Letter: Tax financiers at 99 percent
Donald J. Boudreaux's standing ovation to arbitrage ["Oil speculation isn't an unctuous art," Opinion, April 6] is, in my opinion, the ravings of a hypocrite and half-wit, to borrow from his forthcoming title.
Suppose a town on one side of a mountain experiences a drought and despite their hard work all spring and summer, the town faces a hungry winter. Happily, a town on the other side of the mountain has also worked hard, been blessed with rain and anticipates a bounteous harvest. Boudreaux's neighborhood arbitrage sits atop the mountain. Boudreaux opines that this speculator serves both communities by buying most of the grain of the blessed community before they are aware of the shortage on the other side of the mountain.
Our "celebrated" speculator then warehouses the grain until the price on both sides of the mountain rises to many times what he paid. By using the roads, grain elevators, truckers, grain processors, retailers and consumers, the speculator "earns" billions from the needs, creativity and hard work of millions of his fellow citizens, while contributing absolutely nothing.
But, there is more. Under our present tax system, the work of the residents of both towns that created the wealth was taxed as ordinary income, while the speculator's is taxed at a far lower rate.
The happy ending to this story will only come when hypocrites and half-wits recognize: All our income is derived from the American pie -- the whole nation's exchange of goods and services (the GDP). Federal income tax is a fee paid to the whole nation for the systems responsible for creating the possibility of any personal income. A 99 percent top marginal Federal rate on personal income over, say, $5 million or $10 million is simple justice.
The government would be able to balance its budget and continue to supply the infrastructures (defense, health care, food, schools, roads, bridges, banking, communications, stock markets) that make individual incomes and the wealth of our nation possible.
Is this a redistribution of wealth? Of course it is! It redistributes the wealth to those who create it from those who work the system.
