Posted on 05/02/2003 12:01:20 PM PDT by hsmomx3
I have a question for O. Ricardo Pimentel: Yo, O., where did you learn economics?
Who is O. Ricardo Pimentel? He is a syndicated columnist and an opinion writer for the Arizona Republic, a Gannett newspaper with a circulation of over 500 thousand. He also is living proof that economics illiteracy is not a barrier to being a journalist.
Pimentel published an op-ed on May 1 that could have been written by the Marxists with bad haircuts who used to stand on the reviewing stand in Red Square and watch the May Day parades. The Soviet Union may no longer exist, but its failed economic theories live on in Pimentel's brain.
You'll think that I'm making this up, but Pimentel actually wrote: "Here's the ugly little secret about taxation and the economy: Taxation doesn't take money out of the economy. Whether the money comes out of your pocket or from government coffers, it still gets spent." He went on in the op-ed to suggest that the level of taxation has no effect on the economy and that taxes should be based on needs.
Wow! What a mouthful, a mouthful of economics baloney. Or is it Bolshevik blather? From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs, as decided by the likes of O. Ricardo Pimentel.
Apparently, Pimentel believes that all money belongs to the collective coffers. As such, the government has a right to take as much private capital as it wants and to spend it based on political considerations. This will not hurt the economy and people, because politicians and government bureaucrats can spend and invest money more wisely than citizens, entrepreneurs and investors, especially if the government listens to the advice of economics experts like O. Ricardo Pimentel.
Of course, Red China and the former Soviet Union ate a lot of this economics baloney and starved millions of their people in the process. They also arrested, imprisoned and killed more than 50 million of their most productive citizens to keep them from being productive. And the Soviet Union actually made it a crime to engage in entrepreneurial activity. Like Pimentel, Soviet apparatchiks thought that they were better custodians of people's money than the people themselves.
The great economist Ludwig von Mises wrote about Pimentel in his great economic treatise "Human Action." Well, not really about Pimentel, since it was written in 1949, when Pimentel was an infant who knew about as much about economics as he does now. But it was written about people back then who thought just like Pimentel thinks now. Mises said this about them: "It is useless to argue with mystics and seers. They base their assertions on intuition and are not prepared to submit them to rational explanation." He wrote that in a section of his book titled, "The Revolt of Reason."
Mises also wrote, "The power to tax involves, as Chief Justice Marshall pertinently observed, the power to destroy. This power can be used for the destruction of the market economy, and it is the firm resolution of many government and parties to use it for this purpose." He could have been referring to Pimentel as one of the parties.
Incidentally, Mises predicted the fall of communism, the failure of socialism and the fatal flaws in Keynesian economics, at a time when all three were in their ascendancy.
Pimentel revolts against reason and clearly finds reason revolting. Accordingly, he ignores all of the considerable evidence of a strong relationship around the world between low taxes and high economic performance. He ignores the flight of capital and industry from such high-tax, social welfare countries as Germany and France. He also ignores the difference in economic performance between high-tax and low-tax states in the United States.
The Marxists foolishly rejected the economic theories of David Ricardo because he was a bourgeois. Ironically, we now have a leftist journalist by the name of Ricardo who foolishly rejects economic facts because they are embraced by conservatives.
O. Ricardo Pimentel's revolt against reason is revolting.
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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and consultant. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.
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