Dirty Fuckin' Hippies

The Wall Street Journal suggests that big banks should be broken up. Citing the inadequacy of the Volcker Rule in the Dodd-Frank bill now wending its way through Congress, the Journal states any real reform should include "a Congressional plan either for allowing large banks to fail or for breaking them up."

 

Horrors! Nationalizing banks? The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal?

 

More astounding: Jamie Dimon, the head of JP Morgan Chase Bank and an proud 1%er (he once claimed to feel safer in Lebanon than amongst the Occupy Wall Street members) is for raising his own taxes:

And Dimon acknowledges the issue highlighted by Occupy Wall Street. “I do think we’ve become a less equitable society,” he told me. “So I’d ask the question—let’s say we agree it’s become less equitable—what would you do about it?”

“I would tax dividends and interest income higher and capital gains,” said Dimon. “Have a higher tax rate. If you said there’d be a certain percent rate for people making over a million dollars and a higher percent rate for people making over $10 million, no problem with me. I don’t think people should be able to pass unlimited amounts on to their kids.”

Wow. Simply friggin' wow. In one fell swoop, Dimon acknowledges income inequity and its bad effect on the nation, prescribes a progressive income tax on the wealthy and uberwealthy, AND endorses an estate tax!

And yet, Occupy Wall Street is just a rag-tag rabble of aging unemployed free-laoding hippies and young, debt-laden college kids terrified of getting their hands dirty at the fry counter.

All of this comes against the backdrop of President Obama's announcement of a new corporate tax plan, one that will close loopholes while lowering the corporate tax rate to 25-28%.

OK, I can get behind that plan. After all, our nominal tax rate on corporations is 35% but no one actually pays that anyway, and it's about mid-pack for industrialized nations, plus we see so little benefit in society from a rate that high.

In fact, I'd go Obama one better: I'd cut the tax rate to 15%

...wait for it...

On gross revenues. No more dodging the tax man by purchasing this asset or stowing money in some tax shelter. You earn it, you pay on it, just like a person.

You'll note that, since taxable income is usually only a small fraction of gross revenues, this is a bonanza for the nation. Now, we can argue and adjust the tax rate to be sure (15% might be a bit high, but hey, if it's good enough for a poor family...) but the simple fact is, if corporations wish to have free speech like the rest of us, then they ought to be as subject to tax burdens as the least of us.