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More than 8,000 French households' tax bills topped 100 percent of their income last year, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Saturday, citing Finance Ministry data. The newspaper said that the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million). President Francois Hollande's Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year, shortly after taking office, to offset the impact of a rebate scheme created by its conservative predecessor to cap an individual's overall taxation at 50 percent of income. The...

Since the 1820s America’s police have protected everyone whether they were rich or poor. Of course the wealthy got the best of what their police forces offered but the poor got reasonable services as well. Nevertheless, police services are changing, and not in a way everyone will like. The NRA rejoinder, “When seconds count the police are only minutes away” is becoming more of a reality by the day. Years of being bogged down with ancillary activities and continuing budget cuts are taking their toll on what we think police should be doing. For the “stretched to the limits” police...

Remember when Obama hoped not for a red or blue America, but a purple America? And he pledged to be a president to all of America? To me, that means he will be my advocate, my defender, my cheerleader. It sure doesn’t mean he will scoff at who I am and belittle me. But Obama does scoff at whole groups of us. First, he disparaged those of us in small Midwest towns who, according to him, are “bitter,” and “cling” to our “guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like” us to explain our “frustrations.” Next, he berated...

President Obama's approval numbers are starting to mimic Mitt Romney's. According to a new YouGov poll, it's the rich -- not the poor or middle class -- who back Obama more despite his 2012 campaign attacking the rich. The poll for the Economist found that fewer than half of those with incomes less than $100,000 per year approve of Obama's performance, while he enjoys a 54 percent approval rating among those with incomes higher than that. Those earning less than $40,000 a year disapprove of the president's performance, 51 percent to 45 percent. Those earning $40,000 to $100,000 disapprove by...

At MarketWatch this morning, Paul Farrell's hostility towards Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman and especially free-market capitalism boiled over. Farrell claims that capitalism “is destined to destroy the world, absent a historic paradigm shift.” The problem he describes really has nothing to do with properly practiced free-market capitalism, but is instead a combination of rampant cronyism and the abandonment of capitalism’s (and society’s) Judeo-Christian moral underpinnings. But that’s a long discussion outside the scope of this post. This post is about the opening claim Farrell makes: “Billionaires control the vast majority of the world’s wealth.” No they don’t. …...

Mitt Romney-bashing -- 5 months after the fricking election -- in an on-line pop music article.The site is called Pop Dust. And this snippet comes out of an article about the 10 richest musicians of all time: 3. Bono: $600 millionPaul Hewson is known as much for his global diplomacy and forays into venture capital as U2’s music. His investment in Facebook’s IPO—via his Elevation Partners private equity firm—didn’t make him a billionaire, but U2’s “360 Tour” grossed nearly $800 million between 2009 and 2011, making it the biggest tour ever. (2005-06’s “Vertigo” tour is fifth on that list.) Combine that with Bono’s many...

Cyprus, an island most people have forgotten exists, became the center of the world when they put forward a bizarre plan to solve their economic crisis. The leaders of Cyprus proposed a wealth tax that would take funds directly from people’s bank accounts. The plan was abandoned, but the idea behind it still lives on. A recent run-in that we had with the Washington Post shows just how far they are willing to go to foist a bad idea upon us. The Left has been churning some ideas to change our society, most of which will expand the reach of...

The desire of intellectuals for some grand theory that will explain complex patterns with some solitary and simple factor has produced many ideas that do not stand up under scrutiny, but which have nevertheless had widespread acceptance — and sometimes catastrophic consequences — in countries around the world. The theory of genetic determinism which dominated the early 20th century led to many harmful consequences, ranging from racial segregation and discrimination up to and including the Holocaust. The currently prevailing theory is that malice of one sort or another explains group differences in outcomes. Whether the lethal results of this theory...

So Downton Abbey‘s message is an anti-class warfare one. The fact is that the spirit of the critics is hard left, and maybe that’s why Downton Abbey makes them so angry, because the success of the series shows that this group does not speak for America. It also shows something equally important to the future of our culture: that there is no inherent need for good TV to be left of center. Stories sympathetic to virtue, preservation of property and admiration of nobility and of wealth can be told beautifully and to wide audiences, and I suspect they will be...

I recently read the new biography of Trotsky by Oxford don Robert Service, published in 2009 by Pan Books. It is well-written and surprisingly interesting. The book does a great public service in describing the life of the actual Trotsky, whose previous “biographies” were little more than hagiographies written by his toady worshippers (people like Isaac Deutscher). The last time that I had taken any interest in Trotsky was when I was a teenager and had fleeting delusions of believing in “socialism.” Reading the new book as an adult and as an economist, I found it a useful opportunity to...

This post requires that an individual understand the concept of political ideology as an r or K-selected Reproductive Strategy, presented here, under the link r/K Selection Theory. Republicans are holding meetings now on how to move forward. A fundamental question is, how do we appeal to the Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, and whatever sub-group supposedly doesn’t like us of late. We will assume, for the sake of argument that the Republican Party, and the United States government is worth saving, which I will concede is arguable at this point. We will also assume that Republicans actually want to win, which, as...

Sometimes, looking at the political discourse in this country, I wonder if we really understand the ratchet effect of increasing government programs and power over time: unlike in business, unlike in nature, unlike in, well, real life -- failure is not punished, but at best ignored, at worst rewarded. Once a program is in place, it is almost impossible to repeal, even when Republicans obtain political power because voters become dependent on it. Progressives have known this for as long as they have been blowing up the bureaucracy. Congressman Henry Waxman famously said that, if it took losing a few...

Armed with the intimidating powers of the SEC, the IRS and the Justice Department, which can fine, audit and indict citizens into oblivion, President Obama has taken to singling out the private-citizen donors of his opponents for special abuse. For example: One of Obama’s campaign websites posted a blurb titled “Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney’s donors,” which named eight private citizens, describing all of them as having “less-than-reputable records” and accusing them of being “on the wrong side of the law” and of profiting at “the expense of so many Americans.” The “crimes” that Team Obama refers...

I’m happy to pay my fair share — which is whatever the tax is right now. The thing about capital gains is, I made the investment. I put in the original money. The house cost $3 million and then I put in an additional $6 million because the house was in terrible shape. We added rooms, sections, areas, and basically it was my investment. When I bought that house I think Obama was in high school, and I certainly have paid taxes ever since. -snip Now I’m being told the right thing is to do more. And because I can...

Minority groups in America live better here than they do in other parts of the world. This is true for both Blacks and Hispanics. “Poor” in America is a description of at least lower middle class or better in many countries around the world. Yet when given a chance, these groups gladly plunged America into a dark and dangerous future to take their “revenge” against our nation. On first glance this lust for revenge seems counterintuitive. But closer examination explains this rage. Both groups are fueled by greed hatred jealousy and a thirst for revenge stoked to a roaring flame...

Note:  The following letter is co-signed by 185 of the nation's economists including Dr. Sanjai Bhagat, Provost Professor of Finance, University of Colorado, and Contributing Editor to A Line of Sight.  http://sanjaibhagat.com  Further information is available from the National Taxpayers Union, click here.  An Open Letter to Congress: December 11, 2012Dear Members of Congress:As the nation approaches the so-called "fiscal cliff," we, the undersigned economists, urge Congress to carefully consider the relative merits of tax increases and spending restraint. Increasing taxes would likely slow or reverse our nation's fragile economic recovery and undermine long-term growth. Restraining the growth of expenditures,...

Last Week Was A Momentous Week For AmericaOur allies, our enemies, and many Americans were overwhelmed with emotion upon learning Anna Wintour, Vogue editor in Britain, former Assad PR gal, and Obama top bundler was being considered for an ambassadorship to London. Don't fret, the brits are underwhelmed at having an expert on designer fashions as their ambassador, and don't think for a minute that London doesn't come with Benghazi type dangers. From a State Department spokesman: "An ambassador serves at the pleasure of the president. It's a designation of the most qualified person. But it would be erroneous to...

I’m in the camp that believes Republicans have no choice but to agree to raise taxes on the top 2 percent of earners. The party has been successfully caricatured as the servant of the rich. This is unjust, yes, but justice is imperfect in this life. It’s political suicide for Republicans to stand fast on maintaining current rates for high earners even at the cost of raising taxes for everyone else. Imagine if we went over the fiscal cliff. In January, Obama would call upon Congress to pass a law restoring the tax rates for 98 percent of filers. What...

Full Headline = Sign of National Resentment for the American Way of Life: Kristof Angry About Private Generators During Sandy RUSH: Now, over the weekend, a columnist in the New York Times by the name of Nicholas Kristof wrote a piece. He's all upset about the electrical grid failing in the Northeast during Hurricane Sandy. But that's not what made him mad. What made him mad was the reliance that some people had on private generators. He was upset about that, that some people had them and other people didn't. Here's the short version, according to David French at National...

Wow, I was barely done posting excerpts of Mark's Monday show, when I decided Tuesday's show was too full of gold not to post stuff as well. So here's the Great One, continuing his discussion on the Democrats, taxing the so-called "rich" and other class warfare demagoguery, and the "fiscal cliff." The first clip below is from Tuesday's first hour, the second clip from the second hour:[Edited for commercials, long pauses and other extraneous content] Download clip here Download clip here 

Well, that $80 billion a year will come in handy, no? That's the impression that six in ten Americans have as a solution to the trillion-dollar deficits in the latest Washington Post/ABC poll — and 39% of Republicans, too. The result demonstrates the political leverage of Democrats in the fiscal-cliff fight, and perhaps the leeway for the House GOP to compromise as well: Sixty percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll support raising taxes on incomes more than $250,000 a year, long a popular option overall, but also a divisive one: While 73 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of...

In a NYT Op-Ed today, Warren Buffett argued that the rich should pay a certain minimum tax, and he explained to activist Grover Norquist that it's preposterous to think that businessmen would forgo profitable deals merely because the rate of tax on the profits would go up. But why do people listen to Buffett on taxes? Basically because he's a rich, successful guy (which is why a lot of people are listened to on a lot of subjects). To that end, economist and former Romney advisor Greg Mankiw has a short post talking about Buffett as a master of "tax...

UPDATE: Twinkies-maker Hostess Brands says it has asked court to allow it to close its business and sell its iconic brands. PREVIOUS STORY: NEW YORK -- Is this the end for Twinkies? Hostess Brands said Wednesday that it will go into liquidation unless bakers striking in protest against a new contract imposed in bankruptcy court return to work by the end of the day Thursday. "We simply do not have the financial resources to survive an ongoing national strike," Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn said in a statement. The liquidation would result in Hostess' nearly 18,000 workers losing their jobs. The...

Hostess Brands is seeking to liquidate. Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of iconic treats such as Twinkies and traditional pantry staple Wonder Bread, said Friday it is shuttering its plants and firing about 18,000 workers as it seeks to liquidate the 82-year-old business. The company, which filed for Chapter 11 in January, said it has requested bankruptcy-court authorization to close the business and sell its assets. A victim of changing consumer tastes, high commodity costs and, most importantly, strained labor relations, Hostess ultimately was brought to its knees by a national strike orchestrated by its second-largest union. The work stoppage,...

Wednesday’s press conference marked the first occasion journalists have had to question the President directly – about anything – in eight months, and President Obama tipped his hat on his plans to confront the coming fiscal cliff with chastened House Republicans. In short, he will probably raise tax rates for the wealthy. But thanks to an explosive and, as my colleague Donny Deutsch put it, testosterone-fueled defense of UN Ambassador Susan Rice, a lot of what the President also said about his plans to reduce the deficit went ignored. That’s a shame – they were quite illuminating. Before Obama’s “bring...

Hostess Brands said Wednesday that it will go into liquidation unless bakers striking in protest against a new contract imposed in bankruptcy court return to work by the end of the day Thursday. "We simply do not have the financial resources to survive an ongoing national strike," Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn said in a statement. The liquidation would result in Hostess' nearly 18,000 workers losing their jobs. The bakers' union represents around 5,000. The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday, but has called the concessions demanded in the new contract "outrageous." "Our members are on...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday pushed for his proposal to have the wealthy pay more in taxes as a way to tame the federal deficit, taking a hard line in his opening bid before he begins fiscal talks with U.S. lawmakers later in the week. "We should not hold the middle class hostage while we debate tax cuts for the wealthy," Obama said in his first press conference since winning re-election on November 6.

When President Obama took the stage at McCormick Place in Chicago well after midnight, we were all too wiped out with joy or depression or Nate Silver auto-refresh fatigue to pay careful attention to the speech the newly reelected president delivered. The phrase that lingered in most of our sleepy ears was the reprise of his career-launching invocation of the United States as being more than red and blue states. So soaring, so unifying. But those words were merely the trappings of magnanimity draped over an argument that was, at its core, harsher than the one he had regularly delivered...

...Four years ago, we were mired in two wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Together, we've battled our way back. The war in Iraq is over, Osama bin Laden is dead, and our heroes are coming home. Our businesses have created more than 5 million new jobs in the last two and half years. Home values and 401(k)s are rising. We are less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in the last 20 years. And the American auto industry is back. We're not there yet. But we've made real progress. And on Tuesday, America...

Note that Barack Obama is running not on his liberal record, but as a challenger against incumbent Mitt Romney who has done all sorts of terrible things like causing the 2008 meltdown and outsourcing jobs to China. In Obama’s view, given the supposedly tranquil world abroad, we must try nation building at home, and thus concentrate on bold new initiatives like stimulus, infrastructure, green jobs, and federalized health care — none of which have been envisioned before, much less funded. And to the extent Obama has a concrete example, he points to efforts of the private oil sector to find...

Have you noticed how the Obama campaign has stepped up its class warfare rhetoric as we draw closer to Election Day? President Barack Obama constantly resorts to this tactic because he's simply unable to defend his own record in office, as 23 million Americans are out of work or underemployed and the economy remains in distress. Class warfare is all he has left. But voters aren't buying Obama's polarizing rhetoric. In a Gallup survey about the 12 most important priorities this election year, the issue of "increasing taxes on wealthy Americans" came in dead last among voters. Understandably, Americans are...

Our economy is lousy, the labor force participation rate is the lowest in 31 years, we’ve had 43 consecutive months with unemployment over 8 percent, and a record 47 million people are on food stamps, so one might expect President Obama would welcome as much help as he could get. Surely he would want private sector job creators – investors and entrepreneurs – to have the strongest possible incentives for turning around this Obama “recovery” where household incomes are falling faster than they fell in the Bush recession. But Obama’s priority is class warfare. That’s why he relentlessly denounces job...

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — The room set aside for reporters to watch Tuesday night's debate erupted into applause after President Obama ridiculed the size of Mitt Romney's personal wealth. Mr. Romney was trying to make the point that both his and Mr. Obama's investment funds probably include investments in China — something the president has attacked Mr. Romney for. "Mr. President, have you looked at your pension?" Mr. Romney said. "You know, I don't look at my pension. It's not as big as yours, so it — it doesn't take as long," Mr. Obama retorted. His reply prompted laughter in the...

"Venice’s elites were the chief beneficiaries. Like all open economies, theirs was turbulent. Today, we think of social mobility as a good thing. But if you are on top, mobility also means competition. In 1315, when the Venetian city-state was at the height of its economic powers, the upper class acted to lock in its privileges, putting a formal stop to social mobility with the publication of the Libro d’Oro, or Book of Gold, an official register of the nobility. If you weren’t on it, you couldn’t join the ruling oligarchy. ....... ....Extractive states are controlled by ruling elites whose...

Obama: 'We Don't Believe Anybody Is Entitled to Success in This Country'

In the wake of the Daily Caller’s release of President Obama cheering Rev. Wright and invoking the race card in various ways, our friend Morgen Richmond decided the time was right to release some little-known Obama video of his own. He authorized me to release the video here first. The following clips are from 2002. Obama is speaking in a church at a 2002 Martin Luther King Jr. Day memorial service. The full speech is here, and by and large it is a nice speech by a rising politician. Obama speaks about the need for empathy in society, about taking...

President Francois Hollande's Socialist government unveiled sharp tax hikes on business and the rich on Friday in a 2013 budget aimed at showing France has the fiscal rigor to remain at the core of the euro zone. The package will recoup 30 billion euros ($39 billion) for the public purse with a goal of narrowing the deficit to 3.0 percent of national output next year from 4.5 percent this year - France's toughest single belt-tightening in 30 years. But with record unemployment and a barrage of data pointing to economic stagnation, there are fears the deficit target will slip as...

There was an old Greek legend that Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, once visited the very successful tyrant of Miletus, named Thrasybulos, to find out what was the secret to his success and long reign. As the two men walked through a grain field, Thrasybulos said not a word in response to Periander's question. Instead, as they went, he would break off the strongest and fullest heads of wheat, crush them, and cast them aside. By the end of the walk, Periander realized that Thrasybulos had been answering his question all along. The key to maintaining power when you were...

Bill Clinton: No president could have "magically" fixed economy in one term By Leigh Ann Caldwell Last Updated 10:12 a.m. ET (CBS News) Former President Bill Clinton offered a strong defense for President Obama's re-election Sunday morning, arguing that no president could have "fully healed" the economy in four years. "That's why we've got to keep working at it," Mr. Clinton said on "Face the Nation." The president's efforts, Mr. Clinton argued, have reversed the downward spiral of losing up to 800,000 jobs per month. "His jobs record is better" than the Bush administration's, he said, adding that no president...

President Obama started his Democratic Convention nomination acceptance speech with one overriding truth: “But when all is said and done – when you pick up that ballot to vote – you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation. It will be a choice between two different paths for America. A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.” Truer words were never spoken. Because America is deciding in this election whether it wants to ditch the economic system that made us the richest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world, for the hope...

This parody video of Obama's Communist statement to business owners, "You didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen," (and no, lefties, he wasn't taken out of context. The more you listen to, the more he steps in it.), is extremely funny and will make you laugh, but the statement reveals (again) Obama's Marxist, anti-America, anti-freedom philosophy of government's role...

CEO/Economist Peter Schiff is the Mark Levin Of Economics. Few people can adequately resist what he pronounces about fiscal and economic matters. The Schiff Report is worth watching as well as The Peter Schiff Show. In the above video, Schiff masquerades as a stoner liberal who invites people "on the street" to say why "corporate profits should be banned." And,they do. I heard Schiff say once that, "The more stupid you act, the more liberals think you're brilliant - an Einstein." He's so right. Have a good laugh watching this one.

Elizabeth Warren's Wednesday-night speech to the Democratic National Convention was, no doubt, meant to be an excoriation of the flaws of our financial system. Instead, it turned out to be an apt demonstration of the flaws in her understanding of that system. The Democratic party's ostensible expert on all issues financial demonstrated either an appalling level of ignorance about a range of topics, or a shameless eagerness to dive into the class-warfare trenches. But one passage was particularly pathetic: I talked to small-business owners all across Massachusetts, and not one of them, not one, made big bucks from the...

Alexis de Tocqueville famously chronicled American society's love of equality -- and its equally passionate pursuit of money. "The love of wealth," the French historian wrote in the 1840s, "is … at the bottom of all that the Americans do." America stands out among Western nations for its grudging, and often fawning, admiration for the wealthy classes it produces. With the road to riches seemingly wide open, Americans favor aspiration over resentment, envy over animus. Except when they don't. Rebellions against the rich are as much a part of the fabric of American life as the Horatio Alger myth. One...

We have heard many times from President Barack Obama how he plans to raise taxes on "millionaires and billionaires," but not on the middle class. Apparently, if you don't happen to be a millionaire or billionaire, you don't have to worry. But the numbers say otherwise — and say so big time. The actual tax increase plans being proposed by Obama do not start with people who have an income of a million dollars a year. They start with people with incomes of $250,000 and up. That is more than most people make, but it is far short of a...

On Morning Joe today, Chris Matthews exposed the ugly face of class warfare politics at its most primal. Matthews claimed that Paul Ryan wants to "give" money to rich people but "doesn't like" people who depend on government, and indeed, as a conservative, wants to "screw" them. View the video here.

.......One day after U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin visited the picket line, members of the SEIU Health Care Illinois and Indiana presented Local Lodge 851 Machinists Union officials with a check for $25,000 Tuesday. The donation by SEIU, which represents 91,000 health care and child care providers, boosts the strike fund to more than $90,000, machinists union president Timothy O’Brien said. “Our core membership is still holding strong,” O’Brien said. “And things like this (donation) really help.” Flora Johnson, chairwoman of the SEIU executive board, addressed machinists on the picket line. “Solidarity is the golden rule of the labor movement,” she...

President François Hollande has proposed a 75 percent tax on income over 1 million euros. Under current tax laws, two hypothetical couples with two children each and comparable annual incomes, as expressed in euros, would have more take-home pay in New York City than in France. Under the Hollande proposal, the French couple’s take-home pay would be considerably lower.

President Obama portrayed Mitt Romney as the opposite of Robin Hood, saying that his Republican opponent wants to take money from poorer people to give it to wealthier people. “It’s like Robin Hood in reverse,” Obama said of Romney’s tax plan, which would cut taxes across the board by 20 percent, during a fundraiser in Connecticut. “It’s Romney Hood.” Obama’s quip distils an attack that he has repeated in the last week. “In order to afford just one $250,000 tax cut for somebody like Mr. Romney, 125 families like yours would have

President Obama takes the offensive by presenting Mitt Romney’s tax-cutting plan as something that will actually raise taxes on the middle class so the wealthy can pay less. Seizing on a new study, Mr. Obama is trying to convince voters that his opponent will do exactly what he says he will not. THE SCRIPT A male narrator says: “You work hard. Stretch every penny. But chances are you pay a higher tax rate than him. Mitt Romney made $20 million in 2010 but paid only 14 percent in taxes, probably less than you. Now he has a plan that would...