitzer Prize winner) provides us with an unending stream of nifty  nostrums and maudlin  pleas for bigger government-all designed to ‘form opinion’ and make our society more progressive. We are so thankful. Our urgent need for bigger government is refreshed for us today.

In this exciting episode, the thrust of our resident economist Paul Krugman[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] seems to be to scrounge anew[10] for any and all novel avenues to raising more taxes and punishing capitalism for its unconscionable affronteries[11] to liberalism.  In our last exciting episode the Wall Street folk were accused of crass intimidation of the Tax Mongers in Congress and turning them all into pillars of salt.[12] He even criticized His Master for being deluded by fear.

In a mindless foraging process to get money from anybody by any means unless they grow marijuana or hustle drugs and prostitutes in the streets of liberal bastions like Detroit and Baltimore, the idea of taxing capitalism at its source—trades--has now been sanctioned by our igNoble Laureate in his crusade to drive stakes into the greedy hearts of the ‘Tax Cut Zombies[13] [14] and speculators.

A rhetorical opening with a rhetorical question:

“Should we use taxes to deter financial speculation? Yes, say top British officials, who oversee the City of London, one of the world’s two great banking centers. Other European governments agree — and they’re right.”[15]-- Taxing the Speculators By Paul Krugman Op-Ed Columnist Published: November 26, 2009 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

Citing the Brits, particularly those in London, in any financial matter since 1880 is precarious. They have busted the Bank of England several times and then groveled and  begged like share croppers for alms from the US as they wasted their wealth on politics in numerous wars and social experiments  and now offer, at great expense, succor and praise for those Islamo-Fascisti who live in their midst and plot to destroy them. Then there was the highly successful 1055 dock strike[16]  that brought ‘equality’ to the masses. Somehow, this rings unseemly to me. Some think Gordon Brown is trashing the economy in the United Kingdom.[17]

Liberal dissent? Heresy!!

“Unfortunately, United States officials — especially Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary — are dead set against the proposal. Let’s hope they reconsider: a financial transactions tax is an idea whose time has come.” -- Taxing the Speculators By Paul Krugman

There, it is settled.

New taxes seem to spring forth like the first light at sea for liberals. Let’s celebrate and be glad that we can punish the nasty old capitalists who have failed us and are greedy anyway. Our government can make decisions for us in their egalitarian ways. We should be so glad. Please raise my taxes!

Now, let us fish for some ‘economics’ to back this up!

“The dispute began back in August, when Adair Turner, Britain’s top financial regulator, called for a tax on financial transactions as a way to discourage “socially useless” activities. Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, picked up on his proposal, which he presented at the Group of 20 meeting of leading economies this month.” -- Taxing the Speculators By Paul Krugman

And:

“He argued that the economic carnage of the past year has freed the FSA from the charge of being over-bureaucratic. He said that arguments about over-regulation have been used as a “polemical bludgeon.”[18] -- New FSA chairman Lord Adair Turner heralds end of soft-touch regulation. Lord Adair Turner, the new chairman of the Financial Services Authority, has warned that the days of soft-touch regulation are over and said that a far more rigorous regime will be imposed under his watch. [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

This sounds like a Trotskyism to me. Let us consult some more far lefties for their esteemed views on tax mongering:

“Why is this a good idea? The Turner-Brown proposal is a modern version of an idea originally floated in 1972 by the late James Tobin, the Nobel-winning Yale economist. Tobin argued that currency speculation — money moving internationally to bet on fluctuations in exchange rates — was having a disruptive effect on the world economy. To reduce these disruptions, he called for a small tax on every exchange of currencies.” -- Taxing the Speculators By Paul Krugman

Tobin was essentially a mindless Keynesian stooge.[19] Who would want speculators capitalists in our society anyway?

Now, what would such a tax and the attendant regulations that always accompany such a measure do? It would obviously discourage investment[unless it is truly miniscule and deductible] and that would reduce the amount of capital offered in speculative investments that are presumably necessary in our capitalist system.  And what would they do with the money? Spend it on ‘the poor?’ How about “pay down the debt?”

How sad this tax idea was lost.

“Tobin’s idea went nowhere at the time. Later, much to his dismay, it became a favorite hobbyhorse of the anti-globalization left. But the Turner-Brown proposal, which would apply a “Tobin tax” to all financial transactions — not just those involving foreign currency — is very much in Tobin’s spirit. It would be a trivial expense for long-term investors, but it would deter much of the churning that now takes place in our hyperactive financial markets.” -- Taxing the Speculators By Paul Krugman

How trivial??

“And a financial transactions tax, by discouraging reliance on ultra-short-run financing, would have made such a run much less likely. So contrary to what the skeptics say, such a tax would have helped prevent the current crisis — and could help us avoid a future replay.” -- Taxing the Speculators By Paul Krugman

Krugman wanders all around the circus lot looking for new excuses to tax and not telling us how much it would be.  Short-term trading supports business and hedge funds and has made the world what it is today--wealthy. The collapse of our financial markets and the underlying cancer of permanent toxic assets that rotted the system had nothing to do with quick trades, options or other.  We have crashed the world system by abusing credit. Why not put a tax on credit as long as we are talking about things socially useless? Maybe if we tax food some more there will be more food?

As we search for socially useless schemes we bring instantly to mind such fluff as Cap and Trade[20] and Fannie Mae and subprime mortgages and subsidizing dope growers in the fallen state of California[21][22][23] or the peculiar subject of ejukashon where 40% of their tax revenues are summarily dumped.[24] The Sacramento Assembly thinks they can tax marijuana at 30%!? This will balance their books and bring peace and prosperity back to the Golden State.

We could expect little more  than we have read today from a Kenysian  socialist with a tangy  Marxist aroma that follows him around wherever he wanders to suggest that we parrot what London is doing as they are spending themselves into unredeemable debt and frantically attempting to their assimilate aliens into what used to be English culture.  Cap and Trade, alone, honked and celebrated by their inbred and gibbering Princeling of Wails, [25] who now embraces advanced EcoNazism,[26][27]can bring down the U.K.  and the US and this is just a phony tax and a slimy  lie supported wildly by so-called British and American ‘scientists.”[28]

Krugman only has two words we can depend upon that are clear and resonate in political circles: Tax and Spend. All else is fluff, hokum or chum.

rycK

Comments: ryckki@gmail.com