Taxes and Economics

You know, it’s really fulfilling to do your own taxes.  Of course I don’t think we should have to do taxes.  The government should find easier ways of confiscating our money. 

You know, it’s really exciting to be getting an income tax return.  Of course if the IRS hadn’t taken our money in the first place, we would have it already. 

You know, it’s really inspiring to do your own taxes.  Of course I think the government shouldn’t make any rules too complicated for its average citizen to carry out.  A lot of people use accountants.  I wish the IRS would put them out of business… by closing itself. 

I like understanding accounting lingo and legal jargon put into tax forms and instructions.  I find myself wondering as I scroll through pages of information irrelevant to me, “Who writes these?  What kind of life do they have?” 

GK Chesterton said he likes whole jobs: one person creates a finished item from scratch.  Taxes are like that for me, in a perverse sort of way. 

A lot of bloggers are talking about economics right now, and how easy it is to see that our economy is doomed.  Social security is doomed.  The housing market is doomed.  The stock market is doomed.  All these are likely temporary, but easy to see.  Take social security.  A few people put in money, filter it through bureaucracy and leave in in the hands of politicians for decades.  The politicians, however, do not leave it in their hands, but spend it.  When the people retire, the government tries to fulfill their promise of returning the money, but it hasn’t increased.  It has decreased through demand, inefficiency, inflation, and not being in any account in the first place.  This does not seem like a great plan. 

And this has to be evident to the smart insiders running the system.  So I ask myself, with all these simple, obvious economic truths, why would these insiders continue to promote these follies?  How did we get here?  What’s in it for the insider powers-that-be?  You have to wonder, even if you’re paranoid of becoming a conspiracy theorist. 

Don’t even get me started on the incompetent, selfish, slave-master corporations (if I who am not anything near a Marxist or socialist can talk like that, no wonder socialists and Marxists are so destructive!). 

That’s what I’ve been thinking today. 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Economics, Investment, Inflation, and Debt

My brother and I were talking the other night and I had an insight (being only informally trained in economics – I could have been taught it if I’d just taken a class).  But I don’t know if there’s a name for it.  So I’m asking. 
 
I heard an ad for investing in gold.  The price per ounce has gone up a lot in the past couple years, and is understandably predicted to continue to rise.  Right now I think the commercial said the going price is $700 an ounce.  But while I might have $700 free cash to invest waiting for the gold to increase in value, I’m not allowed to buy gold one ounce at a time.  So there is a minumum amount of money I have to have before I can participate in investment.  Buying a home is very similar.  Debt makes money more available in larger amounts (paid back in smaller increments), thus raising the minimum line. 
 
Bartering went out of fashion because having one cow didn’t work as a trade for one spear, since the cow was really worth say, 300 spears.  So we have capital, money, to be the fluid in between and prevent us needing a minimum number of available cows to trade in order to participate.  Capitalism, therefore, should have fixed the minimum line problem. 
 
But then we add inflation (caused by debt on a national level), which depriciates the money someone below the minimum line has, so that they are, rather than gaining worth by saving money, actually losing ground.  They must continue going to work (as an employee, most often) just to get enough money to survive – if that.  And there’s no way out.  This is the modern equivalent to serfs, or the slave class. 

Marx saw this, I assume (never read Marx myself), but his solution doesn’t solve anything.  It emphasizes inflation and simultaneously erases any home of overcoming it through investment.  Marxism is like bailing water from a still-sinking boat. 
 
So what’s it called, the minimum line to participate in investment that would protect your income? 

And what should we do?  
 
To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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