Why Comparing Taxes is Futile

 

Some Canadians have the idea that we pay way too much in taxes, especially compared to Americans. Don't buy that nonsense. They're comparing apples to watermelons - big, huge, watermelons.

Taxes, you see, are only part of the story. They don't take into account debts deferred - for now. It's America's unfunded liabilities that skew the comparison.

Unfunded debt comes in at a whopping $132.6 trillion. Each taxpayer's share totals $885,000.

You can review the latest financial state of the union report here. 

Some day, of course, the day of reckoning must come. You can't simply print $132 trillion and dump it into the world economy. Yet, like an over-inflated party balloon, every year it grows impossibly bigger.



Comments

  1. TrailblazerMay 16, 2021 at 4:59 PM

    Capitalism as we know it is creaking at it's seams.
    Nothing makes sense anymore.
    Gut reaction amongst many is to go the opposite direction, communism, but that direction has also failed or been destroyed other than the Chinese model of benevolent dictatorship of one party, one leader!
    We are in an era of mass socialism be it for the masses or big business.
    I have to wonder just how many businesses surviving on covid bailout monies put profits in tax havens?
    It's not just the Americans that live a lie , we all do to a varying degree.
    As with our demands on the environment; our demands for ever financial growth is equally flawed.
    We are all chasing our tails ; one day we will catch up and smell the shit that comes from the same area.

    TB


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibMay 17, 2021 at 7:37 AM

      An interesting part of John Ralston Saul's 2005 book, The Collapse of Globalism, looks at the succession of economic models the West has had since the invention of steam power. The author shows that these models have a shelf-life in operation, roughly 30 years. Neoliberal globalism has lasted far longer than most. Ralston Saul says the money types are having trouble agreeing on the "next great thing."

      By pointing out the revolving door of economic theories, the author emphasizes that there's little to no science in the models we choose to regulate our individual and collective economies. They're belief-based constructs which may go a long way to explaining the recurrent survival of "trickle down" madness. If you can believe the stuff peddled by the Abrahamic faiths, you can believe some pretty wild economic models.

      It's been 16 years since this book was published. So, where's the next great thing? What decisive forces are keeping us in this ditch? Could it be that, while neoliberal globalism has failed the world generally, it is still serving a narrow and powerful interest incredibly well? When you look at how, over the past 40 years, wealth flowed out of the once broad-based middle class and into the pockets of extreme wealth, the idea we're stuck in an interregnum seems plausible. Could it be that the world is on the cusp of looming dislocative threats - the climate crisis, mass migration, environmental degradation and loss, etc. - that may make the risks of a new order seem prohibitive. Could it be, as is increasingly suggested, that a major war could be inevitable arising out of geopolitical realignment?

      Delete
  2. Caillo Lisa June 26, 2021 at 8:57 AM

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