Agfter reading all of this, and knowing the OECD, the problem is that you are looking at numbers with a exclusion of culture.
Our culture is different from that or Europe and Asia, I said this before. The difference in how we perceive business and how we approach our problems is not the same as others.
Japan for example has been a closed society, and in it's economy it still is compared to other countries in the area. Their banking, their system of government and industry has always worked together in some capacity or another for the benefit of the country as a whole. It has been that way since Japan was a nation.
If you look at Germany, it is about the same. The economy is setup so business and government works together on key issues while the banks fund project in order to cooperate for ensured success. Their taxes are higher but there is a compensation that they can afford, it is the end result of the cooperation between the three key groups.
We have a rather unique situation which worked until the government got involved. No one can argue that the growth rate of the latter part of the 19th century and the first 20 years of the 20th century outpaced the growth since the end of the second world war. It is a fact that without income tax, without many of the punitive regulations, growth took off.
Now there is something else that many keep forgetting to add. When comparing our output to others, we tend to forget our manufacturing base is actually over 60 years old, where Japan, Europe and China are new.
The problem I am seeing is the sheer ignorance of people who think the thought is to just get rid of taxes, that is not what I am talking about. What I am saying is if we change our tax system to allow people to keep their money instead of taking it at the source and tax them at the consumption end, it will generate more revenue in the long run and allow more growth. We are a consumer society, our great leader is telling us to go out and spend, so what better way to actually get people to spend, tell them there will be no income taxes and tax what they buy.
I can't see why Ireland and some of the eastern European countries can see lowering taxes is the thing to do but people here can't, it is like they are all brainwashed. I think what many miss is not what the tax change will do for us but how it is perceived by the rest of the world, like Ireland learned, we need investment in the country but we can't get that now.
Speaking of Ireland, maybe Obama needs to look at their social progream resturcturing and we need to look at how they were keeping things held together.
