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RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED
In this lecture from 2021's Mises University, Lucas Engelhardt summarizes the basics of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), its consequences, and the strange ideology behind it. Presented at Mises University 2021.
On August 15, 1971, the last remains of what had been a magnificent monetary system died a terrible death, and the American academic, political, business, and media elites led the cheers. The Dow Jones Average jumped by more than 32 points the next day. A de facto national default was spun as a great liberation from a tyrannical financial arrangement that had plagued humanity for generations. A half century later the disinformation continues, as intellectual bankruptcy parallels the financial bankruptcy of that event. I write, of course, of the decision by President Richard Nixon to officially close the “gold window,” through which the US government was obligated to sell its gold stores to foreign governments at $35 an ounce, which even then was a bargain. As Nixon’s regime encouraged the Federal Reserve System to inflate the dollar to pay for its bloated military and welfare spending, as had the Johnson and Kennedy regimes before him, it became apparent that the US dollar was quickly losing value. The United States was in rapid decline—and the dollar was falling with the nation’s prestige.
President Biden’s ridiculously high spending proposals require equally ridiculous tax proposals. Among the craziest proposals is a massive increase in the capital gains tax rate. According to the Tax Foundation, Biden’s proposal would raise the top federal rate on capital gains tax to 43.4 percent. When accounting for state and local rates, the average top rate would be 48 percent, up from the current 29 percent. This is about nineteen steps in the wrong direction. Progressives, the largest proponents of the tax on capital gains, believe that this tax is a necessary and just tool used to rein in the greed of the rich and ensure that the selfless government can implement righteous social programs to help the needy. This belief could not be further detached from reality. The existence of taxes on capital gains significantly distorts the natural flow of investment in markets, which harms the social welfare of all Americans, and it is past time to abolish the capital gains tax.
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from Spokane Daily Chronicle
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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