brooke07t7: Making Money Through

Over the weekend I noted that Germany had achieved a degree of economic recovery after that country’s government implemented a relatively aggressive government austerity program, cutting a lot of unnecessary spending and regulation. In other words, doing the exact opposite of what Obama and Democrats have been doing here in America.

In Sweden they’re also doing the opposite of what Obama and Democrats want to do in America. Sweden has seen 6.9% growth in their GDP, year-on-year, after that country’s central bank raised interest rates and cut taxes for all citizens. Even the rich ones.

Sweden’s economy increased 6.9 percent in the third quarter after recording a revised 4.5 percent growth in the second quarter, the statistics office said Monday.

The record expansion — the fastest since 1971 — were much stronger than expected, making the krona swell to a one-month high versus the euro.

GDP rose 2.1 percent quarter-on-quarter versus expectations for 1.20 percent, with the year-on-year increase rising to 6.9 percent against forecasts of 5.25 percent, according to a Reuters poll. …

Sweden’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 points to 1.0 percent last month, the third increase since July as the country’s economy makes a strong recovery from recession.

The article also credits Sweden’s economic boom to spending hikes and tax cuts:

In contrast to most of Europe, the Swedish government has been able to stimulate growth through spending hikes and tax cuts.

Of course, here in America we’ve tried the spending hikes. They haven’t worked. It’s clearly the tax cuts, along with the country’s push toward responsible finance practices with higher interest rates, that have resulted in the country’s prosperity.

We should do the same here in America, without the debt-creating spending hikes as we clearly can’t afford more debt as a nation.

By the way, it’s worth noting that Ireland is currently being bailed out to the tune of $90 billion thanks to the European Union’s low-interest rates and cheap money policy. Sweden, it should be noted, is a member of the EU but did not adopt the euro and thus is not under the auspices of the EU central bank.

Ireland’s collapse is a direct and immediate consequence of the euro. As early as 2001, Irish economists were warning that the boom was getting out of control, and that interest rates needed to go up. But, of course, therewere no Irish interest rates any more: There was only the European Central Bank. Its policy of cheap money was arguably excessive even for the core European economies; for Ireland, it amounted to catastrophically pro-cyclical monetary policy. A credit bubble was inflated; the bust, when it came, was commensurately painful.

We wouldn’t have these problems if we kept governments from playing games with monetary policy.

Tags: Economy, european union, ireland, sweden, tax cuts

Every so often Warren Buffett goes on TV and calls for higher taxes. This from the guy who’s paid, according to Forbes, perhaps less than $10 million in taxes, a tiny percentage of his $50 billion net worth. I say perhaps because, to the best of my knowledge, Buffett has never made his tax returns public.

Buffett is big-business, with his Berkshire Hathaway holding company stock selling (today) at $119,675.00 per share. Berkshire Hathaway has 1 million shares, which means that Buffett heads a company worth more that the gross national product of a few small Latin American countries.

How does Buffett manage to pay so little in taxes? For one, Buffett, who wants everybody to pay for big-spending big government, donates sizable amounts to tax-exempt philanthropies, such as the Gates Foundation. Forbes, again,

He donates appreciated Berkshire Hathaway stock — which costs him pennies on the dollar — to charity, and receives a fat, juicy tax deduction at the appreciated price without having to pay a capital gains tax on the appreciation. (And, note that the money actually sits in his own charitable organization.) He’s saving income taxes with the ordinary deduction so it’s essentially a tax shelter.

He builds up his massive net worth and doesn’t have to sell stock while deferring capital gains. When he does take a capital gain, it’s at a 15% rate, and he lives in a low-tax state.

Buffett has been known to complain that he paid taxes on the lower-rated capital gains rate rather than the higher income-tax rate. Well, play me the world’s smallest violin, Warren.

Mind you, I’m all for capitalism. America is the greatest country in the world because historically it afforded its citizens the ability to legally prosper and live in abundance. What I object to is billionaires who got their own aiming to prevent anyone else from attaining the same, or more, as they.

This latest time around Buffett was on ABC’s This Week, and told Christiane Amanpour that “People at the high end, people like myself, should be paying more taxes”,

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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Making Money Through

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