We Are All Atomic Soldiers Now

A summary of the recent Romer study on the relationship between taxes and gross domestic product: "They find that an announced tax change equivalent to one percent of GDP causes a three percent reduction in GDP over the next two and half years, which would indicate that we are approximately at the Laffer maximum - that increases and decreases in taxes do not have a long term effect on revenue, that increasing taxes merely increases the relative status of people in the state sector by reducing the absolute wealth of people outside the state sector, without increasing the absolute wealth of people in the state sector."

What does any of this mean? This study implies that taxation has a direct effect on the productivity of a nation, that taxation reduces national wealth. It doesn't just shift wealth; it reduces wealth across the board! This implies there is no ability of the state to redistribute wealth, the state can only redistribute poverty. The recipients of the tax largess are net losers as are the taxed.

The nation is at the mercy of the good intentions of the Bathos, regardless of the risks involved. Surely one would look at a study like this and be cautious. One would think of ways to create these circumstances in a smaller area with less potential fallout, to test these ideas further. But no, this plan marches on. And Christina Romer is in the Obama administration!

Years ago the government, eager to see how fighting men responded emotionally to atomic explosions, put a number of soldiers close to an atomic ground zero site. (http://nsdl.org/resource/2200/20061003172814974T) Those men were exposed to tremendous radiation. There are debates over the cause and effect of the illnesses those men subsequently suffered but there should be no debate over the nature of the experiment itself. It was stupid, shortsighted, ill conceived, careless and cruel. It was a bunch of sorcerer's apprentices playing at science. A bunch of curious, well meaning men behind desks making suggestions and plans, everyone with a "good idea", none of them realizing they were over their collective heads.

We are all atomic soldiers now.