GeezernomicsDuring my seventy-five years I've listened to more bellyaching than anyone should have to put up with. Of all the Woe-Is-Me tales I've endured the one that seems to be on most folks minds is how much they have to pay in taxes and how much waste there is in government. What really infuriates me is that when you ask, in return, "how much do you actually pay?" They either don't know or make up something, usually based on folklore, which grossly exaggerates their personal tax liability.
Frankly, it's not their fault, nor yours. Our tax system is a convoluted mess; by design. No, you can't blame the President or your local congressman. You need to go back a couple of years; likely to the twelfth or thirteenth century, when Western Man was evolving from feudal serfdom to nationalism. As Western societies evolved, we were ruled by Royals, an aristocratic society; the Royals needed everything of value they could lay their hands on to maintain their power and opulent lifestyle. In their lust for wealth they taxed everything, keeping the poor impoverished and uneducated. Today's convoluted tax system is an offshoot of those antiquated tax systems. It wasn't until 1913, with the passage of the 16th amendment, that we instituted a new type of taxation, the income tax. Until then we had no way to significantly tax the wealthy, just as the Royals intended. For the first time the wealthy in America complained about taxes, attempting time and again to have the courts throw out the 16th amendment.
Geezer On Economics is my attempt to explain how economics actually works and suggest how to make taxes actually equitable (unlike the unfair
Fair Tax). Someone else can fix government spending.
T. Geezer
