Powered by glolg
Display Preferences Most Recent Entries Chatterbox Blog Links Site Statistics Category Tags About Me, Myself and Gilbert XML RSS Feed
Saturday, Nov 19, 2011 - 22:31 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

999-RIP-OFF

"There is no God and Dirac is his Prophet."
- Wolfgang Pauli being witty


Got handed a paper submission deadline, which is for once a Good Thing. If nothing else, it's a fine distraction from the spam email our dear Cult Leader Mr. Ham has been sending from Hamerica, urging membership without delay. He has been cranking up the persuasiveness, gloating that his Cult, as opposed to Proper Religions, can't get undercut by foreign competition (if you thought that globalization spares the spiritual, think again), nor be subject to buyouts.

Meanwhile over in America (which, it should be clarified, has nothing to do with Hamerica), the Republican rollercoaster is well off and running. Fearful that sanity would make a comeback after their Russia-seeing, all-dancing, God-fearin' all-American Alaskan wonder pulled out of contention, they leaped en masse to former pizza tycoon Herman Cain (and a like-for-like replacement, just for the heck of it)

The sad thing is, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with many Republican positions, but they have somehow consistently managed to become a caricature of themselves. I can take the Standard Profession Of Faith When In Hot Water™ - in this, he is simply emulating his predecessor, who might have been more convincing had he the conviction to set himself on fire as per proper observance. Either way, it looks likely that patriotism is now at best the second-last refuge of a scoundrel.

Getting down to it, even the sexual misconduct charges aren't that big a deal in practice (if the member in question is big enough - apparently this one wasn't). Recall Bill Clinton not having sexual relations with that woman, and his approval ratings concurrently not wavering to any significant extent? This is an area in which Republicans and Democrats have historically been happily bipartisan (though the Repubs seem more predisposed to bat for the other side), and it is probably no coincidence that America is ruled by Congress.

No, if Mr. Cain could save the American (and by extension, the world) economy, he can shack up with Hefner and hock off the White House website for all it's worth. The thing is, his main idea seems to be a 9-9-9 tax plan (one can almost hear the accompanying pizza jingle). It has been lauded for its simplicity - take 9% on business transactions, 9% of personal income, and 9% sales tax (sort-of-like GST). No more poring over reams of tax codes that only the rich 1% with their high-priced lawyers and accountants can find loopholes from!

And oh, these bothersome taxes will disappear:
...

Perhaps Cain is smarter than he seems (he did get a Masters in computer science after all). While his peers were getting bad press for deadlocking the national budget, Cain shoved existing parts into a shiny overpriced package, then stuck a catchy name on top before going to town with the product. More evidence that he has a CS background, quite apart from the fact that the idea first arose in SimCity 4.


It sounds cool! Why in the world should you care if it
costs twice as much and can't be customized?


Seasoned online commentators were quick to point out that if it walks like Republican tax philosophy, it probably is Republican tax philosophy, i.e. cut taxes (on the rich), whatever it talks like, with one professor pointing out that it's basically a 9+9+9=27% tax, which moreover falls disproportionately on the poor (99%?), then suggests that a 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3 plan may sound even nicer.

There is little disagreement in the basic analysis - the 9% corporate tax would effectively be a tax cut for most businesses, while the flat 9% income tax would be a massive tax cut for the richest (who do get paychecks) and a corresponding increase for the poorest (those of them who are still employed). The 9% sales tax, being consumption-based and thus mostly unavoidable, further increases the burden on the poor. Meanwhile, capital gains and estate taxes, which hit the wealthiest hardest, disappear entirely.

And the budget wouldn't even be balanced after all that.

One might hope that Republicans finally wake up to the realization that taxes are already at a historical low, and commit to a sensible program of actually raising taxes together with spending cuts (not in their home states/to their preferred industries, of course), but no, Mister 9-9-9-Cut-Taxes-For-The-Rich is still in the lead, after throwing a belated bone to the down-and-out.

The GOP comedy isn't at an end yet, hard as it may be to believe. Rival contender for the Presidential nomination Michele Bachmann took the opportunity to speak in the language of her constituents, alleging that the 999 plan could be the work of the devil, because when the numbers are turned upside down, you know... Well, it has to be said that organized religion and regressive taxation make an especially distressing combination (which reminds me, if Cain does get outed, he may find soulmates in Europe).

None of them have made the obvious accusation that Cain would be (financially) murdering his less-fortunate brothers with his tax plan (yet). Myself, I'm unsure whether it's out of professional courtesy, or they're just waiting for the right time, or if it's their party manifesto to begin with.


Mr. Ham (showing typical Hamerican fiscal prudence) (0/1000 seeds): Wolverhampton to beat Everton (at 5.30)

FAKEBERT (944/1000 seeds): 50 seeds on Manchester City to draw Newcastle (at 4.60) and 50 seeds on Stoke City to draw QPR (at 3.55)



comments (0) - email - share - print - direct link
trackbacks (0) - trackback url


Next: Over


Related Posts:
More Dimsum
Birth of Queens (Part One)
Teeny Bit Taxing
The Issue Issue
Hampsters!
Back to top

Copyright © 2006-2025 GLYS. All Rights Reserved.