"I agree. I think the effective tax rate is near 2/3 of every dollar. That is why financial manipulation is so profitable. If you want to get rich, don't be productive, be manipulative. At one end welfare at the other end Soros type behavior."
You mention overregulaton, which might drive up the estimated tax rate well above 66%. Consider that in places like San Francisco and New York, environmental restrictions signficiantly drive down the supply of buildable land and drive up rents and real estate values...who knows by how much.
When you put it all together, we are all in essence working for the government. We are paying through the nose for its dysfunctions, forced to work longer and harder (to pay these taxes and artificially inflated living costs) at the expense of our familes, leading to more social costs that we all pay (in the form of higher taxes for crime control and welfare, or paying for private school while still having topay taxes for dysfunctional public school districts, etc.)
And in that context, and the context of this entire discussion, I'm reminded of the final chapter of Animal Farm, where the animals can no longer tell the difference between the humans and the pigs feasting on our labor:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Animal+Farm+Chapter+10&btnG=Google+Search