This is so disingenuous; Germany also has a 19% VAT, and also has stronger regulations on industry.

>If we had a lower corporate tax rate with the ability to expense capital expenditures, guess what? We'd buy more triple sevens.

He wants to be able to write off the purchase of planes as expenses? What? They already get to write off depreciation on planes, but you can't write off the whole plane because you can sell the damn thing after you buy it.

Expenses are now, depreciation is later. And, if you get one, you don't get the other.

I don't know how all the numbers work out, but it could easily be that the tax code encourages borrowing by corporations for things subject to significant depreciation terms. (Interest paid is an expense.)

> but you can't write off the whole plane because you can sell the damn thing after you buy it.

You just record such a sale against expenses, that is, "net everything".

I do think that expenses should be tied to cash expenditures. So, if a company borrows to buy something, it should only be able to expense what it actually paid in any given year. Such treatment would make all expenditures "equal" in some sense.

Expenses should not be tied to cash layouts, because: (a) purchases are not necessarily expenses, but may be the buying of income-generating assets (i.e. expense is allocated over the life of the asset in the form of depreciation). (b) You can have an expense without laying out cash (e.g. an asset loses value such as a debtor defaulting).

Companies don't pay VAT -- people do.

Here its wham bam thank you mam, don't forget your box and enjoy living on $1500 a month that you get from unemployment.

To use your post as an example, in a few brief lines, you sum up something where there is a glimmer of truth, but there is so much more to be said on the subject that what you have written is basically inaccurate. There are, in reality, three broad models in 'Europe'. The 'southern' model: Spain, and Italy (which I know quite well) don't give you a lot of government unemployment benefits, but it's very difficult to fire someone. France and Germany give you lots of benefits if you're fired, and it's also difficult. In Denmark, it's easier to fire people, but the obligation to care for fired employees is viewed as a collective one, payed for with taxes, rather than a burden that falls exclusively on the employer in question.

* Attracting people who care more about talking about politics than other things, which creates a negative feedback loop.

* 'Pack' voting down of whoever is currently unpopular with the current groupthink. This is reinforced by the people above.

if links doesn't work the main pic: http://media.economist.com/images/na/2008w39/Sacking.jpg

WTF with all the downvoting? First it was +5 now its 0. If you don't believe the post...google to find out if its true or not

It's NOT THE LAW that imposes this (the law imposes nil severance), but the contracts - they had this clause. Furthermore, severance pay is only due for termination that is outside the employee's control. That is, if the employer downsizes.

If you don't come to work or hit you boss, you can be fired INSTANTLY with NO severence pay - like anywhere in the world. This is rare however, I've seen it only once for supposedly sub-par performance.

We always hear of standard benefits for workers in France, like extended yearly vacation time.

How does that work? Is it possible that by working for a startup under a contract that your experience is different than the rest of your countrymen?

Just trying to figure out the discrepancies.

What has happened in practice is that newer workers, wherever possible, are hired up with the flexible contracts, which generally offer nothing in the way of severance pay or anything - less than you'd get in the US in most 'good' jobs. Older workers are hired with the standard contracts. This creates a two-tier system with lots of unhealthy side effects.

I have no idea how the details work out in France.

Doesn't seem like that is a healthy situation in general.

Speaking of more complex ways of categorizing and rewarding business and employees reminds me of my recent interaction with a local government that had a "start-up" type program in place. I asked about office space and maybe some shared services -- something like an incubator. They were very friendly: I immediately received a 40-page packet by email which was so detailed as to be incomprehensible. (For instance, parking fees were waived up to a certain point, or alternatively fees could be reduced without a limit if I used an office that was farther away). It was like reading a report put together by every aspect of local government, each trying to help but actually making the presentation so complicated it would take an expert system to use or compare it to other offers.

It's more of a contract/union thing in the US, though. In Italy, 'standard' contracts are more or less legislated. Most likely that occurs elsewhere as well, although "it's complicated". Germany, until recently, apparently did not have a minimum wage, something that really surprised me.

Sweden is another example, but I don't know the specifics. They do offer things like paid 18 months parental leave (yeap, both maternal and paternal).

Barack on the other hand is better on avoiding World War III, Big Brother, and Theocracy.

It's a depressing choice.

As a non American, I wonder what brings US to a (relatively) extreme position on Health. Technicalities aside, most places consider health as part of the suite of public responsibilities.

Does a significant portion of the opposition to the public assuming responsibility for health also oppose the public assuming responsibility for education? I ask because it seems a close parallel.

So governmental power is used to insure freedoms. Traditionally, civic organizations are used to fulfill "public responsibilities" We have groups dedicated to local infrastructure improvement, fostering leadership skills in children, making sure people have eye care, giving healthcare to the poor -- the list goes on and on.

This is changing as more and more politicians and voters want the government to do the good things that civic organizations used to do. But we still have a long way to go to the point where we view government as the tool to handle all of our moral civic duties for us. There is a strong feeling that centralized governmental planning leads to waste, corruption, inefficiencies and the politicization of service delivery.

Education, I was told, was institutionalized after WWI as a way to make sure that soldiers had basic literacy and math skills. So this movement was a part of national defense, not some collective civic duty. (I understand education has a much more storied background. I abbreviate here)

* Are there Americans that feel education should not be a public service?

* Are you saying that healthcare is seen as a public responsibility but not one that needs to be delivered by 'Government?'

There is a large section of the population which believes that education is being done so poorly as to need re-vamping completely -- getting back to the days where the goals were set but the methods were left open to each school. I'm one of these people. I'm all for the national goal of education as being required for war-fighting and citizenship. The current system, however, looks to have quite a few flaws. I'm all for iterating and re-factoring.

Healthcare, or taking care of the sick, has traditionally been seen as a church-related activity in the States. This began to change in the 1930s when FDR enacted legislation to help people in their retirement (although the initial age of benefits was also the average death age, so on average nobody saw these benefits unless they lived longer than most)

You have to remember that in the States, multiple religions and cultures each took care of things like healthcare locally with hundreds of different solutions. There are hundreds of charity hospitals, for instance. In that manner, healthcare is considered a personal moral responsibility, not a public repsonsibility. Public responsibilities are those I owe the state -- voting, armed service, jury duty, etc. Moral responsibilities are those I owe a particular person based on my moral compass -- gifts to the homeless, charities (the U.S. leads the world in charities), etc.

The U.S. is beginning to believe that all of these moral responsibilities must/should be delivered by government. That takes away any personal involvement or critical thinking of mine and lets the government simply "write the check" for whatever moral ills we all agree on. I'm against this and view it as a step backwards -- replacing a distributed, intelligent, self-optimizing system with a rigid centralized one. But this is clearly the direction we've been going over the last 70 years and I would expect it to continue.

I meant, do you consider that there are things that are a public responsibility, things a society owes to its individual members, that are not The Governments place to provide?

I think you answered no. These things should be personal not public.

In a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious secular environment, personal mores and values should extend quite a ways from the minimum amount that we can all agree on. Traditionally communities have addressed moral issues through the use of volunteer-based civic groups.

I like this idea because the majority is not forcing it's definition of morality onto the minority. It also does not involve going to a local or national politician to make a moral case why charity money should be spent one way or another. It does not promote "one size fits all" solutions that are supposed to be applicable in wildly varying conditions. In addition, it seems that politicians can get elected simply on the moral persuasion of their arguments instead of their practicality, which is leading us to make promises we can never afford to pay for.

I'm for doing something about healthcare, for instance, because I think the buying and selling of health services is not happening in anything like a free market. Most people don't have anything to do with the cost of healthcare (other than paying insurance premiums), and there is virtually no shopping around for services. So the buyer doesn't use his own money, there is no open pricing, and there is no competition on price or quality. In addition, if a company developed a pill that cost a million dollars but let you live to be 150? It's obvious that there are multiple, legitimate players involved that each should have an equal say.

So please don't take my response as "there's nothing wrong." It's broken, but not everything that is broken needs an immediate, rubber-stamp solution. We work best in complicated environments by setting goals, iterating, re-factoring, trying different solutions -- all things that centralized solutions do not offer.

Moreover, we believe that almost everything the government does, it does poorly. Schools would be a great case in point.

We believe that almost everything the government does, it does poorly

There is definitely some truth in that in a general sense. But it seems to me that it is really a technical side issue in this particular case. The efficiency costs/gains are debatable. Even if you think you see an answer, it's marginal. It largely depends on what you consider the 'output' of a healthcare system. If you take traditional public health indicators such as life expectancy at birth, rates of various avoidable deaths & such, as the output of healthcare systems, private health systems are generally 'less efficient.'

What I mean to suggest with the above line is that a lot of practical pieces of general world views & rules of thumb (Government should not provide services because it is inefficient) are taken to specific contexts regardless of their validity in these cases.

That's why I always find it very hard to believe that anti public health arguments are truly decided on technical grounds. This is a moral not a technical issue.

We believe that health care is not a right but a privilege.

I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic. But it does seem closer to the point. In other words, I have no duty to ensure you have healthcare. I have a duty to ensure you are not murdered, but not that you don't die from diabetes.

If you take what seems to be a current debate in US politics, it seems very fundamental & moral rather then technical: Assume the responsibility or try to enable more healthcare without assuming the responsibility.

I think most would probably agree that regardless of the tax regime & regardless of price of medical care (within possible levels), some people will be left without. Many people in fact.

Short of assuming responsibility for health, you are debating ways of getting the number of uninsured from 17% to 12% or 10% or some moral equivalent. Some people will be left out. But that's ok because they chose that or made a dumb mistake or had a fighting chance.

Also, I always try to resolve arguments on practical grounds first. For instance, I feel that moral stances on drug laws are irrelevant, because the facts show that drug laws don't stop drug use, cause violent crime and many deaths of dealers/distributors, policemen and civilians. So even if you accept that drug use is immoral, just like with alcohol before it the laws still should not be on the books.

A law that has almost entirely negative effects is not a good law no matter what the moral justification.

OK. How about measuring various health care systems against themselves? What I am putting forward is that given that we are talking about improvement in the types of metrics used to compare health care systems, the US system would improve it's output by being public to an extent.

Various implementations are possible from direct government ownership of hospitals to means-tested health care subsidies & everything in between. Obviously crappy implementation has the ability to make things worse. But within the realm of the currently probable, steps taken in that direction would probably lead to an improved result.

But again, that's a purely technical line of argument. I think that in this case the rule of thumb economic liberalism is wrong. I'm reasonable happy to let economists bash that one out. But I do think that in the absense of an overwhelming victory for one of the practical debates, the moral argument here is very strong.

practical grounds

That's an area worthy of discussion in itself. Even if you do believe that drug use is deeply immoral, but see that the consequences of prohibition on are so severe, it'd be very rational to let it slide. But then, I wonder what I would think if I did understand drug use to be deeply immoral in the same sense as rape or murder is immoral. Would I allow legalised rape if the long term if the consequences of prohibiting it were as severe as the drug case. I dn't know how to answer that. (*Most would say no to a purely utilitarian approach http://www.nysun.com/arts/putting-practice-into-ethics/69595...)

For me that particular issue is all about practical. It's hard for me to see any justification for drug prohibition on moral grounds, just the opposite. It's an infringement on liberties. So there have to be net benefit reasons. But I would consider the flipside. In Australia (where I live) Alcohol & gambling are legal. Certain communities (usually extremely remote communities) here have severe social problems linked to abuse of these. Very severe. Some have decided that Alcohol prohibition (like dry counties in the states) are necessary to get the situation under control.

Even though I think individuals should have the right to consume alcohol, in these circumstances the prohibition creates large net gain for the community. I'm OK with that.

Of course there are gray areas. What if rape laws decreased rape by 10%, but increased other forms of violent crime double that?

But in general, if a law's overwhelming result is negative, like our drug and gambling prohibitions, there's no point to them no matter how moral they may be. The money and effort would be much better spent on prevention and rehabilitation.

Unless your communities that are so afflicted are much different than ours, I expect prohibition won't work much better for you than it does for us. People are going to get what they want. Demand for vices seems to be inelastic the world over.

People disagree with you instinctively. It seems that we have Deontological tendencies by nature. Mostly people do not find utilitarian arguments compelling. You have to weight the scales very far in favour of utility before people will violate a principle.

the dry communities

It's an extreme case. These are mostly very small very isolated (like 2 days drive to a store) communities. Generally self imposed by direct democracy or community elders/leaders. I don't know if it works. I don't know if it helps. But that is besides what I was saying. Assuming it's a net gain, I approve.

*It's interesting that we arrived here from the public health care questions. I'm actually surprised that someone open to a 100% practical outcome argument would be so against public healthcare. I expected more fundamental objections: despite the net loss..

Anyway, most people are instinctive deontologists. From the above link:

"the minority of subjects who did consider that it would be right to push the stranger off the footbridge {Right from a utilitarian/net-good perspective} took longer to reach their judgment, and had more activity in the parts of their brains associated with cognitive activity, than those who said that it would be wrong to push the stranger off the footbridge{Right from a deontological perspecitve}"

You seem to be a good example. Instinctively/emotionally a deontologist, rationally a utilitarian. A torn man. (;

I think that those who go with a utilitarian approach think harder about the decision, but that might be just because it makes the decision harder. You need to work out consequences. It's a stretch to say it makes it smarter.

But when you get right down to the root of your stack of 'whys,' you generally hit a principle at some stage. When your trying to rationalise morals, that is. Even Bentham the old time 'extremist' utilitarian had 'the principle of equal consideration.'

Your Constitution & other fundamental documents that you sited earlier are essentially principals (held to be self evident, no?). If you are going to try & rationalise your ethics, most strategies can be deciding on what level to define you principles, define them somehow then apply. Most people instinctively do it at the same sort of level as the law. Some mostly pretty bookish characters go to a slightly higher level.

In that respect, the US founding documents (which I am always surprised to hear quoted & treated in the way that they are) conform to that. Confucius as an example goes to a slightly lower level.

Oh and quit talking for all Americans.

Fires can wreak havoc upon many beyond the fire's point of origin. It's also unprofitable to run a fire department, so given the public benefit, the public foots the bill for keeping a fire department.

Health care isn't the same in that it can be a very profitable business, but because profits are tied to consumption of goods (e.g., medicine) and services (e.g., operations), the industry has incentives to promote overconsumption of both. Meanwhile, the health insurance industry has incentives to deny coverage as much as possible in the name of profit. You might think this would cause the health care industry to operate efficiently, but health care is complex and not easily overseen, and even if the health care industry ran efficiently, the health insurance industry would still have incentives to deny coverage past the efficient rate.

But the effects of letting people who genuinely need treatment go untreated are nevertheless much like fires. Not only does it stand an excellent chance of reducing their productivity and overall employment prospects, the consequences it can have for a family can likewise be disastrous. That doesn't do them any good and it certainly doesn't do our economy any good. So while the health industries might be quite profitable, the net benefit to society is considerably less than if the profit incentives were properly aligned to maximize health instead of consumption and lack of coverage.

But, you know, some folks just have to be sacrificed on the altar of the completely free market, in the name of their own good.

It's not up to the public to protect people from all of the bad things that can befall them. It's up to the public to ensure that people are not impeded when trying to help themselves.

Thus even most of us who are against public health care are in favor of reforms. Tort reforms, ending the perverse incentives.

Interestingly, most of our health problems in the U.S. seem to be due to political pressure caused by lobbying. Read In Defense of Food for a good review as to why our diet has shifted to where it is, and why it's almost certainly the problem. It illustrates that government cannot be counted on to ensure public health.

In most cases, someone else's fire has no (direct) effect on you either, so I'm not sure what the relevance of that assertion is. Nor am I talking about the spread of disease, but rather the socioeconomic effects of having an untreated medical condition, which may not affect you very much, but which can have serious effects for a family and their ability to contribute to the economy. See Gladwell's The Moral-Hazard Myth: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/08/29/050829fa_fact and Uninsured in America, a book which Gladwell cites in the article.

I'm also not sure how you got the impression that I think the public should "protect people from all of the bad things that can befall them." What I believe is that an entity capable of making a credible threat on the public's behalf must ensure that market incentives are properly aligned with the public good, when they are demonstrably not in alignment. That entity tends to be the government. If there's another entity that can do the job more effectively, that's great. I don't entertain any sort of dogma about the "proper" role of the government.

I don't see how tort reform counters the inefficiencies of the health industries.

And diet certainly is a problem. But I'm not sure how the fact that there is a cultural basis to many of our health problems bears upon the problem of misaligned market incentives in the health industry. No one is saying that government is the sole force in ensuring the public health. People who think the government might have a role to play typically don't think that individual judgment goes out the window.

Tort reform and caps on payouts for malpractice suits are necessary. Every time someone wins a $50m suit because a doctor accidentally amputated their pinky, the costs are passed back onto the rest of us.

I'm all for aligning incentives, but that does not necessitate public health care.

Tort reform is a solution to a completely different problem than what I've been talking about, so again, I fail to see the relevance.

We clearly disagree on what would improve the public health, and our disagreement clearly stems from ideological differences which haven't surfaced here. That's fine, but nothing that we've been doing amounts to an actual debate over the issue in question.

We also consider preventing sex with children to be a legitimate function of the government, while preventing sex with adults is a matter of personal privacy.

There are many aspects of children's wellbeing that the public does not concern itself with including to an extent child health.

BTW, the paedophilia laws are not really analogous. Sex with children is prohibited because it is considered rape. A child is considered unable to consent so it is non consensual. Non consensual sex is prohibited with adults too.

There may be administrative differences between specific government programs in education and health care, but there is little public opposition to either one.

Education is seen as a right in The States. Everyone gets to (has to) go to school.

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm...

"Even among Republican [economist]s Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject

It is my unsupported opinion given my anecdotal interactions with people that the following quote is the explaining factor of The Economist piece:

'Either way, according to the economists, it would be difficult to do much worse than George Bush. The respondents give Mr Bush a dismal average of 1.7 on our five-point scale for his economic management. Eighty-two per cent thought Mr Bush’s record was bad or very bad; only 1% thought it was very good.

The Democrats were overwhelmingly negative, but nearly every respondent viewed Mr Bush’s record unfavourably. Half of Republican respondents thought Mr Bush deserves only a 2. “The minimum rating of one severely overestimates the quality of Bush’s economic policies,” says one non-aligned economist.'

On that, I whole-heartedly agree with them.

Economists really hate the Bush tax cuts (which McCain now supports making permanent) because they favor the non-working ultra-wealthy.

I haven't seen that argument made. Perhaps you could link to it?

I have seen the tax cuts opposed on economic grounds because of the deficit. I have seen them opposed on philosophical grounds because the author believes the tax code should be even more "progressive". But I haven't seen that argument made based on economic reasoning.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12699486/paul_kru...

Explains why capital gains is largely just a loophole in the tax code exploited by the uber-rich. Also, if you dig around through public data, you find that the top 10% of Americans make about 70% of the income and pay about 70% of the personal taxes. Sounds fair right?

However, the top 1% make about 47% and pay only 39%, meaning the next 9% make about 23% but pay 31%. Is it just at all that the top 1% of America has a lower tax burden than the next 9%? Thank capital gains taxes for that.

I can't find the data, but if you were to break this down even further by 10th of a percent, you'd probably find that even more exaggerated.

By taxing capital gains, you hit the millionaire store-keeper who sold his shop and is now retired living on investments, the startup guys just cashing out, the day-trader who made a mint. In short, the transitional folks. You keep slightly-rich people from becoming super-rich. The really rich don't seem to be encumbered by any one nation's tax laws.

My opinion only. Sorry for butting in. I was hoping you guys would cover this point but I haven't seen it so far in your discussion.

But beyond that vague, general knowledge I certainly don't know much about ways the ultra-wealthy evade taxes. I do know that they didn't have the gaping capital gains loophole until now, and as far as I know they didn't all move to other countries.

I would refer you to prohibition. It seems to me that at some point people will not willingly agree to ten times the taxes for the same amount of representation. Tax evasion is illegal, as we all know. But tax avoidance -- finding loopholes in the law -- is an American tradition. Think I could find as many loopholes with my 10K as somebody else could with their 10 mil? I kind of doubt it.

I note that the income tax was passed in 1913 in the U.S. I think it was really low -- something like 6% on income over 200K. The very next year, the tax was raised to 85% on the wealthy as a way to finance WWI.

Now practically speaking, do you think that all wealthy people actually paid 85% taxes? Just from a intuitive standpoint, doesn't it seem like this would sack the people at the low end of the wealth scale -- those without tax attorneys and multiple streams of revenue and corporate aliases -- not the truly rich, who saw the law coming and already found ways to protect their investments?

I'm not a tax law specialist so I can't comment on specifics. But intuitively it seems like most people would act in their own self-interest. And it seems that the truly rich have many more options than most folks do. So as a general rule of thumb, I would think that at some point you are going to lose money by raising taxes.

Just intuition, mind you. Lots of room for disagreement here.

There's a big difference between loopholes and tax evasion obviously, and the alternative minimum tax largely closes loopholes. (The AMT currently has its own problems, but is a step in the right direction.)

In fact, I seriously doubt the mental state of any intelligent person thinking of voting for McCain.... but then again, that's just my opinion. Not fact.

Obama wants to raise taxes because there is no place to cut a $3 trillion budget. In fact, he wants to add many new expenditures to that budget. Many smart people seem to have gotten caught up in his class-warrior socialist rhetoric, but the truth is we all lose when government punishes the productive sectors of society through taxation.

Subsidies? Every economist I know and most environmentalists are against corn and ethanol subsidies. McCain had the balls to make a stand against them at a debate IN IOWA, a notorious corn state. Obama realizes that handouts win votes, and spinelessly sticks by them.

Healthcare? The big healthcare problem in the United States is cost, not access. See http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/getting_re... . McCain wants to address the cost of healthcare. Obama is all about access. I think Obama is wrong on the issue.

Energy: Obama promises to subsidize various technologies out the wazoo, but we have seen little return from previous billion-dollar efforts.

Your last sentence illustrates the religion-like fervor that has developed around Obama and the intellectual bankruptcy of his movement. I won't be voting for McCain, but I have no illusions that Saunt Obama is going to save the world.

I'm sorry I stated the case against your savior. I hadn't realized that Hacker News had turned into reddit, and that any comment against the one with the Kennedy smile was worthy of downvotes.

I suspect you are being downmodded not for the content of your comments but your condescending and sneering remarks, eg, the "your savior" bit or this - "Saunt Obama".

I suspect anyone sneering at the opposite side ("Caribou Barbie" or "McShame" for e.g) would be downmodded too.

If one must discuss politics on HN (and there are good reasons not to), I would hope the standard of discourse to be much higher than on a political site (or even reddit).

Assuming that people holding opposite an opposite view is intelligent and have good reasons to do is probably a good starting point.

Likewisw for those downmodding you.

"Your savior" (for e,g) smacks of condescension and implicitly tries to paint the author of the comment you were responding to as some kind of cult follower.

My personal opinion (fwiw) is that HN should avoid these political discussions. But then what do I know? I am not a United States citizen and so am much more detached from the elections. Another 10 days and the excitement should die down.

It was unfair of me to attack the motives of Obama supporters. I do get frustrated living in real-world surroundings where there are 40 Obama bumper stickers for every 1 for somebody else, and an online world that is, if anything, more biased.

I would edit out the flippant remarks if I could, but alas, too much time has passed and HN doesn't let me. It is also my personal failing that I am unable to let a political discussion progress without getting involved. It is a further personal failing that I cannot do so while remaining dispassionate, although I have in the past. I may have just been worn down by Obamamania, it following me from the ground in pre-primary New Hampshire to university in San Diego unabated for nearly a solid year.

I also look forward to ten days from now when the excitement dies down, and our representatives in the great tug-of-war over the wealth of society that is democracy has been decided.

Here's the difference, for me, in a nutshell.

Smart Democrats, like Krugman (and Bill Clinton for that matter), can be reasoned with and see the light about things like free trade, and can discuss economic freedoms with regards to their philosophical vision for society. You may not always agree with that vision, but generally if you find someone bright, you can argue with them and get them to consider your point of view, and maybe even change their position. On the other hand, the current Republican party is dominated by Sarah Palin types. They are convinced that God has told them a variety of things, such as evolution is wrong, that we were right to invade Iraq in her case, that torture is ok because we're the good guys, and so on. You can't argue with that kind of mentality - there is no room for it, because it is in no way connected to logic.

It's that anti-reason, anti-science, anti-intellectual, "god told me so" approach to the world that I think is absolutely poisonous.

Really though, can we just 'flag' these sorts of articles and avoid the subject entirely? We'd waste less time doing something unproductive.

And, of course, Warren Buffett is a socialist because he wants to spread the wealth around.

Due to differences in regulation I don't want to see Chinese drug manufactures shipping drugs to the US. I don't mind if US or EU companies manufacture in China but the potential harm from contaminated drugs IMO outweighs the potential cost reductions.

Granted for bulk goods like Lumber, Steel, and Oil it's probably a pure net win.

PS: I find it offensive that Bill Gates has a lower effective tax rate than I do, but I don't see that changing any time soon. I am for an all inclusive flat tax with zero tax breaks of any kind, but I don't see anyone jumping on that bandwagon. AKA you don't treat stock ownership different than home ownership, and there is no cap on Social Security, and there is no charitable giving tax break etc. (Federal, State, and Local tax inclusive.)

Instead of asking America to bail him out like we've bailed out banks, Fred might want to look at his company. I've never actually encountered a more inbred group of incompetents. They, like Microsoft, happened to become lottery winners....and like Microsoft, they will watch themselves slowly lose to more agile organizations. He (and McCain) are completely backwards looking.

I don't believe that running successful business is like winning the lottery. If I did, I wouldn't spend so much time learning about how to form and run startups.

FedEx is a tremendous success story. Created an entire business niche where none existed before. You can either have more of that or less of it. I know where I stand.

Giving more money to companies that are already successful doesn't encourage innovation; it encourages hoarding.

Since when did the entire economic output of the country become ours to decide how to allocate? Did I miss the revolution?

The gist of the question was when the default mode of taxation changed to be for social engineering. That answer, of course, is much more complicated.

The point of the question, of course, is that the tax code is a monstrosity and intellectual abortion and to argue that it's broken, but only in these small areas, is to engage in the same idiocy that created the monster in the first place. To understand "when" -- it's roots and history -- is to understand why bickering over details is specious.