To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (56988 ) 1/23/2009 4:44:44 PM From: MulhollandDrive 1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) | Respond to i posted this essay by charles hugh smith on the RE thread and it's a damn scary read, especially this:Let's move on to April 15--tax day. As another sole proprietor recently told me, "The government is in for a shock on April 15." Why? Because he and a few million other sole proprietors/small businesspeople will be reporting losses instead of profits, which means the gummit is going to collect zip, zero, nada in the way of FICA (self-employment tax, 15.3% of net income) or income tax.The endgame of taxes is this: the more you raise them, the less you'll collect as small businesses close and the self-employed are driven into the informal economy. Business is like a marriage in many ways, and as I never tire of stating: nobody has to operate a business, any more than they have to stay married. Nobody can force you to throw everything you've got into opening a small business, but they can surely raise the disincentives so high that only a trust-fund baby or someone with a desire to lose all their money will start a small business (i.,e. one that doesn't qualify for a Federal bailout of some sort.) the entrepreneur/small business founder will be M.I.A. in this Depression. It's all very well to sit in the studio and pontificate on the irrepressible energy of the American entrepreneur and wax eloquently about how many hundreds of thousands of new jobs will be created by these wonderful new small businesses, but guess what: the bar is too high, the odds too long, the restrictions too plentiful and overlapping, the rewards too meager. Those foolish enough to pursue their dreams in this environment will soon enough smash up on the rocks of regulations, junk fees, high taxes and a declining debt-based consumer economy; once their capital and energy have been drained, then the ranks of willing gamblers behind them will vanish like rain in midsummer Death Valley. oftwominds.com
