Whoopi Goldberg gets it (link requires subscription) on the death tax:
During a discussion of Republican Presidential candidates on ABC’s “The View,” which the comedian co-hosts, Ms. Goldberg said, “I’d like somebody to get rid of the death tax. That’s what I want. I don’t want to get taxed just because I died.” The studio audience started applauding, but she wasn’t done. “I just don’t think it’s right,” she continued. “If I give something to my kid, I already paid the tax. Why should I have to pay it again because I died?”
….. When another co-host, Joy Behar, responded to Ms. Goldberg’s remarks by asserting, “Only people with a lot of money say that,” Ms. Goldberg shot back, “No, I don’t think so . . . It doesn’t matter if you have or don’t have money. Once you paid your taxes, it should be a done deal. You shouldn’t have to pay twice.”
As the Journal says, “Death as a taxable event and double taxation offend the average American’s sense of fairness.”
Larry Kudlow is so impressed he has invited her onto his CNBC show.
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I’ve noted how de-industrialization is a myth. Unfortunately, according to this subscription-only Wall Street Journal editorial, what I would call “de-financialization” isn’t:
In the past year, that problem has only grown worse.
….. First, the delisting of foreign companies from U.S. markets leapt this year — to 56 so far, up from 30 in 2006 and 12 a decade ago. Those 56 represented 12.4% of all listed foreign companies. In part, the jump is the result of an SEC rule change that lowered the bar for delisting. But don’t take comfort in that. “Pent-up demand” to delist is still demand. Companies that maintain their listings only because they can’t escape the SEC hardly signal confidence in U.S. markets.
A second trend is the increasing number of U.S. companies going public outside the U.S. Between 1996 and 2001, a mere three American companies went public by listing only on a foreign exchange. In the first three quarters of this year, 15 firms made the same choice. That’s 9.2% of all U.S. initial public offerings in that period. Given the natural affinities to listing in one’s home market, this exodus is remarkable.
It’s also alarming to the extent it reflects more serious underlying problems. And as the report notes, regulatory burdens — especially post-Sarbanes-Oxley — and litigation costs are driving companies out of our publicly traded markets.
….. since 2002 four out of five foreign companies that chose to raise capital in the U.S. through an IPO did so outside publicly traded exchanges. Instead they used what’s known as the far more restricted Rule 144a offering. Ten years ago, more than half of these “Global IPOs” that came to the U.S. for part of their offering listed on a public exchange. But companies that go the Rule 144a route can only sell their shares to “qualified” investors, and thus those companies are not subject to Sarbox, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 or to strict liability in shareholder suits.
To put it another way, 80% of the foreign companies that do raise capital in the U.S. do so outside of the reach of most of the laws that are supposed to protect investors.
….. This isn’t a partisan issue, or at least it shouldn’t be.
But it will be, as long as the party of the current congressional majority and its presidential candidates think that flogging Enron will get them votes. Truth be told, Enron was at least a much of a Democrat-aided debacle as it was a Republican one.
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The “big confidence game” known as Paygo is hopefully Paygone, with 2008 campaign implications:
Last week Congressional Democrats formally renounced their ballyhooed budget pledge to offset any new tax cuts with other tax increases or spending cuts. We’re delighted to see this false promise go, but there’s a larger lesson in this failure for the tax and spending battles of 2008.
Senate Democrats gave up on “paygo,” as it’s called, when they realized they lacked the votes to offset the $50.6 billion cost of protecting more than 20 million middle-class taxpayers from getting whacked by the Alternative Minimum Tax this year. They’ve spent the year floating all kinds of tax increases to make up the difference. But in the end they passed an AMT relief bill without a penny to pay for it. Paygo is now pay gone.
….. The larger relevance of this episode concerns the 2008 campaign. Hillary Clinton in particular has made paygo a major campaign theme because it makes her sound like a fiscal conservative while helping to justify tax increases. But, lo, guess who was missing on Thursday when the Senate voted 88-5 to ignore paygo on the AMT? None other than the candidate herself, along with Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and Barack Obama. To quote another Saturday Night Live character, “How convenient.”
Among other things, Paygo is/was an attempt to repudiate the reality that when taxes are lowered, revenues to the Treasury at a minimum don’t go down by as much as expected, and often, as has been the case during the past four years, go up because of increase economic activity. It can’t be Paygone soon enough.
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I-what? What is that? –
….. the (TV) networks’ zeal for reporting on Iraq has declined as the violence and casualties have declined in the war-torn country in recent months.
“We had a 178 network stories in September, which fell to 68 in November — which simply means, yes, things are doing well,” says (Media Research Center’s Tim) Graham. He says at ABC, NBC, and CBS, apparently “good news is no news.”
“The news media sort of had a relish for the bad news,” he continues. “It really enjoyed reporting bad stories and sort of trying to destroy the whole idea that the war in Iraq was ever a good thing — and when it starts to look like maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, then it suddenly just drops out.”
I expect near-invisibility in not too long.
