Joe Nocera Is Wrong, Mitt Romney's Tax Rate Should Be Zero

Forbes ^ | 10/01/2012 | John Tamny

[SeekAndFind]

With their non-stop utterance of “create new jobs”, politicians and their enablers in the commentariat seemingly suffer from a verbal form of Tourette’s. Though both professions are almost to a man oblivious to the truth that the quickest path to slow job creation lies in attempts to create them, we can at least say their hearts are in the right place.

Back in the real world, logic and empirical reality tell us that the best way to create jobs is to ruthlessly destroy them. Producing more with less in the way of human labor input is the definition of productivity, productivity begets profits, and profits attract investment for expansion which leads to – yes – the creation of new jobs.

Though most would be loath to admit it, if you love job creation then you tautologically love investment. And if you love investment, you should want as much of it as possible as a way of maximizing job opportunities for the employed, unemployed, and sidelined. And then to achieve plentiful investment, one certain way to get it is to lower the cost of investing.

All of which brings us to a recent column by New York Times columnist Joe Nocera about Mitt Romney’s tax rate. Overly emotional and horrified by the wealth gap, Nocera predictably dislikes the allegedly low rate of taxation paid by the GOP presidential nominee.

[SeekAndFind]

If we ignore for the purpose of this article that Romney will pay more in taxes this year than class warriors like Nocera will pay in several lifetimes, 14% for achievers (not as a politician, Romney’s campaign is pretty hopeless thanks to economic advisers who think too much like Nocera) like Romney is way too much. That is so because even the most ardent of Marxists, or the most economics challenged of columnists like Nocera, would have to acknowledge the simple truth that there are no jobs without investment first.

The above being the certain case, if jobs are truly your goal (they always are among politicians and columnists), your desired tax rate on investment (Romney’s primary source of income) should be zero.

[STJPII]

I’m in an argument at work. I can’t find the double taxation article on capital gains regarding Romney. Does anyone here have that? Thanks

[WashingtonSource]

Joe Nocera is a Communist who hates capitalism. He’s always wrong.

[DManA]

You invest capital in an asset that throws off cash at a given rate. If the investment is spent wisely the amount of cash will increase and the value of the asset goes up.

The delta cash is reduced by the amount of additional taxes that will be paid that cash so the capital gain is already reduced by taxes.

Than you pay taxes on the reduced value.