:: Odd Benfellows ::

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Those who fancy themselves free thinkers harbor a dirty secret, which is not that they aren't as free-thinking as claimed (common knowledge) but that much of their close-mindedness stems from a need to continually assert their open-mindedness. Free thinkers don't think in a rhetorical vacuum, after all, and for most the term is a proud, more endearing and enlightened, euphemism for "rebel". And rebels, driven by an urge to prove independence, must repeatedly highlight the disparity in thought distinguishing them from their dogma of choice. The degree to which such opposition reveals itself varies wildly and its more extreme forms - think Hitchens post 9/11 - can even be confused for wholesale ideological border crossing. The enemy of my enemy within becomes my friend, as the old proverb might be bent to say.

Anyway, Ben Stein has always framed himself as a free-thinking type, the academic bow-tie-sporting former poverty lawyer turned Nixon speechwriter and Republican diehard. Most of the time our viewpoints diverge. But, committed iconoclast that he is, once in a while they are aligned.

You're Rich? Terrific. Now Pay Up.

We all know - and I mean all, even Congress - that the oil companies are not fixing prices. We all know that the oil companies are not creating these wild prices out of thin air.

The worldwide market is at work, and traders and speculators are driving up the price, based on uncertainty of supplies and inventories, and presumably becoming very rich in the process (at least some of them). That's the market at work. It's not up to the government to set the price or to fix the situation except by opening more space for exploration, and even that may not help.

In the same way, even I was startled when I read about the pay of Lee R. Raymond, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, who recently retired. His retirement package was in the neighborhood of $400 million - a breathtaking sum, even for those of us who admire the job that Big Oil does and think that the industry gets a bum rap.

Still, that's between him and his stockholders, not a matter for Congress. And it would not even remotely be addressed by a windfall profits tax - an idea that has been tried and has failed miserably.

The real problem is the difference between the rich - including rich oil people, of whom there are not many, but there are enough - and the poor. It is up to the government to redress this extraordinary difference in incomes of the rich and the nonrich, even at the margins.

What Congress can do, and should do, is address the stunning underpayment of military men and women and the staggering budget deficits that will be a burden on our posterity for decades, by raising the taxes on the rich. It's fine that there are rich people. It's even fine that there are superrich people.

But if they are superrich, they derive special benefits from life in the United States that the nonrich don't. For one thing, they can make the money in a safe environment, which is not true for the rich in many countries. It is just common decency that they should pay much higher income taxes than they do. Taxes for the rich are lower than they have been since at least World War II - that is to say, in 60 years.

Posted by morland @ 11:57 AM

:: Comments ::

So the uber rich should pay a "protection tax"?

Posted by: The Brothers Brooks on May 13, 2006 01:02 AM

That's some voodoo economics bullsh*t right there.

Posted by: Lee Raymond on May 15, 2006 10:58 AM

If you want to think of it as a "protection tax" you can, but in any case it's not just the rich that are paying. The rich, as everyone else, derive benefit from the protection our governmental system affords and all Mr. Stein is arguing is that their share of the benefit is disproportionate to their contribution.

And isn't this the antithesis of voodoo economics? This is about as anti-trickle-down as you can get.

Posted by: morland on May 15, 2006 02:45 PM

Whatever.

Posted by: That's Mr. Raymond to You, Peasant on May 15, 2006 04:41 PM

- Post a comment -

« Right next door to hell | Main | Very kinky data / the kind you won't take home to momma »