Testing Positive for Stupid
It is spread around in exchange for goods and services. Each party to the wealth transfer has to give value in terms of those goods and services in order to receive value in terms of fungible wealth. Seems like a simple concept. After all, kids exchanging baseball or Pokemon cards in the schoolyard don’t seem to have a problem with the concept. Of course, Nancy Pelosi or Henry Waxman might want to regulate that at some time in the future. Nothing coming out of the hallowed halls of Congress would surprise me anymore.
The reason that small business is so crucial to our economic well-being is, to put it simply, that it is small. That sounds like something that is too simplistic to be believed, but hang with me for another minute or so.
Imagine a small business with 50 employees. Business picks up for this firm because it offers a unique product or a better value for its customers. As a result, it needs to increase production by 10%. Simple solution: hire five more workers. Five more jobs are created. Ten percent more wealth is distributed in the economy.
Now assume a large business. It has 1,000 employees. Business picks up by the same 10%, but now the solution is not so simple. Does it try to hire an additional 100 employees? Can it find 100 people who have the necessary skills? Does it spend vast sums training them? What will be the cost of wages and the cost of health care and other benefits? How long will it take them to function efficiently? Or would spending the same amount of money on automation, which doesn’t require the “fringes,” be a better solution?
A large business, with greater access to lines of credit, has the option of investing in automation. A small business is not as able to automate, and thus avoid hiring, because the cost of automation is far higher than the initial cost of hiring more workers. So workers are hired and trained, and the wealth is spread to a much greater degree than it would be by purchasing the equipment needed to automate.
That’s the way it is today. Adding heavy tax and regulatory burdens to small businesses — i.e., payroll taxes, health care costs, and so on — is a guarantee that small businesses will begin to view the hiring problem in the same terms as large businesses. By making employees more expensive to hire, the Congress and Mr. Obama are doing exactly what is needed if their goal is to kill the golden goose.
The LPD dreams will lead inevitably to less hiring, more unemployment, and fewer entrepreneurs willing to risk their own hard-earned wealth to grow a new company. Like the thin line between genius and insanity, there seems to be a similar border between dreams and nightmares. It makes me wonder how Aesop would craft a story explaining how someone else’s insanity could give you nightmares.
Today small businesses are structured to readily absorb new employees, such as those who are currently unemployed or coming into the job market from schools. This spreads wealth more efficiently than anything ever dreamed up by an LPD.
Under the plans currently gestating in Washington, this growth will be severely retarded, if not destroyed completely. This will lead to even higher levels of unemployment and greater strains on the limited resources that we, as a compassionate society, can afford to provide to those who are euphemistically referred to as “economically dislocated or disadvantaged.”
Current LPD wish lists in Congress, which would include cap and trade, ObamaCare, and card check legislation, all result in massive increases in small business taxation or regulation. And as we said before, the power to tax is the power to destroy. The destruction of small businesses is tantamount to the destruction of the economic strength of the nation and the social fabric that offers true hope to all of us. This is a change that no one really wants unless they are determined to utterly destroy America.
In both cases, politicians should take heed. Newly hired employees vote. Automated equipment doesn’t.
My favorite right now was just on the late news. A guy ran into financial trouble this last year, and he wound up selling his house short. The bank forgave about $50,000 in debt on the house. Believe it or not, the State of California considers that income, and of course they want to tax it. The guy thought he was going to get a refund of about $500; instead he owes more than $13,000 in taxes.
None of these idiots think raising taxes has any effect on the economy. All of them seem to imagine that the difficulty here is their inability to raise taxes further; everything else is irrelevant. They need the money, so everyone should pay.
The absurdity of the situation is beyond belief. Many businesses, and individuals, have left or are planning to leave the state. No one in the State Government will admit that there’s a problem. Neighboring states *openly* run advertising at business conferences, saying things like “We won’t tax you into bankruptcy”, and the State Government complains about how unfair the characterization is. Part of the difficulty, of course, is that while American corporations receive negative publicity when they ship jobs overseas, no one thinks badly of a corporation that moves from one state to another. That means that beyond moving costs, there’s no reason not to leave, if you don’t have to be someplace specific.
Further, and lastly, I’ve been contending for some time that the left has come to despise small business. Corporations can be arm-twisted into campaign contributions, and their workforces can be unionized. Small businesses can’t really be dealt with the same way in either case, and the difference works to the detriment of the liberals and their causes. I believe that while the left pays lip service to small businesses being important to our economy, they really wish to consolidate all small businesses into larger ones.
Excellent piece. The idea that Pelosi Galore and Waxman can’t get a simple concept like the power of small business – and would want to tax kids trading baseball cards in the same spirit – unfortunately hits the nail on the head.
Also, the idea that the LPDs would destroy the country “for nothing more than a warm fuzzy feeling of self-righteousness” is exactly what you see in the comment sections on Puffington, Kos, and Lefty blogs every day.
Moreover, that the LPDs (great term) think we’ve moved beyond the relevance of the classics because we’ve “evolved” (and the Lefties say they don’t have a religion) sums up the whole “dead white male” nonsense in a nutshell.
“… unless they are determined to utterly destroy America.” – and, they, the Alynskyite Obama and his cronies, are.
Mr. Yardley, excellent piece. I had a fair amount of econ in college, but I don’t remember any of my profs explaining why small businesses are important in the ways that you describe. Thanks for the great lecture. I’ll not forget it.
the liberal taxation is a protection racket not unlike the mafia.
Testing Positive for Stupid, as defined by Aesop
…and others; Cautionary tales for children
were once understood to be important early education:
Teach children which of their impulses need to be denied,
which cultivated, while their personalities were still
pliant.
Now we have a population which includes a scary-large
fraction of tall children who will never change their ways,
which include teaching children self-esteem, but not self-control.
Our current crop of Congresscritters seemingly has no idea how our economy works. They don’t know that wealth is created by market freedom and can easily be legislated away. Each new law and regulation serves to further constrict the creation of wealth and jobs, but you’ll never convince them of it. They think they must be seen as “doing something”, hence the unending creation of laws, rules, and regulations. With each comes the additional burden of cost of compliance to businesses.
It’s incumbent upon us to change this caustic mindset in Washington by voting out any “progressives” (a misnomer if there ever were one) and begin to install a Congress that at least has a basic understanding of our free market.
The current madness must stop.
“…but I don’t remember any of my profs explaining why small businesses are important in the ways that you describe.”
Those professors had little reason, on a practical level, to even say one word on behalf of small businesses. Keynesians inherently favor large companies. It is difficult to engage in crony capitalisms with a lot of moms and pops. Best to make deals with a handful of other elites who also attended the “best” schools. The economic doctrines of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises superbly address the economic challenges of the majority of people. But the so-called elites are only worrying about themselves. Big government policies provide a choice of great paying jobs—and incredible power over the common folk. The latter will become their slaves.
And so, summer after summer the Little Ants would reap their harvests from the Bountiful Field before the onset of winter. And sure enough the Grasshoppers would show up each winter asking for some food. Well the Little Ants gathered so much food each summer that they soon were building barns to store their excess food. You see, the Little Ants lived in the most Bountiful Field that anyone had ever seen. The Little Ants even formed Voluntary Colony Association Groups which would feed the Grasshoppers in the winter so they could dance the next summer. And because the Little Ants had so much food, they elected Leader Ants to rule over them and take care of such things as protection from the Army Ants in the neighboring fields, who had forgotten how to work, and wanted to take away the Little Ants winter surpluses. Soon the Elected Ants evolved into Bully Ants who invited in Grasshoppers from other fields and forced the Little Ants to feed all these new Grasshoppers by stealing the Little Ants winter surpluses through a devious system of Forced Colony Association Groups. Suddenly, there were more Grasshoppers than Little Ants and the Little Ants ran out of their surpluses and only had enough to feed themselves in the winter time. So the Bully Ants took away the Little Ants winter food too and forced the Little Ants to work all summer for their daily bread, while the Grasshoppers danced in the fields. The Little Ants had no surpluses to store up for the winter, and so the Bully Ants borrowed food from the Army Ants in the other fields in order to feed all the Bully Ants, the Grasshoppers and even the Little Ants in the winter time. The Little Ants had become slaves to the Bully Ants and the Grasshoppers and the Army Ants in the other fields. One day, a great peace fell over the Bountiful Field. Oh, the Grasshoppers still danced in the fields, but the Bully Ants had all gone away. You see, there arose a Leader Ant from the far North who inspired the Little Ants to become as fierce as Fire Ants and the Little Ants freed themselves from the tyranny of the Bully Ants, the Grasshoppers and even the Army Ants from the neighboring fields. And the Little Ants found the Old Documents and restored the Bountiful field to its former glory. And everyday since that Great Re-awakening the Little Ants teach their Littler Ants the danger of allowing their elected Leader Ants to evolve into Bully Ants. And they also teach their children that there will always be Grasshoppers amongst them in the fields and that the Grasshoppers will reappear each summer to dance in the fields, no matter how fierce the winter.
8 Stephenw
Found that missing hit of blotter acid I see.
Bingo. Here’s Skeeziks! – right on schedule with personal attacks and name calling whenever something hits home and there is no “progressive” rebuttal that would make any sense.
9. They said the same things to Jesus, you know, because they didn’t understand His parables. The Pharisees once assented to their own destruction because of failure to understand the allegory.
10. Liber T:
Let me check my hand . . .I know there’s a clue written there . . . oh, yeah, here we go . . . “Real Americans don’t live in fairy tales . . . You bethca”
That take care of it?
I don’t think automation is the reason small businesses grow faster. Its not about glorifying cottage industry.
There are many many reasons small businesses can grow faster, but they all relate to the fact that large businesses are successful because they make long term 5,10,15 and 20 year plans and operate in large quantities which forces them to follow their current investment path or risk losing their investment.
Or rather as your MESSIAH sans Teleprompter would say ‘uhh ahhh ummmm ahhh well lets see ummm ahhh’ hey Skeeziks. Seems to me the HAND has far more credibility and Fables are not Fairy Tales.
I remember reading both stories as a kid. The grasshopper was the ever foolish and pitiable character, too lazy to feed itself, while the golden goose was a victim of its own success and the greed of its owners. The stories taught its readers important rules in life regarding reward through self-reliance, and wisdom through moderation and practical application of gains.
It’s sad to see the political class missed reading those educational classics.
Everyone needs to ease up on Skeeziks, he’s been missing his sessions at the KOOLAID TREATMENT CENTER.
Not surprising given the children of the prosperous, post-WWII era who now largely control the direction of this country. Never experiencing real hardship, education is a given and seemingly free, safety nets everywhere. Oddly libertarian in their pro-abortion temper tantrums (“NO ONE can tell me what to do with MY body!”), yet so willing to allow that same government to dictate what’s in your food, what kind and how much medical care you should receive, and how much energy you should be allotted.
A dangerous belief in government as the benevolent guarantor of rights, rather than a constant threat to those rights. “We can make government efficient and trustworthy, if only we got the ‘right people’ in charge, if we only allowed it to take a little more control.” But as Milton Friedman once asked Phil Donahue, “Where are you going to find these angels who will organize society for us?”
A blind faith that goes against all logic, that we can tax our way into prosperity, that we can pay for the health care of millions of Americans by taking even more from the productive, that we can assure retirement income for the elderly by taking it from their children and grandchildren, which in turn insures the dependency of those generations on increasingly meager government handouts.
Unfortunately their children (my generation) has fallen for this blind faith in government. We helped elect a Marxist to the executive office, who actually believes in a communist system that has failed in every historical instance. We have morbid acceptance that we pay into a Social Security system that cannot possibly be sustained into our own old age. We believe that our health care industry can remain vibrant, state-of-the-art, and kept at a low cost to all, simply by taxing an ever-shrinking and increasingly demonized “rich”. That we can provide for the energy needs for this world through inefficient “green on the outside, brown on the inside” technology. That we can somehow feed the world through organic farming which results in lower yields and less nutrition.
Perhaps this is a lesson that can only be learned the hard way. When the Ponzi scheme of government fails, when safety nets no longer exist, when people are once again forced to live without electricity, when stores go empty, and your retirement consists of squeezing yourself, your spouse, and your in-laws into your child’s cramped home…then maybe my generation will finally learn the lesson. Government is never to be trusted, and their powers must remain few and defined.
Hows this for PROOF that the whole American electorate the MSM and the Government are STUPID.
ObamaCrimes.com reports that at the time Barry Soetoro was in Indonesia, all Indonesian students were required to carry government identity cards or Karty Tanda Pendudaks, as well as family card identification called a Kartu Keluarga. The Kartu Keluarga is a family card which bears the legal names and citizenship status of all family members.
Soetoro/Obama was registered in a public school as an Indonesian citizen by the name of Barry Soetoro and his father was listed as Lolo Soetoro, M.A. Indonesia did not allow foreign students to attend their public schools in the late 1960’s or 1970’s, and any time a child was registered for a public school, the child’s name and citizenship status were verified through the Indonesian Government. See Constitution of Republic of Indonesia (Undang-Undang Dasar Republik Indonesia 1945), Chapter 13, Law No. 62 of 1958 (all citizens of Indonesia have a right to education). The Indonesian school record, indicates that Soetoro/Obama’s name is “Barry Soetoro;” his nationality is “Indonesia” and his father “Lolo Soetoro, M.A. There was no way for Soetoro/Obama to have attended school in Jakarta, Indonesia legally unless he was an Indonesian citizen, as Indonesia was under tight rule and was a Police State. See Constitution of Republic of Indonesia (Undang-Undang Dasar Republik Indonesia 1945), Law No. 62 of 1958. These facts indicate that Obama/Soetoro was/is an Indonesian citizen, and therefore he is not eligible to be President of the United States.
Under Indonesian law, when a male acknowledges a child as his son, it deems the son, in this case Soetoro/Obama, an Indonesian State citizen. See Constitution of Republic of Indonesia, Law No. 62 of 1958 concerning Immigration Affairs and Indonesian Civil Code (Kitab Undang-undang Hukum Perdata) (KUHPer) (Burgerlijk Wetboek voor Indonesie).
Furthermore, under the Indonesian adoption law, once an Indonesian citizen adopts a child, the adoption severs the child’s relationship to the birth parents, and the adopted child is given the same status as a natural child and the child takes the name of his step-father, in this case, Soetoro. See Indonesian Constitution, Article 2.
The Indonesian citizenship law was designed to prevent apatride (stateless) or bipatride (dual) citizenship. Indonesian regulations recognized neither apatride nor bipatride (stateless or dual) citizenship. Since Indonesia did not allow dual citizenship; neither did the United States (since the United States only permitted dual citizenship when ‘both’ countries agree); and since Obama/Soetoro was a “natural” citizen of Indonesia, the United States would not step in or interfere with the laws of Indonesia. Hague Convention of 1930.
As a result of Soetoro/Obama’s Indonesian “natural” citizenship status, Soetoro/Obama could never regain U.S. “natural born” status, if he in fact he ever held such, which we doubt. Soetoro/Obama could have only become “naturalized” if the proper paperwork were filed with the U.S. State Department, after going through U.S. Immigration upon his return to the United States; in which case, Soetoro/Obama would have received a Certification of Citizenship indicating “naturalized.”
We are informed, believe and thereon allege Obama/Soetoro was never naturalized in the United States after his return. Soetoro/Obama was ten (10) years old when he returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. Soetoro/Obama’s mother did not return with him. Therefore, it appears that she did not apply for citizenship for Soetoro/Obama in the United States. If citizenship for Soetoro/Obama had been applied for in 1971, Soetoro/Obama would have a Certification of Citizenship. If Soetoro/Obama returned in 1971 to Hawaii without going through U.S. Immigration, today he would be an “illegal alien” — and obviously not able to serve as president, but also his term as a United States Senator from Illinois for nearly four (4) years was illegal. We further believe Soetoro might have reentered the United States at age ten (10) by showing a copy of his Hawaiian Certification of Live Birth, which he received when his birth was registered in Hawaii.
In addition, we have been unable to locate any legal documents wherein Soetoro’s name was legally changed from Barry Soetoro to Barack Hussein Obama. Soetoro/Obama’s silence on these issues is deafening and his refusal to release such records to prove that none of this occurred results in his status as Acting Commander in Chief at best, and a willful action on his part to deceive the American People and the Armed Forces of the United States so that he may wield power that is in non-compliance with the United States Constitution.
http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaLatest.htm
The only choice people in our country have to combat the corruption permeating our bloated, obscene federal government is to simply quit paying taxes.
The writer describing liberal taxation as akin to a mafia protection racket is almost correct, but there is a distinction. Having paid both, the Mafia actually gives you a return on your money.
I think you have it a little off. The democrats do not want to intentionally destroy America. They are criminals who want to sreal some for themselves and see that their friends and relatives have an opportunity to do so, as well. Every dem wants a cottage in Ireland.
Now, Obama is no more than a nominal dem. His objective is to simply do what the pimps who own him demand that he do, i.e., destroy the middle class in America. The dem politicians are happy to go along because there is loot to be stolen.
The demise of the golden goose is not the purpose but, merely, incidental to the objectives of dems and the objective of the Kenyan and his pimps.
America’s time as an economic leader is coming to an end. We can hope to revive small business as indicated in the article, but progressives have, over the last six decades, put in place a massive impediment that has increasingly slowed innovation & growth to a standstill much more effectively than any economic factor.
I am speaking of the massive regulatory agencies now in place at all levels of government. We now have a huge unelected bureaucracy churning out regulations in a totally uncontrolled, unsupervised process. It has come to the point where, every day, we unknowingly violate some regulation from some government agency. The only reason we are not arrested is because there is a paucity of law enforcement. However, when politics of the moment randomly shifts its focus, we hear news articles of yet another poor schmoe being harassed mercilessly in court and/or being sent to prison for some strange violation. This is totally arbitrary, gratuitous, and highly yet deceitfully politicized.
We are no longer free, we only have an illusion of being so. Our society is bureaucratically frozen, with a legal system that creates conflict in order to get its cut no matter who wins. Over the past decades, our worthless elected officials have foisted their responsibilities off onto a vast hidden world that is so complex, arbitrary, and politically motivated that no American has a snowball’s chance in hell of confronting it.
No President, even Reagan, has ever successfully closed even one agency of the federal government. The only way I can see to fight this monster is to starve it by withholding funds, and the only way to do that is to pass an Amendment that restricts the absolute size of government via both funding and personnel caps, perhaps based on census figures. This type of Amendment and another one limiting Congressional terms of office should be absolutely essential, primary goals of the Tea Party Movement.
Back in Aesop’s day, the goose-owning communities didn’t have cocaine. Now, any financial community does, so it’s poof! Goodbye to the goose!
BB
Pragmatist, y’all are right on!
The satanists,(Rothschilds) have control over our government and much of the rest of the world. They will destroy our economy, then take control openly, using our economic debacle as a rationale for their version of martial law.
They may hold us in slavery for a time, eg., bolshevism in Russia, but eventually their system will be overthrown and some form of democracy installed, with the probable establishment of many sovereign national states.
In the end, our Lord, Jesus Christ, will return and take eternal charge of all of us. The good will be rewarded and the evil punished, irrevocably and eternally.
Lets be very sure that we are on the right side.
19. chickenlittle:
The only choice people in our country have to combat the corruption permeating our bloated, obscene federal government is to simply quit paying taxes.
Go right ahead. And then? When the IRS calls? And you say “I’m protesting!” And they say “So?” And you say “I refuse to pay.” And they say “Enjoy the homeless shelter.” Then what?
25. I suppose a tax protester would demand a trial. After all, the government can’t simply seize your house without a court order.
BY VOTING FOR OBAMA,THE MAJORITY OF THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE ALREADY TESTED POSITIVE FOR STUPIDITY.
To #27, deguello:
Yes, and also for their love of evil. But we are the fools, first, to allow such to select our leaders; then to allow such to become our leaders. Political suicide exemplified.Unless…
#27. Not exactly correct, deguello.
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Only 58% of the electorate participated in that election. Of that, 52% voted for Obambi. Obambi was elected by 31% of the electorate, not by the majority.
The reason Pelosi et. al. cannot understand these concepts is quite simple. They have never held a real job. They have never had to produce, or show a profit to remain in business.
They have no concept whatsoever, the consequences of their actions. They only understand the resulting votes.
Very well post …. thanx guy…