0597 - Plutocracy

Please read this next quite carefully. A thoughtful Reader sent the OO a "Forgotten English" calendar, each day presenting a weird and obscure word. The word that follows is one such, and our Staff Proofreader has checked it carefully on the Web. We need this word badly for today's ruminations, and it is "Fucated". Don't get upset! It means:

Fucated Painted; disguised with paint, or with false show. [L. fucatus, p. p. of fucare to color, paint]

Well, that is what is being sold to the innocent American voter: Fucated, phony programs.

Our analysis reveals that most of the current Administration's programs are designed to create a Hereditary Plutocracy in the U.S. The rich guys have had their income taxes sharply reduced, the rich who live on capital gains and dividends have had their taxes cut to only 15%, or not much whatever the size of their take, and now the proposal is to eliminate all estate taxes, no matter the size of the estate. This will create the Hereditary Plutocracy aforementioned, and we don't think it a good idea at all. History, and your own good sense, reveals that a stable democracy needs a reasonable relationship between the richest and the poorest. Now, we are in favor of differences: the arts, the sciences, literature, need people of wealth and leisure. But, it doesn't need untaxed hereditary billionaires to stimulate the economy.

This noxious program is being painted, fucated, in totally false colors. Take the abolition of Estate Taxes. The story is told that this "Preserves Family Farms". Bosh! The number of family farms is constantly shrinking, and they aren't worth $500 million, either. Nor is there any urgent need to prevent taxation of businesses above, say, a $3 million or so value. It is a lie to try to sell abolition of taxes on estates of hundreds of millions as preserving "small businesses". What's more, and most Americans don't know this, the large estates are not composed of saved-up earnings "already taxed". Big businesses are incorporated, and big ownerships are in corporate stock. Under the tax code, no taxes are paid until a gain is "realized", so stock in Google worth billions is not taxed until sold. Now, God bless the inventors of Google, say we, but in good time their heirs don't need untaxed billions in the stock, nor does it serve any decent social purpose.

This column has already been heard on the subject of Social Security, a program we bless because it keeps the old in at least minimal circumstances, instead of pushing wire supermarket carts on the streets. Our Revered Investment Guru declares that not five percent of people know anything about investing. And besides, in the five years March 2000 to March 2005 the S&P average fell from 1495 to 1171. Yes, Social Security needs fixing, maybe by people paying SocSec contributions for earnings over $90,000 a year [they don't now], maybe by everyone paying a bit more or retiring later. What it is clear we don't need is the fucated idea that everybody can get rich by paying no taxes and depending on their shrewd stock market skills.

Friends, we want a society where everybody can speak to everybody else, where there is not extreme poverty and crime and extreme untaxed hereditary wealth, where the poorest can live at least decently, with incentives to study, work and get more comfortable, even rich. In Anguilla, there is still an old-fashioned first-name social exchange. It used to be so in America – keep it so. So shall our motto read: "Taxation without Fucation".

Next time: Congress [OO #598]

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