Economics from a people first point-of-view
June 19th, 2011 — Economics and Investing
Many years ago I decided to go to Athens and Crete. Why? Because in my textbook for art history (Janson) there was what was clearly a toilet and a bathtub at the ruins at Knossos on Crete. In fact, that 3,000 year old town even had a sewage system!
Back entrance to Knossos, Crete
Odd, I reflected, that people in 19th century London threw their “slops” out the windows, and that even my parents grew up with an outhouse. Greece must be terribly civilized I thought. Continue reading →
May 16th, 2011 — Taxes
Like Greece, the US is currently facing the issue of “who will pay” for our sovereign debt crisis. So far, I haven’t come across the suggestion to put the capital gains tax on the table. Here are three reasons I feel capital gains taxes should be increased right now to be at parity with ordinary income taxes.
The stock market is not the only wealth-building game in town, but through IRS tax breaks, it has become the biggest one! In addition to individual investors, the stock market also serves institutional investors such as mutual funds, banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, and pension funds. These are the institutions that benefited most from the taxpayer funds spent on the bailouts and the stimulus during the recent financial crisis. Those who are better off financially in this country have the most to be thankful for. Their comfort would have diminished greatly if these big institutions hadn’t been saved! Continue reading →
May 4th, 2011 — Government
At the end of the last century, Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad book series and cash-flow games, declared that the Age of Manufacturing is dead; we are now in the Age of Information. Recently he was interviewed in a video, “Industrial Age vs. Information Age” posted on the Web.
Looking at the emphasis in the media about job creation in the manufacturing sector, you’d never know it was the Age of Information. And looking at the US government, you’d never even dream it was the Age of Information.
If you were asked if the we have a Bureau of Information in the US, you’d probably think about it and say, well, isn’t that what Homeland Security is about? Its budget has risen dramatically since its inception ten years ago. But this secret data collection on behalf of our national security is not the kind of information I’m talking about.
There are other kinds of information that are desperately needed by both the government and the public. Government and public Information is not a luxury. We need other databases for issues that are just as important to our economic welfare and survival as those national security databases we spend so much money on.