Tax Reform, Federal Income Tax that is

Interesting article here. Author says the current tax code is so unloved that it might be politically possible to toss the whole damn thing and start over.
Good idea. Here are a few thoughts of mine on how to do it.
1. KISS. Keep it simple stupid. Every word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph of the tax code makes it harder for us average Joe's to do our taxes. And offers more welfare to lawyers. Entire US tax code should be no longer than the US Constitution.

2. No exemptions, deductions, credits, for anything. Tax is a straight percentage of your income. That ought to get rid of 10,000 pages of tax code. Scratch exemptions/deductions for children, mortgage interest, marriage, oil depletion, and God knows what else.

3. Income is income. Doesn't matter if it comes as wages on a W2 or from selling stock, it's income and pays taxes at the same rate. That will clear out another 10,000 pages of the tax code and put an end to fruitless squabbling about ordinary income versus capital gains.

4. Everyone, no matter how poor, pays something. The tax rate for the really poor can be really small, but they must contribute something so they understand the government bennies they enjoy have to be paid for by someone. No free riders.

That's for the personal income tax. Corporate income tax is another bucket of worms, too complex to deal with here.

People killing people

The horrible incident in Arizona has provoked a lot of distasteful bloviating on TV and on the Internet. Left wingers blame the crime on "hate speech" by right wingers. Right wingers blame "hate speech" from left wingers. Gun control advocates blame inadequate gun control laws. All these ideas are phony.
What really happened is a mentally unstable individual (aka homicidal maniac) acted out his insanity. It's like the school shooter cases, only this shooter fixated upon a Congressman rather than upon his schoolmates.
This guy Loughner should have been confined to an insane asylum years ago. That didn't happen because most states don't have insane asylums anymore, and the American belief in individual freedom prevents us from confining people against their will.
Plus, laws tough enough to put the Loughner's of the world in custody would also put a huge number of teenagers who dress funny, say dumb things in public, and act out in custody with them.
Sorting out the truly dangerous nut cases from the run of the mill teenage rebel would require wisdom far beyond mine.
Everything has a cost. American belief in individual liberty allows young homicidal maniacs to kill large numbers of innocent people. Deplorable as this is, I am not ready to curtail individual liberty enough to put potential shooters in the booby hatch. Yet.
It is too bad that the chattering classes use this terrible case to grind their axes and fail to recognize the real problem.

Tucson Arizona shooting

My sincere condolences to the families of the slain, and my prayers for speedy recovery of the wounded.

When is a public company not a public company?

Under SEC rules any company with more than 500 shareholders is a public company and is required to furnish quarterly reports of gains and losses, liabilities, debts, sales, and so forth. That's for openers, in fact the SEC requires public companies to jump thru a large number of expensive hoops.
Facebook is a private company with less than 500 shareholders. They want to remain a private company. They also want to raise capital by selling stock. According to the Wall St Journal, one of the 500 Facebook shareholders is brokerage house Goldman Sachs. Goldman, having a lot of cash, bought a lot of Facebook shares. Goldman has now created a "special investment vehicle" backed by the Facebook shares, and is selling "special investment vehicle" shares to eager investors. Goldman salespersons say that owning shares in the "special investment vehicle" is as good as owning real Facebook shares.
In short, Facebook and Goldman Sachs have discovered a way for a private company to sell stock and avoid SEC reporting requirements (and doubtless much burdensome SEC regulation as well).
I'm of mixed minds about this scheme. The SEC, created after the 1929 crash, is supposed to prevent 1929 from happening again. I think most people will agree that the SEC has failed to do so. So, perhaps much burdensome SEC regulation should be abolished.
On the other hand, investors really need to know if a company is making or losing money, which is the purpose of the quarterly reports. Companies would not disclose such information unless required to do so by law. It isn't fair to let one company avoid reporting when it's competitors are required to report.

Whoppers heard on NHPR

I'm in the car, and the radio is on, NHPR with the Diane Rahms show. She has a couple of public sector union people on, who are trying to explain that public service unions are all that bad. One union guy says "the two major economic problems facing the country are the federal debt and the very low wages paid to workers.
Wow. a union guy and he doesn't mention 10% unemployment? He thinks a pay hike for his members is more important that keeping them employed? Scratch him.
Then the other union guy says "unions promote economic growth and right to work states have less economic growth than good old closed shop union states."
Wow squared. The 2010 census shows that the right to work states have gained population at the expense of closed shop states. All the states that lost US representative this census were closed shop states and the states that gained representative were all right to work states.

Bills in the NH legislative hopper.

There is a good one in there. HB1485 will allow construction of new houses withOUT fire suppression sprinkler systems.
Some back ground. Firemen and fire departments nation wide have been pushing for years to make home sprinkler systems mandatory in new construction. They have managed to get the national fire and building code to require home sprinklers. They are now pushing to make the newly stiffened national code binding upon New Hampshire.
Home sprinklers are expensive, $5000 to $7000 when installed during construction. If the firemen get their way, all new homes in New Hampshire will cost $5000 to $7000 more. For all that money, the home buyer gets those tasteful chrome sprinkler heads sticking out of his new living room ceiling. Good homey atmosphere, just like at the office.
The fire insurance companies are neutral on the issue. They figure extra claims from accidental sprinkler activations will cost them as much as the sprinklers save them by putting out fires.
Me, I've lived all my life in wood houses without sprinklers. I've never experienced a house fire. I have experienced an accidental sprinkler activation at work. Damn things came on in the middle of the day and filled the company computer room with water. That was costly.
We ought to pass HB1485. We shouldn't raise the cost of all new homes to mitigate a not very likely danger. Compared to the number of fatalities in auto accidents, few people perish in house fires.
It used to be a free country. Which means freedom to install, or not install a home sprinkler system.

Things I learn from NHPR

Salvia, a readily availible and legal herb, gives a rocketship high and out of this world hallucinations. The on-the-air piece raved on and on about the quality of the high, the clarity of the hallucinations. Miley Cyrus uses it the radio went on to say.
Damn, this is the first I ever heard of the stuff. Must be getting old.
The NHPR piece was allegedly about new wonder drugs that might be developed from salvia, but it really was a three minute advertisement for the joys of smoking the stuff.
Should NHPR be hyping a new "substance"? There might have been some teenagers out there who haven't heard of salvia.