Richard Epstein, The flawed 75% tax solution from Hollande and Piketty:
The basic question is why would anyone assume that major shifts in tax rates should have only relatively modest effects on the production of wealth. No one would say that about a cut in market wages of over 50 percent. So why assume otherwise in a tax context?
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded””here and there, now and then””are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as ‘bad luck’.”
– Robert A. Heinlein
Because they are socialists, and they will lie and cheat their way to forcing socialism on their victims regardless of the actual cost.
It’s probably terribly incorrect to say the next two things.
(i) The National Socialists really were socialists.
(ii) Their socialist policies were notably more intelligent than the socialist policies of (for instance) the British Labour Party or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Unfortunately they were also mad, evil, racist, warmongering brutes. The Nazis, I mean, not the BLP or the CPSU.
The Euro is almost as doomed as the Ruble. The best thing that France can do to address declining standards of living is to dump it, take control of their own destiny, and go back to the Franc.
No! No! No! You don’t understand at all!
The theory of how everything should really work says this kind of tax will do just what it is supposed to do, and everything will work out just fine if evveryone would just believe that it will. It’s all you doubters and wreckers and mean people who always cause all these good and noble plans to come up short.
If you would just give those who are truly enlightened the power and resources to get this noble work done, and also not be so impatient if it takes a few generations, why, the right people could get it done absolutely right this time.
You miserable scoffers and saboteurs, you have to feel that it’s right, and have faith, and everything will be alright.
And if you won’t get on board and support the program, well, we have places for wreckers like you…
I wonder how ol’ Gerard Deparedieu is doing these days? I’ll bet he’s got a word or two for the ‘Ollande/Picketty plan.