Kakistocracy Rising (updated 10dec2011)

“Fathom the stupidity of a Government that will require every citizen to prove they are insured……but not prove they are a citizen”

George Rebane

Today we are reminded again that there are legally sane people out there among and even ruling us who believe that doing the same stupid thing which caused their problems in the first place are worth doing over again in order to solve them.  Both New York and California are vying for the ‘Economics Idiot of the Century’ award by attempting to cure their economies and budgetary ills in one swell foop by raising taxes on their residents.  Given that both states are union ruled, any serious economic reform is out of the question.

And, of course, the advertised source of the new tax revenues is those ever evil ‘rich’ who already pay the lion’s share of the states’ taxes, and whose unreliable income streams and ready defections to more suitable tax climates have left New York and California high and dry.  California especially is hurting because our dumbed down electorate is already way beyond the Peter/Paul Principle tipping point.  And Moonbeam knows this as he prepares the state’s tax increase to be voted on by the Golden State’s gimmes.  It’s a lead pipe cinch that the initiative will pass because it will be promoted as part of the national ‘fair share’ and new progressive taxes campaign that 0bama has been preaching from the pulpit.  (More details on these dual tragedies here)

Speaking of President 0bama, the man again made it official yesterday in Kansas when he clearly touted his “progressive administration” as the saving grace of the nation.  For the last several years on this and other blogs we’ve noted that our neighbors on the Left continue to accuse those using ‘progressive’, 'liberal', and ‘socialist’ to label their political behavior as launching ad hominem attacks using dirty words.  It is hard to tell where one should restart their educational process.  No attempts on these pages have made any impact.

Kakistocracy?  That’s a delightfully useful word that means “government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.”  When it comes to pursuing ignorant and unproductive policies, it’s hard to think of a worse dynamic trio than 0bama, Cuomo, and Moonbeam leading their jurisdictions to ruin.  (BTW, 0bama is spelled with a zero isn’t it?)

[8dec2011 update]  The Jon Corzine farce is playing out on its own.  As he stands in front of Congressional committees attempting to deflect the blame for MF Global’s collapse and the mysterious disappearance of $1.2B of investors’ money, he displays himself as a man of comprehensive incompetence in both his political and professional lives.  He is detached from the goings on of operations in which he should have had both hands on the wheel.  The man made his bones by dodging and weaving and being endorsed by other significant know-nothings into positions that allowed him to assure his ascendancy by writing big checks to politicians in power.  But all that is neither here nor there.

To continue the theme of this post, we have to recall the kinds of people our experience-free President has surrounded himself with.  The point in fact is that Jon Corzine was another example of candidates for top jobs.  Corzine and Geithner were both on the SecTreas shortlist.  Given Geithner’s record, I’m not sure that Corzine would have done worse.

[10dec2011 update]  Another semanticist and RR reader included this contribution to the present theme.

Finally, a way to describe Obama and his voters.

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Comments

[Greg Goodknight]

I believe it is Karl Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies" that most eloquenstly advanced the idea that any system that depends on the right people in the right jobs is doomed to failure, and a better organizing principle for society is one that minimizes the damage the wrong person in the job could do. An anti-kakistocracy, if you will.

[George Rebane]

Good point GregG. And recognizing human frailties, I thought an anti-kakistocracy is also the form of government that our Founders attempted to give us. Instead, the bastards always evolve governments so they become secure kakistocracies.

[Greg Goodknight]

I kant spel today, 'eloquently' is usually within grasp.

If anyone was wondering, I had 10 hours of driving yesterday. Blog reading and comments are hard to do when also trying to drive. Didn't even consider it. :)

[Todd Juvinall]

I was enmeshed in a fiasco the state of California foisted on our County in the late 80's regarding the landfill on McCourtney Rad. We had a March of 30 days of continuous rain and it ended up causing a leak in the place. The neighbors reported it and the county proceeded to try and fix it. The state decided they would make our little county their poster child for all the new rules on landfills and forced us to spend about 23 million on their fix. They fined us and spanked us and all the while we said, "but ait" you inspected everything every year and signed it ff! They said tough shit, we are the power. Anyway, rather than working with us to repair they took the money and force it to be spent on what they wanted it to be spent on and it wasn't the landfill. Soon after the State created the Integrated Waste Management Board and used our little county as the reason the State would force a 100 billion dollar solution on the rest of California. I saw this up close and personal. Anyway, to Arnie's credit he dissolved that Board of pinheads before he left. The State bureaucracy is more powerful than elected officials. That is what came out of that as well.

[RL Crabb]

The landfill was a disaster waiting to happen. Anyone with two eyes could see it. If the state ignored it as well as the county, bad on both of them. I talked to someone who interviewed residents who lived "downwind" of where the leakage was worst. She told me she was shocked by the number of cancer cases in those families. (And by the way, I took Todd's predecessor to task for ignoring the problem.)

[Michael Anderson]

But RL, what's wrong with building a landfill on top of a mountain? The views are spectacular!

[Russ Steele]

Rl,

There was a known seasonal spring in one of the gullies that the county decided to fill with garbage. When the we had a month of rain, the spring flowed through the garbage creating a mess. This was a case of mismanagement, If they had continued the fill on the high ground it would not have been a problem. However, that said, as the county population grew, there was nerve enough space for all the garbage. A transfer station was the right solution.

[Steve Frisch]

Sure wouldn't want none of the damn regulators telling you that!

[RL Crabb]

When the county proposed passing the cost of the clean-up to ratepayers, I did a cartoon suggesting that it would be cheaper to box up your garbage and UPS it to the Rood Center. Don't know if anyone actually did it.

And yeah, Michael, our dump does have some great views. Sometime in the nineties, someone did a contest to find the dump with the best views. I was disappointed that we didn't make the cut. (Some place in the Colorado Rockies won.) I do remember that the dump in Bonner County, Idaho was pretty spectacular. When we visited my Grandparents there in the sixties, the highlight of the trip was going out there around sundown to watch the big bears tear the garbage apart.

[bill tozer]

I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed, but if extending the temporary payroll tax cut again is so vital to the middle class and working poor and the recovery, then why not cut more taxes? Seems more would be better if one follows the critical importance Obama puts this tax cut. The other think I thunk about is California and New York and public service unions. I thunk they don't care where the money comes from as long as the wheels are greased and lubed quite liberally. State after state is realizing that they can not pay their unfunded pension liabilities for their dedicated public employees. The unions don't want cuts or even a few dimes tossed in by the public servants to contribute to their health and retirement bennies. They implore and threaten the governors to find the money somewhere, anywhere and tax the snot out of larger private sector to to keep the gravy train running on time. Don't see how increasing the sales tax with help those struggling to put gas in the car to get to work or buy things that create more sales tax revenue. Think Obama had it right. Keep cutting the payroll tax to help the little guy so he can keep macaroni and cheese on the table.

[bill tozer]

Dr. Rebane, Obama made it official many times he was runnin' for the highest office. He never stopped running so dates don't matter. He said on more than one occasion "What the corporations won't do, what the individual can't do, the government will do." Never realized that the rugged individual is so inept. Guess its time to play taps for the rugged individual wrapped in his Don't Tread on Me flag. I don't think all the evil rich are evil. Heck, they are some of the funnest and nicest people around. Like I always reupholster the seats on my jet every year with a different theme as I fly my friends to the Super Bowl. What is so mean or evil about that?? I don't charge them a penny. And people call me evil? Geez. I know what hard times are. Once I had to hock my Rolex when I first left home and the little lady almost divorced me awhile back when I tried to cut the 3 maids down to two. Hard times, but I still don't think I am evil. Neither do my house boys.

[George Rebane]

Good points to ponder SteveF. So we have managed to create a state of affairs where corporations are leaving the state, few new ones want to come here, and many of the ones still here follow our labyrinth tax codes and pay little into California's coffers. How did this come about? More importantly, how do we get out of it?

[Steve Frisch]

Well, I think its obvious, and I have been saying it for years, we need real, fair tax reform.

I think that if every corporation paid its fair share, everyone might be able to get a lower rate.

But ultimately the problem in California is that we are too dependent on personal, corporate and sales tax, and not dependent enough on property tax, which is much less volatile, particularly property tax on commercial property, which is now about three times lower than it was in in 1978 when adjusted for inflation.

[Todd Juvinall]

Anyone remember the High Tech bubble? The State was in the black for a couple of years when the dot.com business was booming and the Super Bowl was mostly their outlets for advertising. I recall that the Governor said we better not rely on all the taxes from just a few sources but the libs in charge of the legislature did nothing of course. Then the bottom fell out and we went into deficit bigtime. Same at the federal level. Small numbers pay the rest don't.

Regarding property tax. I think the tax is and always has been crap. When does a person ever own their own propriety? Never, because if you can't pay you will lose it to a government sale. I say get rid of the property tax and rely on sales tax and of course others like gasoline etc. If a community wants a better fire department, they can pay extra. Property taxes are the governments way to get our money easily because the property ain't goin anywhere.

[George Rebane]

Corporations don't pay taxes, their customers do. The end consumer pays double taxes - on his income, and the corporations' on the goods/services he buys. Corporations consider tax as an expense (in its cashflow it's called 'tax expense'), and when the corporation cannot raise prices sufficiently to provide the profit required for the risk it undertakes, then it stops that operation or folds its tent. It never pays imprudent taxes.

Charging and politicizing corporate taxes is an accounting bamboozle foisted by the usual kleptocrats so as to mollify the ever ignorant with seemingly lower taxes. And, of course, the class warfare cadets love it for all the talking points it supplies them.

[Greg Goodknight]

What does "three times lower" mean?

Intel makes chips, just not in Silicon Valley anymore (silicon is long gone from Silicon Valley) and that takes massive investment in equipment. This generates write off's. Apple makes money by selling phones made in China and music made everywhere to play on the phones and pods. This doesn't take massive investment in equipment and so they pay higher tax rates than Intel. Both of these companies do huge amounts of business, their investors make money that they pay taxes on, their employees are paid good salaries that they pay taxes with, and, in the case of Intel, the companies that make the equipment they buy also pay taxes, as do their investors and employees.

Corporations are merely convenient places for the state and Federal governments to skim money from, a concept mobsters in Vegas understood well. Every dollar earned by a corporation gets taxed at some point, as it's income to the owners according to their share of the company.

Sorry Steve, but increasing state corporate taxes will just cause them to work harder to avoid the taxes, and avoid California. Sacramento hasn't even begun to make the cuts necessary to avoid the equivalent of bankruptcy and even the entire market cap of Intel isn't enough to paper over those numbers.

[Barry Pruett]

Thank you George. I was just going to point out that corporations do not pay taxes. If corporations pay any tax, they forward the expense on to the consumer. For example, a one percent surtax on all oil company revenue will inevitably cause a one percent increase in the cost of gasoline for us. Further, I would point out that any taxation on gasoline is a regressive tax in that it disproportionately effects people with less disposable income as a greater percentage of their income goes toward transportation than someone who is wealthy.

[Steve Frisch]

Greg, "by three times less", I mean that according to the California Department of Finance, adjusted for inflation, commercial properties now pay one third as much in property tax as they did before 1978.

[Greg Goodknight]

That was my guess SF but it was so innumerate of you I couldn't let it go by. Gibberish.

[Steve Frisch]

How nice Greg, I respond with no edge; you name call. Typical.

[Greg Goodknight]

That wasn't a name call, Steve. It was innumerate of you when you wrote it, incorrect of you when you misquoted your own words (you wrote "three times lower" at 11:08PM, not "by three times less"), and you didn't directly answer the question I posed. You still didn't even seem to be aware it was gibberish.

Given your proven propensity to toss out ugly insults for less, your expectations here seem curiously misplaced.

[Douglas Keachie]

I wonder how many of the 3,000 FaceB employees who are about to be knighted with the Sword Buffet-Gates as new millionaires plus will attribute their success at that level to to hard work and being smarter than everybody else, and how many will put at least 50% of it on plain damn luck. Spoken as one who worked his ass off for three separate hitech companies in the early 1980's, only to have the rug pulled violently and unexpectedly as they went bankrupt over night, and in one case, everything's fine in the morning, to "last one to the bank won't find any money in their paycheck" by afternoon. Plain dumb luck, I was so poor I had a 10 speed on the premises, and got there first.

[Account Deleted]

Doug's post speaks volumes. Doug, why do you even care about the FBook employees? Can't you feel happy for them, instead of lowering yourself to a hateful and dark rant about poor Dougie who worked so hard to be a rich person and failed? Being rich is evil, so why would you want that? You lefties are a flaming joke. Your politics are nothing more than an extension of your own failures. "I didn't get what I wanted and I'm pissed". Hey, I didn't get a big bonanza either, but I got what I really wanted and that's a loving wife and family. Business and govt have nothing to do with it. Big gov't is not going to get you the "payback" you obsess with - just get over it and grow up.