Estate taxes

There has been a lot of talk lately on the federal level and here in Ohio about estate taxes. Those on the right propose eliminating or drastically reducing them, those on the left prefer the status quo.Two arguments arguing against the elimination got me thinking,one called it the fairest tax and the other worried about governmental budgets. Supposedly it is the fairest tax because it only affects the richest among us.

Fair is an interesting concept is it fair if the reward for hard work is getting to pay for everything while the person who didn't achieve pays nothing. Some will say that the inheritor didn't work for this money therefore this money is fair game. This doesn't really address the motivation of the estate builder who is working to take care of his or her family. Many times the wealth of a person is not held in liquid assets but in the buildings and tools of wealth building. When a person inherits a large family farm or business it often entails selling the business or taking on debt to pay the tax man.

Governmental budgets that can't be met are another issue all together. Budgets grow during good times and then we hear during the hard times how we can't do with out this program or entitlement. In the real world we don't just get to say I need a raise I've got to many bills.

When people start to tell you something is fair ask your self is it truly fair to everyone or just the person saying it's fair.

Christmas morn

Predawn quietude
Glow of lights and winter snow
Calm serenity

Merry Christmas

Christmas eve

Christmas eve is here
The waiting is almost done
So joy to the world

Lunch

President Obama signed the hunger free child act this week setting standards for food quality and allocating money to increase the number of children getting free or reduced cost lunches. One would think there could be no disputing the benefits of such a bill. My question is how much government intervention do we need. When did it become such a burden to feed our own children?The school lunch programs aren't aimed solely at the poorest of the poor in 2009 31.3 million children received free or reduced cost lunches. This is a totally absured waste of tax payers money. When did it become my responsibility to feed someone else child and the governments job to decide what they eat. When I was a child I'm sure my family probably could have applied for the school lunch program and received it because there were so many of us nine all total. We didn't need it though prioritizing and economizing allowed my parents to feed their own children. Sure we ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly and baloney but we did O.K. I'm not for starving children but isn't there a better way than having Washington poke their noses into family finances and dynamics. Wouldn't a little observation and intervention on the local level be a better recourse.

Fundamental misunderstanding

This week everyone is weighing in on the compromise between President Obama and the Republicans. Sherrod Brown senator from Ohio was disappointed with the compromise feeling it gives to much to the rich. He said it was pretty bad when republicans had to be given tax cuts for the rich so that we could give unemployment to the middle class.

Fundamentally Dems and Reps look at government differently thats why this debate keeps coming up. Dems believe the government has money to give and Reps believe the government has to take money to have money. You see the tax cuts are not really cuts they are a vote against a massive tax increase. Unemployment compensation can not be given by the government it is money that must be taken from someone else and given to the unemployed.

The true nature of money is obscured by the notion that it comes from the government. I know the gold standard is no longer doable but people had a better understanding of what money is and where it comes from under that system.

Bad news

During October unemployment fell slightly to about 9.6% this was mostly due to retailers ramping up for Christmas. Novembers unemployment numbers are out and it rose to 9.8%. An article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer pointed out a major reason to be concerned long term. According to Alan Parkhill of Banner American products productivity is up and it's making companies realize that the integral employee that was laid off during the recession was dead weight all along. If this is true and even half of the people that were laid off were truly dead weight then the prospect of years of high unemployment are the new reality. Bad news indeed.

Thanksgiving day

It's Thanksgiving day
So grateful am I today
Let me not forget