Archive for July, 2011

Brett Noel

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Herman Cain

Paying taxes is a fact of life, because there are certain things that our federal government must provide as enumerated in the Constitution. But paying taxes does not have to be unfair, burdensome and costly. Our current system of taxation is all three, and it got that way little by little over time since 1913.

The Fair Tax (H.R. 25) is a fairer tax because it is just the opposite. It is fair because the consumer determines their taxes based on their purchase behavior instead of being determined by the government based on one’s capacity to produce. Our production is measured in terms of personal income and business profits.

The Fair Tax is a one-time one-point national sales tax on new goods and services. It is not collected on wholesale purchases, but rather, it is collected on retail purchases when the consumer consumes, and not when the consumer or business produces. This is totally consistent with Economic Guiding Principle #1 as described in Cain’s Economic Vision Part 1.

The Fair Tax is also fair because everybody pays the same consumption rate of 23 percent. Liberals hate that concept because it does not give them a tool to redistribute the income of others as with the current tax code. The rate is revenue-neutral and replaces all federal income and payroll taxes.

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Lucia de Vernai

Proving that even tabloids can reach lows of indecency, British paper News of the World stands accused of bribing police and hacking the phones of murder and terror victims, fallen soldiers, politicians and celebrities in pursuit of a story.

British police started an investigation into the paper’s practices in January, and have since identified names of nearly 4,000 victims. Among those are the newly minted Duchess of Cambridge and Mick Jagger. Yet it was the recent revelation that the names of a murdered child and families of fallen troops were on that list that seemed to have tipped the scales toward action.

Well, sort of. James Murdoch, son of Rupert and chairman of International News, which owns several major British papers, has vowed to close the newspaper down by the end of the week. He called the alleged tactics of his paper “deplorable and unacceptable” and promised to donate the last edition’s proceeds to charitable causes. A flamboyant (if not suspiciously quick) gesture, but let’s not get too sentimental. The News of the World was the highest selling newspaper in Britain, and the company is not likely to give up on the dough.

It will either soon launch another Sunday paper with nearly-identical layout and theme, or start publishing The Sun – the sister tabloid that New International also owns – seven days a week. A little mea culpa, a little cooperation with the authorities (the company says it is “close to identifying” how its employees hacked a murdered girl’s phone) and business will go on as usual sooner than later.

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Brett Noel

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Dan Calabrese

The Michigan Legislature did good work last week in banning a very dangerous new “recreational” drug that is known on the street as “bath salts.”

Of course, as drug legalization advocates will surely argue, the ban will not stop people from hurting or killing themselves with this garbage. But at least it gives law enforcement something to work with, and at least the news of the ban many alert some people as to the dangers of what they’re doing – not that people who are so deeply steeped in the drug culture tend to think logically or consider worthwhile information.

The so-called bath salts are called that only because they look like the genuine article. In fact, they are made from a combination of synthetic chemicals. Often ordered online, the drug has proven to be a powerful and, in at least one case, deadly hallucinogen. In the past six months alone, 65 people have been hospitalized in Michigan after using the drug.

Until the Legislature acted, you could actually buy this stuff in gas stations and convenience stores.

And get this: Just about all of them were freaking out and reporting that either demons or foreign soldiers were chasing them. You know what we Pentecostals call it when everyone is having the same hallucination? Well, it might not be a hallucination at all. But that’s a subject for another column.

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Herman Cain

The Labor Department has reported that the unemployment rate is still stuck at 9.1 percent, which is one more indicator that this economy is still stuck in stalled. That may be a surprise to the administration, but it is not a surprise to those of us who understand that the business sector is the engine of economic growth.

Consistent with the economic guiding principles (EGPs) introduced in last week’s commentary, the following fuel for the engine of the economy makes sense.

EGP #1:  Production must precede consumption

Pass a 25 percent maximum tax on corporate profits and personal income. We are the only nation on the planet that has not lowered its top corporate tax rate in the last 15 years. As a result, we are not as business-friendly as many other nations, and people wonder why jobs are leaving this country. Duh, taxes!

The 25 percent max tax on personal income will help fuel our economic engine because most medium-to-small businesses are sub-Chapter S corporations, which means that if they make a profit in their business it is considered ordinary income. Those profits would be taxed at a maximum of 35 percent, which reduces fuel for the economic engine.

I also propose not taxing foreign repatriated profits. Let those profits come back home without a tax penalty. Some of those profits just might end up in our economic engine right here at home. If we don’t drop the tax on repatriated profits, they won’t come home. Zero tax on repatriated profits is the easiest win-win tax ever. It’s a no-brainer!

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Lucia de Vernai

Bernie Madoff, he of the 11 counts of fraud and billions of dollars in losses in a Ponzi scheme, isn’t wasting a day of his 150-year prison sentence by speaking out against the unfairness of his sentence. Yup, the guy who stole billions of dollars has some fresh ideas about what is wrong with the justice system, starting with Danny Chin, the judge who considered—and refused—a shorter sentence.

First of all, shouldn’t this guy be too tired from making some license plates to open his lying, life-ruining mouth?  He’s 73 years old and never appealed Chin’s sentence, but Bernie Madoff, who sees himself as a “human piñata,” calls Chin “anything but fair, with zero understanding of the industry.” This implies, of course, that if he did understand the industry, he would clearly see that defrauding clients of billions over 20 years is really not that big a deal. Solid logic there, sir.

Madoff would like to remind us mere mortals, who do not and never will understand the industry, that he never put the money in the stock market and is not responsible for the recession (“Remember,” he stated, “they caused the recession, not me”). Rather, he thinks the sentence he received was extreme because the legal system needed to make an example of somebody and he was the perfect candidate.

I’d play my tiny violin right about now, but I had to pawn it to pay off my second mortgage. Which brings us back to the human piñata. The audacity of this man to complain about his sentence—at 73, anything over 25 years is really a life sentence—and then call the judge inadequate is hardly symbolic of Madoff’s self-proclaimed “remorse and shame for what (he had) done.” Out of curiosity, when you devote decades to consciously and intentionally robbing people of their life’s savings, pensions and retirements, what cost benefit analysis goes through your head? “Let’s see here… if I get caught—and that’s a big if—they’re probably going to make me give a few bil back, I’ll do the mea-culpa dog-and-pony show and they’ll maybe give me six months on each of four charges. I’ll take my chances!”

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