Saturday, July 9, 2011

RE: **JP** MUST READ THIS COLUMN ON 5TH JULY (MATTAH)

I have read ur column MAYAAR.in tht article all of your criticism was on MOLVIES. come on dont make joke, what do u want to prove by writing such a rubbish. you people have problem with islam but u cant talk against islam so u always put blame on MOLVIES. what do u think all the prob is in them??what will u say abt america and our govt.
Come on, very soon we have to stand infront of ALLAH, what will u say there tht O LORD i hve supported my govt n america in my articles n crticised Maulanas??hve som fear of ALLAH in ur heart.


Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2011 21:43:47 +0400
Subject: **JP** MUST READ THIS COLUMN ON 5TH JULY (MATTAH)
From: chairman.zeeshannews@gmail.com
To: ghalib@ghalib.com

Dear All 

Kindly Click the Link for my latest Column 

http://www.zeeshannews.com/columns/tariq/mattah.htm

 Best Regards   

Tariq Hussain Butt

Chairman

http://www.zeeshannews


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Let's hope the National GOP sees this and realizes that no higher taxes until the spending cuts go into effect

http://www.bizzyblog.com/2011/07/08/aps-conn-priorities-in-state-tuition-for-illegals-and-sick-pay-mandate-are-national-stories-6500-union-driven-state-layoffs-arent

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Gee, I guess we have to just accept that this problem cannot be solved - or something

http://www.bizzyblog.com/2011/07/09/ap-economists-analysts-and-experts-are-baffled-confounded-in-job-market-that-is-defying-history/

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**JP** [7th Sha'ban al-Mu'azzam] Shaykh Abu Sa'eed al-Makhzoomi Radi Allahu Ta'ala Anho

Shaykh Abu Sa'eed al-Mubarak Ibn 'Ali Ibn Hassan
al-Baghdadi al-Makhzoomi Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho


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Sultan al-Awliyah, Burhan al-Asfiyah, Qibla-e-Saalika, Waaqif-e-Haqeeqat, Jaami'e Uloom-e-Ma'rifat, Hadrat Shaykh Abu Saeed al-Mubaarak al-Makhzoomi Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho is the sixteenth Imam and Shaykh of the Silsila Aaliyah Qadiriyah Barakatiyah Ridawiyyah Nooriyah. He is the Great and Eminent Shaykh (Murshid) of Peeran-e-Peer Dastgeer Hadrat Sayyiduna Gawth al Aa'zam Shaykh abd al-Qadir al-Jilani Radi Allahu Ta'ala Anhu. He was also appointed as a chief justice, but he later left his position. He spent all his time in the Zikr of Allah.

BIRTH:

Hadrat Abu Saeed Mubaarak Makhzoomi Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho was born in Baghdad Shareef.

NAME:

His blessed name is Mubaarak bin Ali bin Hassan bin Bandaar Al Baghdadi Al Makhzoomi and he was known as Abu Sa'eed. [Masaalik as-Saalikeen]

PEER-E-TAREEQAT:

He is the mureed and Khalifa of Shaykh Abul Hassan Ali Hakaari Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho. The Shajra of his Khirqa Mubaarak is as follows :

Hadrat Shaykh Abu Saeed Mubaarak Makhzoomi Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho was blessed with the Khirqa by Hadrat Shaykh Ibrahim Abul Hassan Ali Hakaari Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho, He received this from Shaykh Abul Farah Tartoosi Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho,who received it from Shaykh Abul Fadhl Abdul Waahid bin Abdul Aziz Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho,who received it from Shaykh Abu Bakr Shibli Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho. [Maqamaat-e-Dastageeri]

HIS EXCELLENCE:

His spiritual sight was so powerful, that when he embraced anyone, or placed his sight on him, then he would become so pure, that his heart would divorce itself from the world and everything in it. He was one of the greatest Imams of Fiqh in his era. He was a muqalid of Imam Ahmed bin Hambal Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho.

Hadrat Abu Saeed Mubaarak Makhzoomi Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho is the founder of Baabul Azj, the most famous madrassa in Baghdad Shareef. He handed this madrassa over to Hadrat Ghaus-e-Azam Jilaani Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho in his physical life. Huzoor Ghaus-e-Azam Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho taught at this Madrassa, and his beloved children taught in it after his wisaal.


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Hadrat Abu Saeed Mubaarak Makhzoomi Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho says,

"Shaykh Abdul Qaadir Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho wore the Khirqa from me and I from him, and each of us attained blessings from the other."


He was also a great Saahib-e-Karaamat and held a very exalted position in the chain of wilaayat. The incident relating to how Huzoor Ghaus-e-Azam Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho attained the Khirqa from his Peer, can be found in the next chapter, which deals with Huzoor Ghaus-e-Azam Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho.

HIS FORESIGHT:

Hadrat Shaykh Hamaad Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho who is from amongst the Masha'ikh of Huzoor Ghaus-e-Azam Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho says,

“Once Huzoor Ghaus-e-Azam Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho presented himself in the Darbaar of his Peer-o-Murshid. He sat with great respect in the court of his Peer. When he woke up and went outside, His Peer, Hadrat Abu Saeed Mubarak Makhzoomi Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho said, The foot of this non-Arab is such, that in his era, his foot will be on the shoulders (necks) of all the Awliyah Allah, and this will occur when he says, This foot of mine is on the shoulders of all the Awliyah Allah, he will say this, and all the Awliyah will lower their necks.”


HIS KHULAFA:

Many of the predecessors have remained silent concerning the names of his Khulafa, but the one name that shines out clearly is that of Huzoor Ghaus-e-Azam, Shaykh Muhiyyudeen Abdul Qaadir Jilaani Radi ALLAHu Ta'ala Anho.

WISAAL:

He passed away on a Monday, the 7th of Shabaan 513 Hijri, in Baghdad Shareef. Some scholars have also said his wisaal to be on the 4th of Shabaan, 27th Shabaan or 10th Muharram.

MAZAAR SHAREEF:

His Mazaar Shareef is situated in his Madrassa "Baab al-Azj" and is the place of attaining blessings for the servants of Allah.


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--
O Allah! For the sake of Abul Farah the harbinger of joy and glad tidings,
and for the sake of Abul Hasan and Abu Sa’eed, substitute for me with beatitude, my sorrows!!


**JP** Daily Qur'an & Hadith

 


English Translation of Al-Quran
[9].Surah At-Taubah [The Repentance]
Ayat 103. Take Sadaqah (alms) from their wealth in order to purify them and sanctify them with it, and invoke Allah for them. Verily! Your invocations are a source of security for them, and Allah is All-Hearer, All-Knower.
Ayat 104. Know they not that Allah accepts repentance from His slaves and takes the Sadaqat (alms, charities) and that is Allah Alone is the One Who forgives and accepts repentance, Most Merciful?
English Translation of Hadith
Hazrat Abu Dharr (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet  [SAWW](PBUH) said, "Allah, the Almighty, says: `Whosoever does a good deed, will have (reward) ten times like it and I add more; and whosoever does an evil, will have the punishment like it or I will forgive (him); and whosoever approaches Me by one span, I will approach him by one cubit; and whosoever approaches Me by one cubit, I approach him by one fathom, and whosoever comes to Me walking, I go to him running; and whosoever meets Me with an earth-load of sins without associating anything with Me, I meet him with forgiveness like that". [Muslim Hadith # 2687] 
Lesson : as mentioned above in Surah At-Taubah Ayat 104. "Allah Alone is the One Who forgives and accepts repentance, Most Merciful?" This Hadith mentions the infinite Compassion and Mercy of Allih to His obedient slaves and a special expression of which will be made by Him on the Day of Resurrection. On that Day, He will give at least ten times reward for each good deed. In some cases it may be far more than that, seven hundred times or more, as He would like. Such benevolence on His part warrants that a Muslim should never lose hope of His forgiveness.
 
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Thanks & Best regards,
 
Imran Ilyas
Dubai
Cell: 00971509483403

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Pics and toons 7/9/11 (3)

 



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**JP** بہتر عمل کرنے والا

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Fwd: Happy Atlas Shrugged Day!

part 2 comes out in 2012
 


 | April 15, 2011

April 15We've seen hearty thumbs-up from Objectivistssplit decisions from fans and foes, qualified non-praise from P.J. O'Rourke and Kyle Smith, and from our own ranks a dart from Kurt Loder and alaurel from Brian Doherty. So are there any other reviews and commentary aboutAtlas Shrugged Part I worth reading on this, the opening day of the long-awaited cinematic adaptation? As you hit refresh on Rotten Tomatoes (where it's polling a brutal 7% among critics, but a healthy 85% from the audience as of this writing), here are some readables:

Reason Foundation co-founder Tibor Machan goes down memory lane:

I saw the movie "Atlas Shrugged: Part I" (set for release April 15), and I liked it a lot, just as I did the book when I first read it in 1961 while serving in the Air Force near Washington, D.C. (The maiden ride of the John Galt Line train was the most riveting segment in the book for me and remains so in the film.) [...]

I was won over to Rand in part because I already held individualist views, having survived Soviet communism and a Nazi parent's brutality. Such collectivist, communitarian regimes held out no attraction to me. Yet I lacked the education to figure out why a human individual should be acknowledged as the center of values, and Rand helped me figure this out.

Right or wrong, I found Rand (whom I met in 1962 for a 30-minute private chat but who later banished me, too, from her group of close-knit students) sensible, passionate, a bit bellicose and all-around very insightful about nearly all aspects of philosophy. Then, three years after its publication, came "Atlas Shrugged." I read it on a single day; that is how vivid and good a read it was and, judging by its phenomenal sales worldwide, still is. [...]

Although "Part 1" didn't grab me as did the book when I first read it – how could it have? – it is a very good picture; it's modern, serious, full of poignant anti-statist and pro-capitalist dialogue (unlike most Hollywood products).

A bridge too...Roger Ebert does the rumpy-pumpy:

The most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone's vault. I suspect only someone very familiar with Rand's 1957 novel could understand the film at all, and I doubt they will be happy with it. For the rest of us, it involves a series of business meetings in luxurious retro leather-and-brass board rooms and offices, and restaurants and bedrooms that look borrowed from a hotel no doubt known as the Robber Baron Arms. [...]

The movie is constructed of a few kinds of scenes: (1) People sipping their drinks in clubby surroundings and exchanging dialogue that sounds like corporate lingo; (2) railroads, and lots of 'em; (3) limousines driving through cities in ruin and arriving at ornate buildings; (4) city skylines; (5) the beauties of Colorado. There is also a love scene, which is shown not merely from the waist up but from the ears up. The man keeps his shirt on. This may be disappointing for libertarians, who I believe enjoy rumpy-pumpy as much as anyone.

Hearst Newspapers' Mick LaSalle gives the rare non-Randian non-pan:

Yes, it's a right-wing diatribe. It presents liberals from a conservative point of view, as meddlers and mediocrities who resent, fear and aim to keep down the talented and the visionary. Its misunderstanding of the liberal mind is ridiculous and unfair [...]

What is a selling point are the boldly drawn characters, played by a cast of unknowns, some of whom deserve to be known. I'm thinking in particular of Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart, a railway heiress, and Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden, a manufacturing magnate and the inventor of Rearden Metal. Even with director Paul Johansson practically missing in action, giving them nothing, Schilling and Bowler are forceful and attractive.

I'd be willing to sit through Part Two right now.

Missed it by *that* much!Will Wilkinson talks to anxious Randians:

According to my informal survey of Rand fans, "apprehensive" and "cautiously optimistic" are the watchwords. Many fans drew parallels to the hopeful trepidation preceding the screen debuts of the "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" books. "It would be so great if they can pull this off," AeonSkoble, a professor of philosophy at Bridgewater State College, told me, "and it'd be really awful if they can't." But he's hopeful.

"A novel that's been a best-seller for more than 50 years should have generated a Hollywood blockbuster starring George Clooney and Gwyneth Paltrow," said David Boaz, the executive vice-president of the libertarian Cato Institute. "It's too bad that instead it's an indie film with little-known actors and a limited opening."

Yet Mr. Boaz, who caught a preview screening, seemed pleasantly surprised. "The actors looked right," he said. "And the cinematography is very good."

FreedomWorks puts together an Atlas mash-up with the Moucher in Chief:

Ayn Rand attempts to breathe blue life into the black soul of Nick GillespieTime magazine writer Claire Suddath attempts to get a date on The Atlasphere

NPR goes to an ideological screening in Washington, D.C.:

Variety reports that "according to online ticketing service Fandango,"Atlas, "bowing at 299 locations, surprisingly ranks third with 15% of the site's advance ticket sales," behind Scream 4 and Rio.

And National Review's Daniel Foster gets into the business proposition:

[W]hat's the benchmark for success? Aglialoro said he'd like to recoup the $10 million shooting budget and the roughly $10 million he spent on rights and development. He'd also like to have cash to invest in the second installment of a planned trilogy — and of course, a profit.

"If it does a hundred million, roughly, at the box office, about half of that goes to the exhibitor — so if I were to subtract that $20 million, that would leave $30 million. And about half of that would be reinvested for the second one."

The latest of Reason.tv's many videos about Ayn Rand and the movie project:

Help Reason celebrate its next 40 years. Donate Now!

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'Advertisers Brainwash Us,' and Other Anti-Capitalist Complaints


'Advertisers Brainwash Us,' and Other Anti-Capitalist Complaints
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Read part 1.

Yesterday I replied to some arguments against capitalism leveled at me by a persistent Twitter critic. I was just getting started. Here are some juicier ones.

(4) Another of her tweets read, "Our main enemies: Corporatocracy, American Empire…."

Supporters of the free market agree with her here, so I do not understand what she could be thinking. Meanwhile, her Twitter avatar includes the logo for Obama 2012. This is cognitive dissonance of an unfortunately very common kind. She believes herself to be an opponent of "corporatocracy" and the "American Empire," while lending support to a candidate and a political party that have done as much as anyone else in this country to bring those very things about.

As Anthony Gregory noted in a recent essay (one of the best I have read in a long time, I might add), Obama

shoveled money toward corporate America, banks and car manufacturers. He championed the bailouts of the same Wall Street firms his very partisans blamed for the financial collapse. He picked the CEO of General Electric to oversee the unemployment problem. He appointed corporate state regulars for every major role in financial central planning. After guaranteeing a new era of transparency, he conducted all his regulatory business behind a shroud of unprecedented secrecy. He planned his health care scheme, the crown jewel of his domestic agenda, in league with the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.

As for foreign policy, my critic evidently thinks the American empire, which is the product of a thoroughly bipartisan foreign policy extending over sixty years, is the exclusive creation of wicked Republicans. To the contrary, as Andrew Bacevich shows in his new book Washington Rules, the foreign-policy differences between people like Hillary Clinton and John McCain are essentially trivial. Hillary was a major supporter of the Iraq war, as were the New York Times, the Washington Post, and pretty much all the major U.S. newspapers. My critic's own heroes are just as responsible for the morally and economically disastrous American empire project as anyone else.

Again Gregory:

[Obama] continued the war in Iraq, even extending Bush's schedule with a goal of staying longer than the last administration planned. He tripled the U.S. presence in Afghanistan then took over two years to announce the eventual drawdown to bring it back to only double the Bush presence. He widened the war in Pakistan, launching drone attacks at a dizzying pace. He started a war on false pretenses with Libya, shifting the goal posts and doing it all without Congressional approval. He bombed Yemen and lied about it.
He enthusiastically signed on to warrantless wiretapping, renditioning, the Patriot Act, prison abuse, detention without trial, violations of habeas corpus, and disgustingly invasive airport security measures. He deported immigrants more than Bush did. He increased funding for the drug war in Mexico. He invoked the Espionage Act more than all previous presidents combined, tortured a whistleblower, and claimed the right to unilaterally kill any U.S. citizen on Earth without even a nod from Congress or a shrug from the courts.

By supporting Obama instead of taking a principled stand against the system, my critic lends aid and comfort to the very "corporatocracy" and "American empire" she claims to oppose.

(5) "Another problem with the idea of the free market is that humans make decisions based upon the short term rather than the long term."

Assuming this dubious psychological generalization to be true, why would it not apply equally well to the political class itself? Why would it not apply equally to the voters who will elect the political class? No one ever answers this question.

And since the unfunded liabilities of the major transfer programs are greater than twice the GDP of the entire world, I think my suspicions are vindicated.

Here her criticism of the market misses the idea of capital value. Does she go 80,000 miles between oil changes? I'll assume not. But if it is some kind of psychological law that "humans make decisions based upon the short term rather than the long run," then why doesn't she? She can save money today, in the short term, by neglecting the maintenance of her car and therefore its performance in the long run. Who cares about the car's condition two years from now? That's the long term! Human beings, she says, don't care about that.

When you own a car, you own the rights to the flow of services it can render over the course of its useful life. That alone gives you ample incentive to think about the long term. The longer a durable good's useful life is, the more services it can render its owner. Therefore, property owners have an interest in taking actions that will increase the lifespan of the good in question.

Do governments operate under such incentives? Of course not. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe has frequently pointed out, the caretakers who operate the machinery of state in a democratic system do not own the resources they employ. Unlike private owners, they have no economic incentive to preserve the capital value of the country. It does not matter to them how long its capital stock lasts, how much debt it accumulates, or how many of its citizens it conscripts and leads to slaughter. These are all long-term questions. Their effects will be felt long after the politicians in question are retired.

(6) "This [alleged psychological law according to which people act only with very short time horizons] enables shrewd individuals or groups to manipulate markets and exploit individuals for their own gain. The invisible hand Smith described is either too slow or becomes too entangled to effectively make corrections to the market in sufficient time to prevent real, long term, harm for occurring. Consequently free-market corrections can produce enormous misery for the many while they take their sweet time to correct the market."

I do not understand this passage. Evidently individuals or groups "manipulate markets" and "exploit individuals," though no examples or definitions of these terms are provided. This anti-social behavior apparently causes the entire market economy to suffer, such that a wrenching recovery process is necessary. These recoveries take too long, and cause further suffering.

Assuming for the sake of argument that these market manipulations, which are never defined or illustrated, really are the cause of recessions – and with the relevant terms not defined and a causal mechanism not even hinted at, I think I am ascribing more dignity to this position than it deserves – we are left to wonder why the economy is not in a state of permanent recession. Aren't greedy manipulators everywhere? If so, why does greed manifest itself only in cyclical patterns, rather than constantly?

Nowhere in my critic's brief is the Federal Reserve System even mentioned. (That is revealing but unfortunately rather typical: an alleged opponent of "corporatocracy" cannot bring herself to mention the institution that backstops some of the fattest of American cats.) She is not even curious enough to wonder what supporters of the free market – whom she imagines as little men with white mustaches, running about with sacks of money with dollar signs on them – might think causes economic downturns.

Our position actually involves a full-fledged theory, not merely a vague pointing of fingers at economic malefactors. In our theory, the central bank – the very institution our critic neglects as if it had absolutely nothing to do with the condition of the economy – interferes with credit markets to push interest rates to below-market levels, thereby setting the stage for a series of consequences that produces first an artificial boom and then an inevitable bust. I explain it in greater detail in my 2009 book (and New York Times bestseller) Meltdown.

The boom-bust cycle, according to the Austrian School of economics, is caused not by the market economy per se but by this intervention into the market. The bust, in turn, is brief or prolonged depending on the response by government. The first time government responded to a depression with a ceaseless program of intervention, namely the Great Depression, was also the first one to last so long.

Again, suppose the situation were reversed. Suppose the depression of 1920-21, in which the federal government and the Federal Reserve did next to nothing, had persisted for a decade, but the Great Depression had lasted only a year or two after the New Deal programs were instituted. We would never hear the end of it: why, this proves the stupid free market can't correct itself! We need our wise overlords!

But when the truth of the matter is exactly the opposite, we hear only crickets.

(7) "FREE MARKET ENCOURAGES the elimination of the weak."

Then why have population figures and life expectancy exploded under capitalism? Why do the poorest enjoy the greatest material advantages in those countries where the free market is least hampered by violent intervention?

(8) "It quickly became apparent that humans could be sold products with lower or even negative utility by appealing to the consumer on a deeper emotional level…. This discovery along with mass advertising enabled by mass communication effectively destroyed the free market observed by Adam Smith."

This is a bastardized version of John Kenneth Galbraith's critique of the market. According to this argument, the market isn't really free because advertising brainwashes consumers into buying whatever product a clever firm offers them. But as Murray Rothbard noted long ago, if this critique were correct we would have a hard time accounting for how much money firms devote to marketing research to try to ascertain whether consumer demand exists for the product they seek to develop. Why bother spending so much time and money figuring out what consumers want if a clever advertisement is enough to snooker them into buying almost anything?

All the advertising in the world couldn't save New Coke or the Edsel, and once people can download music in mp3 format or watch streaming movies, no amount of celebrity endorsements is going to prop up Sam Goody's or Blockbuster.

To be continued…

http://lewrockwell.com/woods/woods174.html

Leave the Top 1% Alone


Leave the Top 1% Alone
by Anthony Gregory

Even with a $1.6 trillion federal deficit and record spending, the liberal pundits spout their nonsensical claim that all would be swell if only the top 1% were taxed a bit more.

How does anyone believe it? The idea is preposterous just in sheer mathematical terms. According to Mother Jones, the top 1% of families made on average $1.138 million in 2008. Wikipedia says there are 1.132 million households in this group. Multiply these numbers and we see this hated class makes about $1.3 trillion annually. These are rough calculations but they suggest that even seizing all the income of the top 1% wouldn't cover the U.S. deficit to say nothing of the rest of the budget. This ignores the fact that they already provide 40% of federal income tax revenue. Soaking them for another few percent per year, or even vastly more, isn't going to move the government noticeably closer to fiscal solvency, putting aside the resulting destruction to economic growth.

The only way to fix the deficits with tax increases is to terrorize the middle class, unleash the IRS to bloom into its full Nazi potential, and raise rates to the skies. Even this might not work. Since the Korean War, despite all changes in the tax rate and code, the federal government has leveled out at collecting just around 20% of GDP. The federal budget is nearly 27% of GDP today. The deficit is a spending problem unfixable through more confiscation, barring skyrocketing inflation or a taxing regime of totalitarian character.

We are told the rich sit on the lion's share of the nation's assets and financial wealth, and so not only their income is at issue. But let us not ignore the assets controlled by the federal government. Uncle Sam owns tens of thousands of buildings, 30% of the nation's land, many trillions of dollars in assets altogether. Why not hack away at this gross inequity before feeding the monster state more money? Are the rich supposed to be fleeced of their wealth so it can be thrown down Washington's money hole? The government loses trillions in its Pentagon budgets, not accounting for where the money even goes, and yet we're supposed to encourage the ravaging with higher tax rates.

Tax cuts do not always shrink government. The Republicans and Democrats are pleased to engage in wild deficit spending. The federal government borrows more every year. Tax cuts in the face of high spending are arguably fiscally irresponsible, pushing the burden onto others rather than really dealing with the problem.

On the other hand, it appears that the U.S. government is going to default on its debt obligations, sooner or later. There is simply no way to reverse course. Or at least there's no way to do so with the support of more than three or four odd members of the political class. The U.S. is heading toward national bankruptcy and today's pitiful proposals to shave a few tens of billions off expected increases in entitlement spending will obviously mean nothing.

Given this, the responsible thing is to cut taxes on the rich as well as everyone else. Even if the deficits widen, it will only hasten the realization of the U.S. government's insolvency and the refusal of people worldwide to lend it more money. This is, overall, a good thing. The American state does little but destroy the peaceful social order and lay waste to foreign peoples. Those who lend it money have no moral claim to get it back, any more than a man who lends a gun to a mob boss, knowing what it will be used for, has a moral claim to have his firearm returned.

Spending must be cut, but even in the midst of high deficits, let us remember that the top 1%, like everyone else, are paying way too much. Two-thirds of Americans recognize they're overtaxed. Liberals say Americans pay too little in taxes. Nominal rates have been higher in the past, but revenues are still as high as they've been in generations. It's time to try something different: actually reducing the state's bite out of the private sector.

Better that the rich have more of their money and the government have less. Most of the affluent contribute immeasurably to the wealth of society. They have more but generally produce more. And what about the scarcest of resources – time? Americans have more leisure time than in past generations, thanks to the market's immense wealth creation. Most of this benefit has accrued to the poor, while very little has gone to the richest 10%. Most rich people work long hours, every day, merely to sustain their wealth-generating enterprises, which benefit us all.

Some will counter that most of the super-rich (which is what the top 1% is often misleadingly described as) do not deserve all they have because the government provides them with a litany of special privileges.

Fine. Do away with the privileges too. End corporate welfare. Stop the bailouts and farm subsidies, the vast bulk of which ends up in the hands of fabulously wealthy corporate farmers. Scrap the licensing and regulations that big business uses to clobber competition. Abolish the Federal Reserve. Terminate the entire military-industrial complex. Halt the "green energy" programs that amount to federal support for favored corporations. Stop the enforcement of patents, which skews the economy toward established industry. Separate the government from the economy as much as humanly possible. Let the moral hazard, welfare for the rich, socialism for the well-connected fall by the wayside.

Liberals almost never propose such things, not very seriously, and elected Democrats virtually never do. They all love the fascism of America's mixed economy. So do most of the super-duper rich, who suspiciously call for higher taxes all the time, but not for reducing federal intrusion into the market. Cut their taxes. End their subsidies. Sever the ties. Stop the codependency. So long as the super rich are paying taxes, they'll have reasons to devote their time to manipulating the corporate state. Across the board tax cuts on the rich are part of the anti-fascist cause.

Even most of the crony capitalists who constitute a slim minority of the top 1% are angels compared to the government itself. Whatever harm they do is aided by the state, but they tend to do a lot of good. They'd probably do even more good in a freer market. Regardless, the government has the least claim of all to anyone's income, as it, unlike the private sector, is incapable of producing wealth as a matter of course. Also, it uses a big chunk of every dollar it seizes to murder and cage innocent people, something of which almost no one in the top 1% is guilty.

As for the poor, cut their taxes too. The left loves to target the top 1% and the right loves to say, crazily, that the bottom 50% pays no taxes. This too is hogwash. For most Americans, payroll taxes are a bigger burden than income taxes. These should be eliminated entirely, for moral reasons and for the sake of honest accounting. They do not go into a retirement fund or insurance program, as the left insists and the right implies by omitting the Social Security and Medicare tax from their analysis of who supposedly pays all the taxes. If these welfare programs continue, best to finance them from the general fund and come clean toward younger workers that they'll have to save for their own future. Cut everyone's taxes. Cut all the spending. There is never a defensible reason to increase either.

If we think there is unfairness in wealth distribution, let's smash the statist programs that have hatched over the years, coinciding with these trends of inequality the left laments. But taxation should be cut always and everywhere, no matter whom it targets. Taxation is the violent confiscation of wealth conducted by the most regressive of all institutions: the state. It destroys wealth and empowers the true ruling class. All taxes, including on the rich, should be slashed as much as possible.

When talking heads and journalists talk about the "top 1%," watch out. They are performing a bait and switch. They are conflating families that make a couple hundred thousand a year, already paying close to half in taxes, with people making billions, most of whom do so with the help of the very government these pundits wish to expand.

But even pampered billionaires are pikers and paupers compared to Obama, whose military fleets and grand executive departments make him an effective trillionaire in terms of the resources he commands. Unlike almost everyone in the top 1%, he didn't earn a dollar of what he controls.

The deficit problems can't be fixed even by soaking the rich. But even if they could, given the alternative, the only ethical and economically sound approach is to cut taxes, never to raise them.


http://lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory221.html

Don't be Fooled by Political Posturing


Don't be Fooled by Political Posturing
by Peter Schiff

As attention focuses intently on the negotiations to raise the debt ceiling, House Republicans have made a great show of drawing a line in the fiscal sand. They claim that they will not vote for any deal that includes tax increases to narrow the budget deficit. But we all know how the game works in Washington. With the 2012 elections looming the Republican bluster is merely a bargaining chip that they will quickly toss into the pot when they sense a political victory. In fact there are signs that such a compromise is already underway.

House Republicans already have the power to avoid tax hikes and force significant spending cuts. All they have to do is refuse to raise the debt ceiling under any circumstances. That's it. At that point the only discussion would be where to find spending to cut.

But Republicans want to raise the debt ceiling just as much as Democrats, they just want to gain political advantage in the process. They have widely accepted the Democrat stalking horse that a failure to raise the ceiling will lead directly to economic Armageddon. No party wants to be held responsible for such an outcome. Even if the expected Armageddon does not come, the Republicans will be blamed for any problems that follow a no vote on the increase, regardless of the true cause. As a deal is in everyone's political interest, I am convinced it will happen.

When it comes, it will be structured in a way that allows both sides to claim victory. Each side will praise the other for putting politics aside and having the courage to work together for the American people. They will announce some kind of ten-year deficit reduction plan, with a seemingly large multi-trillion dollar headline number. However, you can be sure that no real spending cuts will take effect in the early years of the plan. All the real action will be scheduled for the later years of the current decade and beyond.

But as in all such plans, actions slotted for distant time horizons have minimal likelihoods of occurring. Unexpected developments (and in Washington all developments are unexpected) always reshuffle priorities. The plan will surely rely on rosy economic assumptions that exaggerate growth forecasts and understate the growth of government expenditures. When reality intervenes, and the assumed deficit reductions never materialize, and the economy continues to stagnate, look for Congress to pass emergency legislation that cancels all bets.

The compromise handed down in a few weeks will also likely include the elimination of tax provisions that the left have described as giveaways to businesses. For instance, Democrats will likely get their way about eliminating the "tax breaks" used by corporate jet owners. Expect the depreciation schedule for these aircraft to be lengthened from the current five years to the seven years that is mandated for planes owned by commercial airlines. While the revenue raised by such a move will be trivial, the rhetoric is far more important. And in this case the rhetoric is dead wrong.

There are no subsidies for corporate jet owners. The fact that corporations are forced to depreciate jets over a period of five years, rather than being able to fully deduct the expenditure immediately, is not a subsidy but a penalty. Just because commercial airlines are penalized more does not mean other corporations are getting a subsidy.

Republicans are also likely to cave on higher taxes on the rich. Some of these increases will be disguised as merely closing loopholes and others will just impose income caps on deductions. But do not be fooled. Some of these moves will bite deeply on the engines of our economy and make it even more difficult to run a profitable business in this country.

The new political spin echoed in Democrat talking points in coast to coast is that the rich are paying the lowest taxes since 1950. The bogus statistic results from the meaningless fact that federal tax revenues currently "only" constitute 16% of GDP. However this figure is rendered meaningless when considering the inflated nature of today's GDP figures, and the exclusion of rising state and local taxes. When it comes to tax burdens, GDP means nothing. What counts is what percentage of income taxpayers actually fork over. Those numbers tell a different tale.

Today a married couple with a combined income of $250,000 (assuming each spouse earns 125,000) will pay about 40% of their combined incomes in Social Security, Medicare, and federal taxes, if they take the standard deduction. (I have included as part of their incomes and taxes the Social Security and Medicare taxes paid on their behalf by their employers - which in reality are borne by the employee anyway. I then added that figure to their incomes, and divided the total tax paid by that higher income. I did not factor in this year's one time 2% payroll tax holiday.)

Compare that to a household in 1950 that earned $25,000 per year (the approximate equivalent to $250,000 today). Assuming all the income was earned by the husband, which was the norm at the time, the total tax take using the standard deduction and including both the employee and employer social security taxes, would have been just below 22%. In other words, despite claims that taxes are at their lowest levels in 50 years, today's high earning couple pays over 80% more in federal taxes than their 1950 counterpart!

My guess however is that the real difference is even greater. In both instances I used the standard deductions to arrive at taxable income. But the 1950 code was far more generous than the current code in its allowances for tax shelters. As a result, my guess is that the typical couple making itemized deductions in 1950 paid less than half the amount of their modern equivalent. Of course back then there were also far fewer states imposing their own income taxes, and those that did generally had much lower rates than what prevails today. Local sales and property taxes were also lower.

It is interesting to note that about 45% of the total federal tax paid by this modern couple went to Social Security and Medicare. In 1950, Social Security represented less than 1.5% of their total federal tax (Medicare did not yet exist). If you just compare income taxes alone, the modern couple pays 24% in tax and the 1950s couple paid about 21.5%. It is no accident that advocates for higher taxes fail to mention this issue.

The debt problem does not stem from low taxes, but from high spending. I do not expect a deal to lift the debt limit will make any meaningful impact on either. Unfortunately both taxes and spending are likely to head higher in the years ahead. Americans should prepare for the sad reality.

http://lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff129.html

An Establishment in Panic


An Establishment in Panic
by Patrick J. Buchanan

By refusing to accept tax increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, Republicans are behaving like "fanatics," writes David Brooks of The New York Times.

Anti-tax Republicans "have no sense of moral decency," he adds.

They are "willing to stain their nation's honor" to "worship their idol." If this "deal of the century" goes down, as he calls the Barack Obama offer, "Republican fanaticism" will be the cause.

"The GOP has become a cult" that has replaced reason with "feverish" and "cockamamie beliefs," writes Richard Cohen of The Washington Post. The Republican "presidential field (is) a virtual political Jonestown," the Guyana site where more than 900 followers of the Peoples Temple drank the Kool-Aid that Rev. Jim Jones mixed for them.

Does anyone think this an appropriate description of such mild-mannered men as Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman?

"The GOP's Hezbollah Wing Is Now Fully in Control," screams The New Republic over a recent lead editorial.

Other columnists charge the GOP with holding America "hostage" by refusing to accept tax hikes to avert a default on the debt.

What to make of this hysteria?

The Establishment is in a panic. It has been jolted awake to the realization that the GOP House, if it can summon the courage to use it, is holding a weapon that could enable it to bridle forever the federal monster that consumes 25 percent of gross domestic product.

To bully and blackmail the GOP into surrendering the weapon and betraying its principles and signing on to new taxes, that establishment has unleashed rhetoric more befitting a war on terror than a political dispute.

For how, exactly, are Republicans threatening the republic?

The House has not said it will not raise the debt ceiling. It must and will. It has not said it will not accept budget cuts. It has indicated a willingness to accept the budget cuts agreed to in the Biden negotiations.

Where the GOP has stood its ground is on tax increases.

Is fanaticism behind this stance? Does this manifest insanity? How does this imperil the nation's honor and future?

Behind the GOP opposition to tax hikes is the party's word given to the country that elected it in 2010, its political principles, its traditional view of what not to do when the nation is in a slump, and party history.

Fully 235 Republican House members signed a 2010 pledge not to raise taxes. And by giving their word they were rewarded with victory.

Should they now dishonor that pledge, what would differentiate them from George H.W. Bush, who famously promised in 1988: "Read my lips! No new taxes!" then went back on his word and took the party down to defeat with him?

Second, the GOP is the party of small government and low taxes.

Why would it agree to raise taxes on the private productive sector when federal spending, now at a peacetime record of 25 percent of GDP, is the problem?

Third, America is in a slump, with 9 percent of the workforce unemployed, another 7 percent underemployed and the economy growing at a tepid 1.8 percent.

What school of economic thought – Keynesian, supply-side or monetarist – says raising taxes in a slumping economy is the recipe for a return to prosperity? There is no such school.

Why, when the whole country is talking about the need to create jobs, would Congress raise taxes on a private productive sector that employs six in seven Americans and is the creator of real jobs?

In 1982, President Reagan agreed to the same deal being offered the party today: three dollars in spending cuts for every dollar in tax increases to which he assented. As he ruefully told this writer more than once, he was lied to. He got one dollar in spending cuts for every three in tax increases.

What of the charge that the Republican House is holding America hostage, blackmailing the nation with a suicidal threat to throw us all into national default if it does not get its way?

This smear is the precise opposite of the truth.

The Republican Party has not said it will refuse to raise the debt ceiling. It has an obligation to do so, and will.

The House has simply said it will not accept new taxes on a nation whose fiscal crisis comes from overspending.

If the GOP keeps its word, raises the debt ceiling and accepts budget cuts agreed to in the Biden negotiations, the only people who can prevent the debt ceiling's being raised are Senate Democrats or Obama, in which case, they, not the GOP, will have thrown the nation into default.

It is the establishment that is resorting to extortion, saying, in effect, to the House GOP: Give us the new taxes we demand, or Obama will veto the debt ceiling and we will all blame you for the default.

They're bluffing.

The GOP should stand its ground – and fix bayonets.


http://buchanan.org/blog/an-establishment-in-panic-4796