Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate will, we can hope, move this Presidential campaign beyond trivia, name calling, and defamation. The American people are hungry for genuine consideration of serious policy choices and are capable of discerning attractive resolutions within the unavoidable complexity. The time for division, demogogic over-simplification, and class warfare should never have arisen; but it is now high time for it to depart.
So, for the first time in a long while, we can hope for a clear set of choices. If the current administration has superior approaches to foreign policy matters, let them bring them to the public floor. If the Republican challengers have more articulate plans for economic growth and rational tax policy, let's hear them, clearly (if not loudly, thank you!). If candidates have a set of possible solutions to the problems around the long term viability of Social Security and Medicare (see blog post of March 3, 2010), let's bring them forward for careful consideration. And, in any event, let's agree that there are problems with these entitlements systems. The most disingenuous position of the Democrats is that everything here is just fine. The demographics/economics of these systems (in the US and almost everwhere else in the world...and especially in some parts of the developing world) are definitely not fine. Either a great inter-generational injustice or a sudden retraction of long-standing promises...or both... is about to be inflicted. Financial professionals have a duty to our fellow citizens, everywhere, to blow the whistle on this!
My sentiments among these choices favor the challengers. I understand, of course, that there are many nuances here and I strongly believe that we should not harness the power of government to any set of social policies...Left or Right. While, on a personal level, I am deeply sympathetic to the "social justice" components of their overall motivations, I see the general thrust of the Left's economic policies being very seriously flawed: some version of redistribution of income and wealth from the more successful to the less so and a large role for government in economic decision-making. Despite genuine good intentions, this choice repeats the error now on display in most of Europe and seems to ignore the great, failed economic experiment of the 20th century: Soviet Communism, which made everyone under its sway poor. And, while I wince (or worse) at some of the social policy perspectives of the Right, I concur with their general desire for limited government intrusion and for incentives to foster individual economic success and to impose disincentives on failure to exert effort.
The debate, then, should be joined over which is the greater good: reducing disparities in relative wealth or enhancing virtually everyone's absolute wealth, across generations, despite even greater relative disparity. It's not a case of "either/or", but of emphasis. It's also a matter of understanding and accepting tolerable costs for that desired emphasis. How do we get to what we decide is the greater good? Let's understand the costs...we're smart enough to do this; let's decide, as a society, what costs, and how much of them, we're willing to bear...we're fair enough to do this; and let's agree on the benefits we desire...we're insightful enough and optimistic enough to accomplish this.
I vote for everyone's greater absolute wealth... even at the cost of greater disparity in relative wealth. History is on my side. Even the "poorest" people today, almost anywhere on the planet, have much better health, longer life span, greater access to movement and communication, and greater freedom of choice of economic outcomes than the "richest" people of just 100 years ago. Not many well-informed persons of 2012 would trade places with even the wealthiest person of 1912. Maybe it would be fun for a day or a week...but not many would make that permanent switch.
So, America has a now clearer choice this November: do we want to be, in the words of our national anthem, more of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" or instead move further toward being the land of the indebted and entitled and the home of the timid and dependent? We get to choose; we have to choose!
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
ENOUGH!!...about Romney's Tax Returns
If I were Romney, I would publish the tax returns that his political opponents are clamoring for...but not because he has a duty to do so; but only to get this issue behind him. And I wouldn't do it in the way they request.
I respect his right to privacy about his returns. We all should. We should understand that he is already complying with the existing laws relating to disclosure. If the degree of disclosure is not enough to satisfy legitimate needs for understanding better his financial circumstances, then change the law and make more extensive disclosure mandatory. But, meanwhile, it would probably be good, as a political expedient, to volunteer to do more than is now actually required.
And, I believe that there are ways to do that that will not compromise his and his family's legimate privacy interests.
But, first, a comment on the apparently malicious, or at least ignorant, charge or innuendo that his acknowledged holding of overseas accounts must mean that he is somehow avoiding the payment of appropriate US taxes. It is fundamental that all US citizens must pay income taxes on all income, from anywhere in the world. If Romney were using foreign accounts to avoid paying proper US taxes, he would be, already, in very serious violation of the tax law and would no doubt be disqualified from any political candidacy. The continued implication of this wrongdoing, and the glee with which the media reports and repeats it, is shameful. The only excuse would be that the accusers are truly ignorant of this fundamental principle of taxation of worldwide income and ignorant of the many legitimate reasons for persons of even modest wealth to pursue the protections offered by certain overseas jurisdictions. Many medical professionals, for example, maintain "asset protection" accounts in places like Switzerland or the Caymans as a way of shielding those assets from the scrutiny of opportunists (but not from the scrutiny of the IRS) and from the claims of unjustified creditors. But no US citizen can, legally, use them to avoid income taxation of the income they may generate. If knowingly false accusations would be shameful, the alternative of ignorance is nearly as bad.
So, here's what I would do if I were Romney: enlist a small group of impeccably highly qualified persons (say, the heads of the personal income tax practice at each of the Big 4 accounting firms) to review the returns and then report, publicly, their findings on two points:
I respect his right to privacy about his returns. We all should. We should understand that he is already complying with the existing laws relating to disclosure. If the degree of disclosure is not enough to satisfy legitimate needs for understanding better his financial circumstances, then change the law and make more extensive disclosure mandatory. But, meanwhile, it would probably be good, as a political expedient, to volunteer to do more than is now actually required.
And, I believe that there are ways to do that that will not compromise his and his family's legimate privacy interests.
But, first, a comment on the apparently malicious, or at least ignorant, charge or innuendo that his acknowledged holding of overseas accounts must mean that he is somehow avoiding the payment of appropriate US taxes. It is fundamental that all US citizens must pay income taxes on all income, from anywhere in the world. If Romney were using foreign accounts to avoid paying proper US taxes, he would be, already, in very serious violation of the tax law and would no doubt be disqualified from any political candidacy. The continued implication of this wrongdoing, and the glee with which the media reports and repeats it, is shameful. The only excuse would be that the accusers are truly ignorant of this fundamental principle of taxation of worldwide income and ignorant of the many legitimate reasons for persons of even modest wealth to pursue the protections offered by certain overseas jurisdictions. Many medical professionals, for example, maintain "asset protection" accounts in places like Switzerland or the Caymans as a way of shielding those assets from the scrutiny of opportunists (but not from the scrutiny of the IRS) and from the claims of unjustified creditors. But no US citizen can, legally, use them to avoid income taxation of the income they may generate. If knowingly false accusations would be shameful, the alternative of ignorance is nearly as bad.
So, here's what I would do if I were Romney: enlist a small group of impeccably highly qualified persons (say, the heads of the personal income tax practice at each of the Big 4 accounting firms) to review the returns and then report, publicly, their findings on two points:
- had there been any illegitmate manipulation of the tax law?
- had the Romneys taken advantage of tax planning any more agressively than they would have condoned for any of their similarly situated clients?
Monday, August 6, 2012
It's Not Too Late
Only a little over two weeks since Aurora, (see post of July 22, 2012) America again faces the pain and frustration of a mass shooting. What incredibly sad irony, the killing and wounding of Sikhs, and first responder police, within their temple, and during a worship service. The Sikhs are gentle, tolerant, peace-loving people. It's hard to imagine a religious group less likely to inspire violence against them. And, here again, the murderer gave little indication of the huge threat he posed to those around him and, I suspect we'll learn, acquired his weapon or weapons fully legally.
It is well past time...and it's not too late...to seriously address the significant problems of public safety that our current culture and law of gun tolerance presents. Joe Klein, in the current issue of TIME Magazine, presents very sobering statistics about the prevalence of these mass shootings throughout at least the past 35 years and how prior assault weapons controls showed no apparent relief from the carnage. However, that implies a logical fallacy. Because that particular legislation failed to lessen the violence it does not follow that no legislation, no cultural shift can do so. Klein also, with chagrin and apparent resignation, also cites polling data that shows much reduced support for stricter gun controls over the past 20 years. I am more optimistic about the future.
The data are what they are, but they are not destiny. With strong and persistent leadership, from public opinion-makers, from legislators, from whoever resides in the White House, we can effect a change in this mentality toward access to weapons and toward aggressive treatment of mental illness that threatens us all. The current balance between individual liberties and public welfare and safety is just plain wrong. We can do better. We must. Shame on us all if we don't even try.
It is well past time...and it's not too late...to seriously address the significant problems of public safety that our current culture and law of gun tolerance presents. Joe Klein, in the current issue of TIME Magazine, presents very sobering statistics about the prevalence of these mass shootings throughout at least the past 35 years and how prior assault weapons controls showed no apparent relief from the carnage. However, that implies a logical fallacy. Because that particular legislation failed to lessen the violence it does not follow that no legislation, no cultural shift can do so. Klein also, with chagrin and apparent resignation, also cites polling data that shows much reduced support for stricter gun controls over the past 20 years. I am more optimistic about the future.
The data are what they are, but they are not destiny. With strong and persistent leadership, from public opinion-makers, from legislators, from whoever resides in the White House, we can effect a change in this mentality toward access to weapons and toward aggressive treatment of mental illness that threatens us all. The current balance between individual liberties and public welfare and safety is just plain wrong. We can do better. We must. Shame on us all if we don't even try.
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